Amber Hollingsworth explains that addiction is defined by a pattern of behavior that initially produces positive effects but over time causes more harm than benefit; addiction can precede chemical dependence and can include non-substance behaviors (shopping, gambling, gaming). She emphasizes early intervention rather than waiting for end-stage, chemically-dependent symptoms.
Chapters
So let's get to the nitty gritty of the issue. Let's talk about what addiction really is and what it isn't. And in this section right here, I'm going to explain to you the key piece of information where the majority of people make the biggest mistake that causes the most problems. You see, most people think that addiction means as in chemically dependent on some kind of substance. Meaning if I don't drink, I get sick, or if I don't have my pain pills, I'm really, really sick in the morning, I can't function, or that kind of thing, or I have withdrawal symptoms. Certainly that is one aspect of addiction, that dependency part. And we are going to explore dependency in another section. But I want you to understand that addiction happens when we are engaging in some kind of behavior. Whether that's shopping, gambling, sex, taking a drug, drinking, whatever that initially seems to provide some kind of positive result or impact or experience on us, but eventually begins to cause more problems and harm than help. The issue is, is that our brain continues to remember the positive effects. And we keep trying to get back to that point when it worked. Whatever our addictive behavior was, it worked and it helped us in some kind of way. But over the course of time, you get almost like, it's like a diminishing return. It works. It's less and less and less effective, and it causes more and more and more problems. And you can have that cycle going on long before you're ever dependent on a substance. Which is exactly why you can be addicted to something that's not even a substance, like shopping or gambling or gaming. You can see you're not physically dependent on gaming as far as like chemically dependent, but your brain gets adjusted to something. It's seeking this positive reward over and over and over as you keep doing it. And the consequences get bigger and bigger and bigger. If you can really just wrap your head around that very, very simple explanation of what addiction is, you're really going to have it. Don't get involved in Do I drink in the morning? Can I stop? We're going to go over all of those things in some other sections. Because if you wait until you get to point, that's end stage addiction. If you wait till you're very, very chemically dependent or you're drinking in the morning and maybe you're already there, but there's no sense in waiting to get to that point if you're not there. That does not mean that you don't have an addiction issue. And hey, I don't really care what you call it. Some people hate the word addiction. They hate alcoholism. They don't want to call it disease. It doesn't matter to me what you call it. Do you have a problematic behavior? Is that behavior, decision, substance, whatever, causing more harm than good? If that's the case, then that's all you've got to decide. Let's say, for example, if I am addicted to stimulants, Maybe I take stimulants because I feel like it makes me work longer hours or make better grades or, you know, I can work overtime, shift, or I can be more attentive to my family. I can work all day and come home, mow the grass or something like that. Eventually those stimulants work less and less. And when initially, initially I was using them to have more energy, when I'm abusing stimulants, it causes me to be more depressed, have less energy, be more irritable. And I just caught in the. Get caught in that cycle. Eventually I get dependent. But before dependency addiction takes place, that it really is. The number one problem is that most people think if they're not completely dependent on a substance, meaning they don't have to have it every day, or they don't use it all day, or they don't use that substance every day, they use other substances, that they're not addicted. And that's not true at all. When you're thinking like that, you're like waiting until you're at the end stage. It's like waiting until you have end stage cancer to do something about it. It doesn't make a lot of sense. It's a whole lot easier to fix the problem the earlier in the cycle that you can catch it.
