Issues On Addiction

Addiction is all about getting  hooked on harmful habits especially drugs; alcohol or food. This has invariably sent many to their untimely death.

While driving your car down a highway and you hear a peculiar rattle  coming from the engine, how will you respond? Will you look under the hood to examine the problem? Or will you simply raise the volume of the radio to drown the noise?

The answer seems obvious. Yet people who are addicts consistently make the wrong choice, not with their cars but with their lives. By means of addiction to such substances as drugs, alcohol and even food;  many people attempt to drown  their personal problems rather than try to cope with them.

Peer and curiosity often play a significant role, especially for youths. Indeed, many people become addicted in their bad association with those who are abusing alcohol and drugs.

However, there is a difference between abuse and addiction. Many who abuse hard substances are not addicted. They can stop the abuse and then not have a compulsion to return to it. But those who are addicted find it very difficult to stop. Any euphoric pleasure they once derived is overshadowed by anguish. The classic path for addicts is that, somewhere along the line, they start to hate themselves and they become internally tormented.

Many who are dependent on alcohol or drugs use them as escape route from emotional crises. Such crises are too common today and this shouldn’t surprise us because these traits have created a fertile environment for addiction. Drugs and alcohol are not the only addiction. Excessive eating habit sometimes serves as a distraction from pleasant feelings. Some never mind their eating schedule. Food for others provide a false sense of control and that might only be the arena in which they exercise authority. We make out for our body our very own kingdom where we are the tyrant, the absolute dictator. But this is not a total explanation of addiction to drugs, alcohol and food, a variety of factors may be involved. What we see today is an interaction of personality, environment, biology and social acceptability.

Giving up an addiction is like moving from the house you were raised in; even if the house is old and dilapidated, leaving it is very difficult. To an addict, addiction is like an emotional home. Although it is  chaotic, it is familiar. Moving away from addiction will be difficult but it is worth the effort.

Another is television addiction. Of course, there is nothing wrong with being distracted from life’s responsibilities temporarily. But some viewers never come back to reality.

Excessive television viewing impedes real thinking. This frightens many people. They become jittery when surrounded by silence. They fear being alone with their own thought. They frantically search for anything to fill the void. Television becomes a quick fix. Even at its best, however, television is just a substitute for real life. Compulsive gambling is not … exclusive. Gambling is rooted in greed. But compulsive gambling is often much more than money matter.

To the compulsive gambler, the process of gambling is often a reward. Some have lost money, friends, families and even their health for gambling. Few stop since winning or losing is not the issue. What matters is playing the game and that’s the process that alters the mood and causes a drug-like effect.

Gambling may be a distraction from life’s problems, but it will not make them go away. Seriously injured men need more than a painkiller, their wounds must be treated. If ever there are wounds that have led a person to gamble, he should identify them and treat them. To break free from addiction, the internal  anguish it has, often fuels the addiction, cannot be ignored. An addict must try to treat the problem at its source. Whatever the case, no addict-no matter what the cause of his or her addiction, is permanently doomed. Begin from a step and you will make a million of it. The conquering of addiction is a gradual process. Life can seem like a terrifying tightrope-walk. The problems are not personal  assaults,  they are merely situation that need to be dealt with, so that in time they will become, like sunlight, a source of guideline and warmth.

Addiction is a disorder of the entire self.   Conquering it means addressing the entire value system of the addicted person. But this takes time. There is no short cut to recovery and any promise of hasty recovery will only bring a hasty relapse.

Kokomaye resides in Port Harcourt

Kombo Kokomaye