I posted this on Facebook and thought it worth publishing here. Dr Mate creates a useful way of viewing addiction that I think is applicable to everyone.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/ideas/videos/addiction-is-a-response-to-emotional-pain/p07tnh6m
Great to see Dr Mate shared on BBC. “We are all just like the rest of us.”
Addicts are always traumatized, he says. Addiction is any behavior that offers short term relief or pleasure and also has negative consequences of some kind, yet one cannot or does not stop. Myths of addiction are genes pre-determine we become addicted and addiction is a choice. With this definition of addiction, it normalizes the process of suffering…and healing.
I think no one is immune to this conflict of self harm to resolve pain, even if it is very temporary and more on the level of eating cookies every day for a few days to cope with emotional pain and feeling the effects of that, and then continuing to do it again the next day.
Karilen Mays 