I’m going to try to pull together some disparate threads of my thoughts on some related issues and see if I can macramé together some kind of coherent theory.
We need pleasure. Specifically, we need for the reward center of the brain to be stimulated. That is how nature guides us toward doing the things we need to do in order to survive and perpetuate the species.
To keep us alive as individuals and as a species, Mother Nature rewards us with mental pleasure for doing the things that help with that (eating, drinking water, fucking) and punishes us with pain for doing the wrong things (starving, dying of dehydration, going around with blue balls all the goddamned time).
This is the motivational mainspring of all animal life. From the amoeba to the blue whale, every single action by a living animal is driven by this need to get pleasure/reward and avoid pain.
To this end, our bodies keep track of how much reward we’ve gotten lately, and the lower that reward level gets, the more our rational minds are pushed into the background in order for our primal instincts to take over and get us what we need without our stupid brains getting in the way.
This is what we are up against when we’re trying to fight addiction.
Addictions rewire our brains based on very strong sources of reward. A basic part of the “seek reward” system streamlines our behaviour towards preferring the largest and riches sources of reward.
In nature, that’s fine, because in nature, the rewarding activities are the ones that promote survival. Whether it’s a bear gorging itself on honey or a coyote filling its belly with water or an elephant using a handy tree to thoroughly scratch an itch, even the most “addictive” type behaviours rarely cause enough harm to be selected against and most often leads to a greater chance of survival.
But the modern human is a very complicated beast with many layers of motivation that can often come into conflict with one another.
It’s nowhere near as simple as “eat when you’re hungry, drink when you’re thirsty, and fuck when you’re horny”, like it is for simpler animals.
Even our companion animals are more complex. Sure, your dog wants food, water, and sex, but they also want your approval, a nice warm soft place to sleep, a family or “pack” to belong to, sticks and toys to chase, and so forth and so on.
Then along comes supra-normal stimuli. Things that activate that reward center of the brain so strongly that the normal, natural reinforcement of the most rewarding behaviours turns into the horrifying “hollowing out” effect of addiction where everything besides the addiction gets pushed out in favour of it.
Still, most people do not end up dangerously addicted to anything. But around 20 percent of people do, or at least can.
What’s the difference? Depression.
One of depression’s worst symptoms is anhedonia, which is a vast reduction in pleasure and reward the patient gets from any and all activities.
This, in turn, creates reward starvation, and the resulting lack of autonomous control of our actions. Or rather, it would, were it not for supra-normal stimuli.
Only these hyper-strong reward stimuli can penetrate the anhedonia and hit that reward button. This creates a starkly contrasting world where life is mostly unrewarding except for that one bright, shining, magical stimulus.
No wonder, then, that said stimulus ends up taking over the addict’s life. It ends up getting all the reinforcement meant for other things and can soon become literally the only thing the addict cares about.
Not family, or friends, or work, or relationships, or sex, or anything else. Only the One True Stimulus remains, and any consequences arising from abandoning those other things can be made to go away for a while by indulging in the stimulus.
More after the break.
Oh yeah, the solution
So what do you do about addictions?
I don’t have a magical cure or anything. But first off you have to face the true severity of the problem : that in order to free someone of addiction you are going to have to grapple with the very drive that keeps us alive.
That is not to be undertaken lightly.
And forget everything pop culture says about “willpower”. Willpower is a lie. It’s a myth created to make the un-addicted feel smug about themselves without them having to do anything. Mistaking the lack of a vice for a virtue.
People love that kind of horseshit. They’re hooked on it.
If you are lucky enough not to be addicted to anything (it happens, I am told), it’s not due to “willpower”, you just never got exposed to a supra-normal stimulus while you were in a deeply anhedonic frame of mind.
Pursuant to this, fuck cold turkey. That shit is madness. If you suddenly yank a major plank out of your reward stimulus, you are just asking to end up in that under-rewarded frame of mind where you lose control of yourself and relapse.
Not because you are “weak” and lack “willpower”, but because your brain and body literally think you are dying and need the chosen reward NOW.
Nature doesn’t know you won’t literally die if you don’t get those Cheetos. Or crack.
The solution, therefore, is two-pronged – first, taper off. Have a little less every day. Give your body and mind time to adjust to the lower reward stimulus level.
Secondly. replace the stimulus. As you taper off. look for another, healthier pleasure that you can use to replace the usual stimulus.
It still won’t be easy. Again, your mind and body think they are dying. Your deep survival instincts are going to fight you all the way.
But if you taper off and replace the pleasures you are taking away with something healthier (and probably less supra-normally rewarding, sadly). and forget everything you think you know about “willpower”, you might just make it.
And if you happen to relapse, remember : you did not fail morally.
The choice was taken away from you by your instincts.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.