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AN EXEMPLUM OF ADDICTION

What is the thing that comes into your mind when you read the word “addiction”? Is it a person abusing stimulants or sedatives? Or is it a person laying odds?Or is it a person enslaved to bodily pleasures? Or is it a person craving consumption? Or is it a person fixated on screens? Well,whatever comes to your mind ,it is one or another form of monomania.So what is the science behind this behaviour? 

Ok so let's first acknowledge emotions we feel at the summit of addiction ,which are happiness, pleasure, motivation, love. These emotions are the purveyor of beer and skittles and the regisseur behind them is dopamine. You have probably came across this word but do you know what it is?

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter or a chemical messenger,which our body makes and our nervous system uses it to send messages between nerve cells. When something we perceive to be good is generated in our systems, that’s when dopamine neurons are activated. Different people need different pleasures and rewards to get enough dopamine. A food addict’s neurons get activated with the bite of a juicy hamburger, or a sex addict’s dopamine is released when viewing adult visual images. Similarly, an alcoholic gets that same rush of dopamine when that first drink is sipped.This is how our own body is responsible for its addiction.So even before the first cavemen who consumed some psychedelic herbs or saccharine fruits ; the first being to ever masturbate ,dopamine addiction was there before all that. Hence dopamine is the answer to chicken and egg question for addiction. I know some of my readers will be like,”yeah yeah we get it,dopamine addiction is a chemical release into our brain when we’re achieving happiness on some level”. But dopamine also relates to how we are motivated, and more specifically, how the addicts are motivated. This motivation is because our brain neurotransmitters have associated some behaviors with a dopamine rush, and that makes us feel good. So for example,when you watch a short clip(of a minute or so) on a mobile application, during last seconds of the clip your dopamine level is at apex and as the clips ends, so is the dopamine rush. And now you are there, with your thumb charging like a mad bull; eyes ogling over screen; reminiscent of that sweet rush, ready to give in and scroll up. Needless to say, we all are addicts of some poison and should not point finger at anyone, cause ironically our own three fingers would be pointed right back at us. Therefore, it’s better to blame the game and not the player. And how do we beat the game, you ask?     

Well let me counter with,”isn't there a tutorial or a youtube video for everything nowadays?”(P.S. to hard drug abusers and alcoholics,please don't rely on internet remedies for independency, consult with a trained doctor and get proper medication. Like what Pete Davidson said; addressing Kanye West,”there is no shame in the medicine game :) ” ). For a start, try dopamine fast, a technique created by California psychiatrist Dr. Cameron Sepah, in which Sepah suggested we should allow our brains to take breaks and reset from unhealthy stimuli -the texts, the notification, the beeps, the rings, that accompany living in a modern, technology centric society. Sepah recommended that we should start a fast in a way that is minimally disruptive to our lifestyles.[Read more about this on health.harvard.edu/blog/dopamine fasting]. Just like taking a break or going on a vacation. Exercising is also shown to boost dopamine production in our bodies and many other elements of a healthy lifestyle can boost dopamine activity in sustainable ways. So try substituting some screen time by a workout regime.

             In the end, we all should agree that an addict is not to blame and rather than we should pinpoint roots of his/her addictions. By actively identifying our behaviour, even when we are doing mundane chores, we can keep a check on our impulses and act on them accordingly. 

In the book “Atomic habits :An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones” by James Clear,he suggested many techniques to build new “good ones” over the place of “bad habits”, and according to James, there are four laws of behavior change which are simple set of rules we can use to build better habits. They are (1) make it obvious, (2) make it attractive, (3) make it easy, and (4) make it satisfying. To break bad habits, we have to inverse the four laws that are - 

 (1) Make it invisible

(2) Make it unattractive 

(3) Make it difficult 

(4) Make it unsatisfying

Read the book if you haven't already, it will surely help you become a better version, that too with chalked out strategy. 

The intention behind this blog was to illuminate the addiction, which multitude of beings like us are struggling with in this matrix of a world. Not denying the certitude that technology helps us but deeper pockets are being filled up by doing quite opposite. Let’s ask ourselves when was the last time we sat still alone with our thoughts; not scrolling through our devices? Most of us can’t bear screams of our thoughts or the silence of the world. And rather than facing self imposed questions,we face non-essential answers on screen.


- Harshit








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