Amber HollingsworthRecovery Conversation Simulator, Amber's Recovery Practice Lab · Interactive learning tool trained on Amber methodoloy

Addiction Test: Are You Truly Free?

8 Nov 2024 · 1 min

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Amber Hollingsworth (speaker/creator) explains nuanced criteria for recognizing addiction. She emphasizes that being able to abstain for periods (e.g., not using every day or going 30 days sober) does not necessarily mean one is not addicted — a more useful, simplified test is whether a person has a very hard time stopping once they start; relapse after promised abstinence counts toward addiction criteria.

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They promised themselves and other people around them that they were going to stop completely, but then they went back after 30 days, and they've had multiple kinds of tests like that. Then that counts in that criteria. That's where all this nuanced stuff comes in. It's like, just because you can stop doesn't mean you're not addicted. If I had to bring it down to an oversimplified definition, then I would bring it down to have. It means you have a very hard time stopping once you start. That's a little bit oversimplified, but it's a better measure because most people measure it as like, well, I don't drink every day, or I. I don't use every day, or I can go without it, or I have gone without it for periods of time.