Addiction is addiction. Whether you’re addicted because you took a drug that your brain now depends on, or you’ve gotten used to doing something that makes you happy and your brain depends on the stimulus to make the happy juice, addiction is a physiological response. The effects on your brain are chemical. Your addiction is marked by the changes in thinking to seek and obtain your particular “high” in whatever form your brain needs, and you will experience withdrawal if you stop.
Some substances and activities are highly addictive, because they are designed to be. Marijuana is more potent than ever, and the experience of shopping for different strains and trying all the “flavors” is itself a little reward system.
People want to make distinctions between chemical addiction and psychological addiction, and there are differences, but addiction is addiction.
So addiction is a word so broad as to be practically meaningless, is what you’re saying.
Maybe start by not assuming everyone has normal brain chemistry. As someone whose brain couldn’t make “happy juice” on its own for years (I have a problem processing folate, which is an ingredient in a bunch of brain chemicals), if I hadn’t smoked weed before I found out what was wrong, I wouldn’t have lived long enough to do so.
Addiction is addiction. Whether you’re addicted because you took a drug that your brain now depends on, or you’ve gotten used to doing something that makes you happy and your brain depends on the stimulus to make the happy juice, addiction is a physiological response. The effects on your brain are chemical. Your addiction is marked by the changes in thinking to seek and obtain your particular “high” in whatever form your brain needs, and you will experience withdrawal if you stop.
Some substances and activities are highly addictive, because they are designed to be. Marijuana is more potent than ever, and the experience of shopping for different strains and trying all the “flavors” is itself a little reward system.
People want to make distinctions between chemical addiction and psychological addiction, and there are differences, but addiction is addiction.
So addiction is a word so broad as to be practically meaningless, is what you’re saying.
Maybe start by not assuming everyone has normal brain chemistry. As someone whose brain couldn’t make “happy juice” on its own for years (I have a problem processing folate, which is an ingredient in a bunch of brain chemicals), if I hadn’t smoked weed before I found out what was wrong, I wouldn’t have lived long enough to do so.
I honestly have no idea what version of what I said you’re arguing with.