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The Addiction HabitDo we really need rehab centers for people who spend too much time shopping or using the Internet?
By Vaughan BellPosted Friday, Dec. 18, 2009, at 12:07 PM ET
Like a compulsive crack user desperately sucking on a broken pipe, we can't get enough of addiction. We got hooked on the concept a few centuries back, originally to describe the compulsive intake of alcohol and, later, the excessive use of drugs like heroin and cocaine. Now it seems like we're using it every chance we can getapplying the concept to any behavior that seems troublesome or ill-advised. Take overuse of technology, for example: Over the summer, a flurry of media reports touted the services of the RESTART clinic in Washington stateapparently the first "Internet addiction" recovery center in the United States. For $15,000, you can enroll in a 45-day course designed to rid you of a dangerous or unhealthy fascination with, say, the online role-playing game World of Warcraft. So-called Internet addiction is just one of many new behavioral addictions to break into the mainstream: there's also shopping addiction, sex addiction, eating addiction, love addiction, and others.
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This creeping medicalization of everyday life means that almost any problem of excess can now be portrayed as an individual falling foul of a major mental illness. While drug addiction is a serious concern and a well-researched condition, many of the new behavioral addictions lack even the most basic foundations of scientific reliability. In light of Tiger Woods' extramarital trysts, "sex addiction" has been widely touted by the global media despite the fact it lacks official recognition and scientific support. Perhaps the most widely publicized of these new diagnoses, Internet addiction, is flawed even on its own terms: A 2009 study published in the journal CyberPsychology and Behavior revealed that it has been classified in numerous, inconsistent ways in published research. Most studies of the "disorder" rely on self-selecting samples of college computer users and are otherwise subject to significant bias.
Despite the scientific implausibility of the same diseaseaddictionunderlying both damaging heroin use and overenthusiasm for World of Warcraft, the concept has run wild in the popular imagination. Our enthusiasm for labeling new forms of addictions seems to have arisen from a perfect storm of pop medicine, pseudo-neuroscience, and misplaced sympathy for the miserable.
You might assume that we've always known about addiction, but it's a relatively recent ideaand one that has almost always been championed by people with a political and moral agenda. The modern concept was invented in the 18th century by physician Benjamin Rush, who, with his fellow temperance campaigners, promoted it as an explanation for, and warning against, the dangers of the demon drink. In this early formulation, the booze itself caused a "disease of the will."
Later, the theory of "degeneracy" became popular among medical men with the assumption that mental illness could be explained by an inherited tendency to be mentally defective and socially disadvantaged. The devastating effects of alcohol on supposedly inferior native people led colony psychiatrists in the 19th century to conclude that the two conditionsdrunkenness and degeneracywent hand in hand. Slowly the concept of addiction began to shift from poisonous drugs to a biological weakness among certain people. Addicts were to be pitied but not blamed. "Degeneration," along with eugenics, died a long-overdue death in the 1950s, but the idea that addiction is a vulnerability that exists before someone has even taken his first hit lives on. It seems to have reached its pinnacle in 2004, when a report from the World Health Organization called substance dependence "as much a disorder of the brain as any other neurological or psychiatric illness."
This reframing of addiction carries its own risks. We know that describing a problem solely from a medical perspective changes how we understand it, which may explain why addiction has become such a popular label for human troubles. Recent work by psychologist Meredith Young and colleagues at McMaster University in Canada has shown that if we replace a common name for an illness with a medical termpharyngitis for sore throat, e.g.people tend to perceive the illness as being more serious. Several other studies have found that when mental disorders are described solely in biological terms, those with the diagnosis are perceived as having less control over their actions. This approach aims to be sympathetic to sufferersbut it may come at the cost of portraying the miserable as slaves to their damaged brains.
By Vaughan BellPosted Friday, Dec. 18, 2009, at 12:07 PM ET
Like a compulsive crack user desperately sucking on a broken pipe, we can't get enough of addiction. We got hooked on the concept a few centuries back, originally to describe the compulsive intake of alcohol and, later, the excessive use of drugs like heroin and cocaine. Now it seems like we're using it every chance we can getapplying the concept to any behavior that seems troublesome or ill-advised. Take overuse of technology, for example: Over the summer, a flurry of media reports touted the services of the RESTART clinic in Washington stateapparently the first "Internet addiction" recovery center in the United States. For $15,000, you can enroll in a 45-day course designed to rid you of a dangerous or unhealthy fascination with, say, the online role-playing game World of Warcraft. So-called Internet addiction is just one of many new behavioral addictions to break into the mainstream: there's also shopping addiction, sex addiction, eating addiction, love addiction, and others.
PRINT
DISCUSS
E-MAIL
RSS
RECOMMEND...
SINGLE PAGE Yahoo! Buzz
Facebook
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Mixx
Digg
Reddit
del.icio.us
Furl
Ma.gnolia
Sphere
StumbleUponCLOSEThis creeping medicalization of everyday life means that almost any problem of excess can now be portrayed as an individual falling foul of a major mental illness. While drug addiction is a serious concern and a well-researched condition, many of the new behavioral addictions lack even the most basic foundations of scientific reliability. In light of Tiger Woods' extramarital trysts, "sex addiction" has been widely touted by the global media despite the fact it lacks official recognition and scientific support. Perhaps the most widely publicized of these new diagnoses, Internet addiction, is flawed even on its own terms: A 2009 study published in the journal CyberPsychology and Behavior revealed that it has been classified in numerous, inconsistent ways in published research. Most studies of the "disorder" rely on self-selecting samples of college computer users and are otherwise subject to significant bias.
Despite the scientific implausibility of the same diseaseaddictionunderlying both damaging heroin use and overenthusiasm for World of Warcraft, the concept has run wild in the popular imagination. Our enthusiasm for labeling new forms of addictions seems to have arisen from a perfect storm of pop medicine, pseudo-neuroscience, and misplaced sympathy for the miserable.
You might assume that we've always known about addiction, but it's a relatively recent ideaand one that has almost always been championed by people with a political and moral agenda. The modern concept was invented in the 18th century by physician Benjamin Rush, who, with his fellow temperance campaigners, promoted it as an explanation for, and warning against, the dangers of the demon drink. In this early formulation, the booze itself caused a "disease of the will."
Later, the theory of "degeneracy" became popular among medical men with the assumption that mental illness could be explained by an inherited tendency to be mentally defective and socially disadvantaged. The devastating effects of alcohol on supposedly inferior native people led colony psychiatrists in the 19th century to conclude that the two conditionsdrunkenness and degeneracywent hand in hand. Slowly the concept of addiction began to shift from poisonous drugs to a biological weakness among certain people. Addicts were to be pitied but not blamed. "Degeneration," along with eugenics, died a long-overdue death in the 1950s, but the idea that addiction is a vulnerability that exists before someone has even taken his first hit lives on. It seems to have reached its pinnacle in 2004, when a report from the World Health Organization called substance dependence "as much a disorder of the brain as any other neurological or psychiatric illness."
This reframing of addiction carries its own risks. We know that describing a problem solely from a medical perspective changes how we understand it, which may explain why addiction has become such a popular label for human troubles. Recent work by psychologist Meredith Young and colleagues at McMaster University in Canada has shown that if we replace a common name for an illness with a medical termpharyngitis for sore throat, e.g.people tend to perceive the illness as being more serious. Several other studies have found that when mental disorders are described solely in biological terms, those with the diagnosis are perceived as having less control over their actions. This approach aims to be sympathetic to sufferersbut it may come at the cost of portraying the miserable as slaves to their damaged brains.
