Addition is what? All kinds of addiction

Addiction is an obsessive desire to perform an activity or an acute need for it. More recently, the opinion about such disorders has changed radically, and drug dependence is considered alongside with behavioral abnormalities.

Addiction is a disease that can be conditionally divided into 2 main categories. Let's consider them further. Types of additions:

1. Chemical (substantial, or physical).
2. Behavioral (non-substantive, or psychological).

Chemical dependence: options

Chemical addiction is a violation associated with the use of various substances that alter the physical condition of the person taking them. Many of them are toxic (or toxic), which leads to organic lesions. Chemical addictions cause significant harm to health from the very beginning of their development.

Alcohol addiction

Among chemical varieties, alcohol addiction is best studied. It leads to multiple disorders in the body. Everything suffers from it: internal organs, psyche, nervous system. After some time of drinking alcohol and after the first two stages, where the main problem is memory dips and the state of a light hangover, the third stage begins. Here a person can no longer fight with a strong, unrestrained desire to hang out, with inner discomfort, sharp negative sensations in the world view, because the organism has already undergone irreversible changes at the physical level.

Narcotic Addiction

Patients with narcotic addiction have a craving for various psychotropic and toxic substances. That is, substance abuse also applies to this species. There is a similar dependence almost immediately after the first use of these substances. Addiction is more terrible than alcoholism. Since there are two kinds of dependencies: psychological and physical. With this addiction, the patient always needs an increasing amount of narcotic substance, which slowly kills the body. In it irreversible processes occur, and then most often the result is death.

Non-chemical addictions. Behavioral dependence: options

Behavioral addiction is characterized by attachment to a particular activity. And also the inability to get rid of it independently. Addictive behavior often arises from the desire to break away from reality and get into the world created by consciousness. At present, there are acceptable forms of such dependence that are acceptable and safe for a person: love, meditation, creativity, spiritual practices, workaholism, and extreme sports.

Behavioral addiction is a non-chemical species. That is, it is the influence of some pattern of actions. Virtually any hobby of a person who has for him an inferiority or in which activity becomes the main direction of his behavior, and there is a similar version of addiction.

Game addiction

Non-chemical addictions also include game addiction, when a person does not imagine his life without gambling. This can be a casino, vending machines, roulette, etc. Many psychologists argue that any gambling is a very serious social problem that poses a real threat to the population. Addiction is compounded by the resulting relaxation of the game, a decline in emotional tension.

The main signs of gambling addiction can be called:

• Constant interest in the process.
• Increase the time given to the game.
• Changing the circle of communication and interests.
• Loss of control.
• Gradual increase in irritation.
• Increase rates.
• Lack of ability to resist the game.

At occurrence of even some of these signs at the person it is necessary to address at once for professional help to the psychotherapist or the psychologist.

Relationship Addiction

We can distinguish the following addiction relationships: avoidance, love and sexual. The cause of such disorders is most often an inadequate self-esteem, as well as inability to love yourself.

Love addiction - manic attachment to another person, fixation on it. Often, such relationships arise in two co-dependent people, in co-addictive. This relationship can appear with the parent and child, husband and wife, friends.

Love addiction has the following features:

• A lot of time and attention is given to the object to which the addiction is directed.
• The appearance of obsession, from which it is impossible to get rid of.
• Experiences arise from fictitious relations.
• There is a loss of interest in their personal hobbies.

Signs of addiction to avoid:

• Evasion from intensive relationships with a person who was previously significant.
• Intentionally spending time with other people, even if they are not at all interesting.
• Attempts to avoid intimate contacts.
• Observance of psychological distance.

At a subconscious level, patients with an addiction of avoidance have a fear of abandonment. He is the main reason for this behavior.

A person who suffers from love addiction, and an addiction to avoidance, usually always stretch to each other. This attraction arises from the presence of familiar psychological traits of character, which, although unpleasant, cause emotional pain, but are habitual.

Sexual addiction has such basic signs:

• Lack of control over sexual behavior.
• The impossibility of combating this way of action, despite all the negative and dangerous consequences.

In the appearance of a person such a violation as sexual addiction, immensely important is the transferred sexual trauma in childhood.

Workaholicism

Workaholism, like any other addiction, is an escape from reality by changing the mental state that is achieved by fixing it at work. A person with such dependence does not seek to work only for money or purpose. He replaces various kinds of activity with work: attachment, entertainment, love, friendship, etc.

One of the notable and obvious features of workaholism is the compulsive desire for approval and success. The dependent person has a tremendous fear of failing, being at least a little worse than others or being noticed in incompetence and laziness. Such people behave quite alienated with friends and family. The workaholic lives only in the system of his own experiences with direct fixation at work.

A person suffering from such a disorder convinces not only himself, but others as well, that he tries solely for the sake of money or promotion. In fact, this is a certain protection that is accepted by society, and the person himself does not understand that such a way is dead-end and will not help to realize its possibilities. If a workaholic is fired, he can not cope with such stress. Timely appeal to a specialist will help to avoid problems in the future. Since such people subsequently have chemical dependencies more often than others. At the same time, workaholism is one of the methods of rehabilitation of drug addicts or alcoholics.

Internet addiction

In the modern world, this problem is already almost catching up with chemical dependencies. There are several types of this disease, such as Internet addiction:

• Obsessive predilection (games or programming).
• Compulsive navigation on sites.
• Dependence on gambling on the Internet.
• Addiction to social networks.
• Dependence on pornography on the Internet.

Computer addiction has the following main psychological symptoms:

• Excellent, bordering on the euphoria state.
• Lack of opportunity to stop.
• Constant increase in the amount of time spent at the computer.
• Complete disregard for close people.

Internet addiction has such physical symptoms:

• Constant pain in the wrist due to tunneling of the nerve trunks of the hand caused by overexertion.
• Dry eyes and headaches.
• Neglect of personal hygiene.
• Sleep disturbance.

Computer addiction can lead to sad consequences, especially in adolescence. A person as a result of such dependence can lose loved ones, friends and return to real life will be able only with the help of a psychologist.

Sports addiction

Modern science distinguishes between sport, necessary for health, and professional. In addition, there are its extreme species, which are now becoming increasingly popular.

Sports addiction is a disease that is on the border of socially acceptable behavioral reactions and physical dependence. It should be remembered that an excessive interest in sports can easily change the direction and shape, resulting in a different type, even into a chemical one. Therefore, there is a rather high percentage of addiction, alcoholism and drug dependence among former athletes.

Shopaholicism

Shopoholism refers to the dependence on the purchase and their lack of control. They bring satisfaction only for a short period of time, which leads to serious consequences in the future, for example, huge debts and problems with the law.

The main signs of shopaholism:

• Often a concern with purchases.
• Sudden, irresistible desire to buy something.
• Shopping is beyond our means.
• Acquisition of unnecessary things.
• An increasing amount of time is given to shopping.
• The presence of sudden impulses to buy something.
• Inadequate waste of time.

All of the above gradually becomes quite a serious obstacle in everyday life. Also causing huge damage to the professional sphere and entails financial problems.

Dependence on the constant desire to spend money and acquire unnecessary things manifests itself in the form of repetitive, irresistible urge to buy in huge quantities. In the intervals between them, there is usually a build-up of tension, which can be weakened only by making another purchase. After this, there is usually a feeling of guilt. Such addicts are characterized by a fairly wide range of existing negative emotions, while positive ones arise only in the process of making purchases. Dependent people of this type are growing debts, loans, there are problems in the relationship with loved ones and relatives. There may even be problems with the law. In the modern world of technology, shopaholicism is increasingly being realized through online purchases in virtual stores.

Food dependence

Nutritional addiction includes overeating and starvation. They are also called intermediate types. In the literature, one can often find a more extensive interpretation of food addictions. They include anorexia nervosa and bulimia. Now there is an addiction to chocolate. There is an opinion that chocolate, made from cocoa beans, has the property of forming dependence. This is due to the presence in the beans of compounds that are close to endogenous cannabinoids in terms of their chemical composition.

Next, consider the types of addictions associated with food.

Binge eating

Addiction to food is both a psychological addiction, and in some way physical. Because it helps to get full. As ordinary food acquires a greater addictive potential, it is precisely the artificial stimulation of hunger. Any person who is prone to overeating, in a similar way, can create a zone of an overvalued exchange balance. As a result, when the concentration of glucose in the blood decreases after a meal, the feeling of hunger appears immediately, and a person can not tolerate it calmly. Physiological mechanisms very quickly mismatches. The addict starts to eat very much, often and indiscriminately, all in a row. At some point, a similar feeling of shame is added to this behavior, which increases after eating. As a result, a person strongly hides his dependence, begins to eat secretly, after any load, his hunger increases. All this eventually leads to very dangerous consequences for health: metabolic disorders, weight gain, failure of internal organs and digestive system. Man ceases to control himself and begins to consume the amount of food that can pose a danger to life.

Starvation

Currently, there are two main mechanisms for the emergence of dependence on starvation: medical and non-medical. The medical variant implies the use of unloading diet therapy. The initial phase of entering hunger has certain difficulties associated with the constantly emerging need to suppress appetite. The next phase is characterized by a change in state. As a result, the appetite decreases or disappears, forces appear, as if a second wind opens, the mood rises, and a desire for physical activity appears. Many patients like this state very much, and they want to stay longer, prolong it.

The repeated fasting is carried out independently. As a result, at a certain level of euphoria, resulting from abstinence from food, there is a loss of control. The addiction continues to starve even when it becomes already unsafe for health and life, there is a loss of critical attitude towards the state.

Any addiction, dependence, whether physical or mental, does not pass independently. Inaction and reluctance to fight it can lead to sad consequences, sometimes irreversible. Often a person who suffers addiction, himself is not able to critically assess his condition and ask for help. Patients with gambling, alcoholism, food addictions can not really realize the scale of their illness.

Prevention of Addictions

Prevention of addiction should begin at school, where children are told in detail about its existing species, their causes and consequences. If a child learns about the devastating consequences, for example, chemical addictions, most likely, he does not even want to try alcohol, drugs or cigarettes.

The example of parents also plays an important role in the prevention of dependence in children. Help and support of loved ones in difficult situations, talking about problems - all this will help to avoid the person's desire to go into a fictional world.

Timely appeal to a psychologist and his direct involvement in eliminating the causes of the incipient addiction will certainly help to overcome it.