I believe that the key to understand and beating addiction is to understand its purpose. Humans and all other mammals, AFAIK, can become addicted to drugs or behaviors. At some point, this capacity was a pro-survival trait. I've read some journal articles about this, how dopamine is the reward for succeeding, etc, so we get programmed to succeed, but I think they're missing it. I believe the primary addiction is to food. Do you know you can get a dopamine rush looking at a hamburger? The pleasure you feel eating that kind of stuff has nothing to do with its taste. Research confirms that it is high fat/high protein foods that do this. What is the original? Milk. Honestly, when your stomach is empty, you feel sick and not at all like eating. Foodcraving is totally different - when you eat even though you're full. Babies need all that milk, and in other mammals, they need to take it away from their siblings, even if they don't need it. Same with junk food - people don't stop eating when they are full, they eat for kicks. And because of that, they survive tough times in the future.
Everyone HATES this theory, because it points to most people being food addicts. Well? If you switch your diet to rice and fruit juice, which you can live on for weeks or months without harm, will you feel shitty and bad and cranky until you eat a cupcake? Yes, most people are like that. Junk dope, junk food, junk stuff - no coincidence.
Because addiction is really addiction to dopamine, however you get it, from gambling to meth, it's easy to transfer your means. Quitting junk and still smoking doesn't help you. Cigs have some affect on dopamine, but not enough, so you never get free of it. That's why I *loathe* AA/NA. The whole "I live with this the rest of my life" is crap. Quit smoking and eat right and the cravings go away. You can even use drugs medicinally and not binge, but support is advised.
Sure, the average human has something in their life that's totally out of balance. This is just the human condition... Everyone suffers from some degree of addiction and compulsion. .
that's the first Noble Truth - the nature of the human condition is suffering. as we both/all know, suffering comes from attachment, which is the second. we spend our lives running from goal to goal, new cars, money, whatever, and each one is just another fix, after we're empty and only care about the next. but you can be attached to ideas, too - like 'who i am' and 'my homeland' and such. but everything is in change, so it never works. the third Noble Truth - there is a cure for this kind of suffering, which is the magic bit, then the fourth: live a simple, good life, with a focused mind, and your life will be joy instead of suffering (the Eight-Fold Path).
i love my brother christians, muslims and jews, but god doesn't save you from addiction - he just dangles the bait and that's not freedom. this stuff, the above, is the fundamental core of buddhism. it's what the buddha found - that you don't need gods or spirits to live a blissful life, it's living like a monk that makes you happy. duh? pretty scientific - he did try many different systems before coming up with the four.
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