I had a string of questions tonight that I wanted to share and that I will now be seeking the answers to. I thought perhaps you too might be interested in these questions and have ideas and/or research on this subject to share. I will update this as I go. Looking forward to your comments.
Study on Addictions:
Why does a person “need” an addiction? What for? What is the benefit of having it?
What fear is associated with losing it or not having it ever-present in their lives?
Is it the fear of losing it like the fear of a death?
Look up studies on stress
Look up addiction
Decision/Choice
What compels a person to make a change?
Ex. When you realize it’s overwhelming your life - you can’t continue to live like this
Look up: research on hitting rock bottom
What makes someone enter into a destructive behavior and possess it or it possesses them as an addiction?
Re: dissatisfaction
Dissatisfaction leads to seeking a distraction from the dissatisfaction
How does this work in a stress addiction? Stress is in a way itself a dissatisfaction. Dissatisfactions leads to more dissatisfaction. So where does the original stress/dissatisfaction come from? (Anomaly or paradox of stress - being a dissatisfaction in itself)
Does it have to be identified to be released from the pattern?
How can it be identified if it occurred a long time ago and is not consciously remembered?
Re: Hypnosis
What if the person is unwilling to undergo hypnosis?
Feeds on itself - more and more into that line of activity
re: Energy Follows Thought
What if the person is unwilling to look for the reason/cause of the addiction? There’s a dilemma.
What if the person doesn’t believe there is a reason/cause for the addition?
How much of a role does belief play in sustaining the addiction?
Ex. A belief that you can’t escape it, or a belief that there is no choice/option.
What causes a person to thrive on a painful activity?
What bonds a person to a painful activity?
Is there an element of familiarity/comfort from the activity that forces it to persist?
How much of a role does the conscious thinker have in the activity?
How does/can will-power affect it?
What bearing does the awareness of knowing that the activity is destructive have on the ultimate separation/release from the activity?
What’s the difference between awareness and understanding in reference to the knowledge of an activity being destructive?
What makes this understanding become a reality to the person?
Re: belief, perception
How key is an accurate understanding/perception in releasing the person from the debilitating activity?
Debilitating - re: reconstruction
What is the mind-body connection in relation to the persistence of it and to the release of it?
Re: As above So Below, Re: Law of Correspondence
What are the exponential reaches of a release in outward effects as well as inward “effects”?
How come being told about the benefits of life without that destructive activity doesn’t automatically get a person to make a change?
Why would a person not recognize a destructive activity as destructive?
Re: comfort/pleasure that is received out of it > re: an abused person
Why is it pleasurable to be hurt?
(If they don’t recognize it as being hurt/pain then this would not make sense/register at all)
I am not being hurt
I am not in pain
I am not suffering
I am fine
Nothing is wrong
Everything is fine/perfect even/better than you’re describing it/let me convince you of that FACT!
So if it is considered to be a fact in their mind that “all is well”
then how can their perception be altered to reveal the truth of the matter?
What does matter/material have to do with the construction of a negative/destructive pattern of behavior?
We built it in - how?
Re: repetition - re: becoming easier, becoming routine, becoming a “way of life,” until reaches a point where there is no separateness from it - only complete identification with it.
Re: convincing/total conviction > look up definitions of those words
What is a motivating factor(s) - joy? Pleasure? Caring about someone? - what convinces a person that ex. Stressing/worrying about a person consistently and nonstop = caring? = doing the right thing - how much of that is involved - the idea that “I am doing the right thing” factor in? Or even I am doing the ONLY thing (I can do).
Can, re: Will
helping = doing something which is beneficial
ex. I am helping this person by worrying about him/her.
If I am doing something which is beneficial why should I stop?
So the perception is completely false - re: false logic/reasoning, misinterpretation, misapplication, mis-thought, misrepresentation.
Wanting to believe something is a certain way so building in/creating the outer to match the inner desire - re: Movie “Memento” - the character wanted to believe he had not killed his wife’s killer so he created a puzzle to solve in which he would kill an innocent man just because he didn’t like the FACTS that this man told him.
How does not liking the facts contribute to the onset of the mind set/addiction?
Create a “drama”/dharma - something else to focus on to take mind off the facts?
Dharma - duty
drama - look up definition
Explosion/defensive in re: to being told facts which you don’t like = distraction?
It’s all about delay - the entire lifespan of the addiction is to delay dealing with the facts that the person does not want to face/deal with.
Re: Preoccupation
re: prolong - why would someone want to prolong it? Thought behind it would be to ESCAPE the pain when really it is just dragging it out/extending it in time and space in a cycle that is torturous but which the person comes to believe is ????? - perhaps productive? necessary/essential/required???
Moments of clarity
re: rock bottom in order to make a change
How about when a person chooses to make a change before hitting rock bottom? Does that ever happen? And if so why/how?
What about energy or prayer being directed to a person (by another person/group) to aid in the healing/release from the addiction?
Self-recognition of that activity getting you to do something you wouldn’t normally do - how does this apply/refer to getting out before hitting rock bottom? - is that like a jolt out of it for an instant of recognition - how can that instant (re: interlude) be extended to give enough time for the person to separate from that complete identification with it?
How can a person be jolted out of it in another manner than a moment of clarity/self recognition?
How come a person cannot understand/process information that is incoming about the destructiveness of it from an outside source? Re: Actualization, internalization
actualization re: Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs”
Extract from Wikipedia: Actualization:
Peak experiences are situations that are so intense that the person loses all sense of self and they find themselves in the flow of the event. - are these experiences in addiction “so intense” that the sense of self is lost and how does that affect the ability to detach from complete identification with it?
...
According to Maslow, people have lower order needs that in general must be fulfilled before high order needs can be satisfied. As a person moves up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, eventually they will reach the summit—self actualization. 1 Maslow’s hierarchy of needs begins with the most basic necessities deemed “the physiological needs” in which the individual will seek out items like food and water, and must be able to perform basic functions such as breathing and sleeping. 1 & 4 Once these needs have been met, a person can move on to fulfilling the “the safety needs” where they will attempt to obtain a sense of security, physical comforts and shelter, employment, and property. 1 & 4 The next level is “the belongingness and love needs” where people will strive for social acceptance, affiliations, a sense of belongingness and being welcome, sexual intimacy, and perhaps a family. 1 & 4 Next are “the esteem needs” where the individual will desire a sense of competence, recognition of achievement by peers, and respect from others. 1 & 4 Some argue that once these needs are met, an individual is primed for self actualization. Others argue that there are two more phases an individual must progress through before self actualization can take place. These include “the cognitive needs” where a person will desire knowledge and an understanding of the world around them, and “the aesthetic needs” which include a need for “symmetry, order and beauty”.1 Once all these needs have been satisfied, the final step of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs can take place—self actualization. 1 & 4
References:
1. Gleitman, Henry, Alan J. Fridlund, and Daniel Reisberg. Psychology. 6th ed. New York: Norton & Company, 2004.
2. Goldstein, Kurt. The Organism: A Holistic Approach to Biology Derived from Pathological Data in Man. 1934. New York: Zone Books, 1995.
3. Maslow, Abraham H. Motivation and Personality. 1954. Ed. Cynthia McReynolds. 3rd ed. New York: Harper and Row, Inc., 1987.
4. Maslow, Abraham H. The Psychology of Science. Gateway Edition 1.95 ed. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1969.
5. Maslow, Abraham H. "A Theory of Human Motivation." Psychological Review 50 (1943): 370-396. advancedhiring.com. 17 Oct. 2006
6. Reber, Arthur S. The Penguin Dictionary of Psychology. 2nd ed. London: Penguin, 1995.
END OF EXTRACT
Actualize - to realize in action or make real
re: chemistry of body
http://cbri.umn.edu/~redish/papers/2004%20Science%20Addiction.pdf
proclivities - what draws a person to a specific addiction?
http://www.peele.net/lib/moa3.html
Extract:
Interpersonal Addiction
The enormity of the implications of the genetic transmission of addictive impulses is driven home by several theories claiming that people are compelled by chemical imbalances to form unhealthy, compulsive, and self-destructive interpersonal relationships. Tennov (1979) maintained that such "limerent" people, who are in every other way indistinguishable from other people, have a biological propensity to fall head-over-heels in love and create disastrous romantic attachments. Liebowitz (1983) proposed that a failure in neurochemical regulation—similar to that hypothesized to cause manic-depressive reactions leads people (almost exclusively women) to fall heatedly in love, often with inappropriate partners, and to become inordinately depressed when the relationships fail. These theories illustrate mainly the temptation to believe that compelling motivations must have a biological source and the desire to mechanize human differences, imperfections, and mysteries.
compulsive involvements
Peele and Brodsky (1975), in the book Love and Addiction, also described interpersonal relationships as having addictive potential...Peele and Brodsky's aim was to show that any powerful experience can form the object of an addiction for people predisposed by combinations of social and psychological factors.
END OF EXTRACT
Strong desire not to discuss it - re: tune it out even, not register or listen to incoming as a form of protection - allows you not to be jolted out of your “fantasy reality” - I call it this because for them it is a reality but a part of them KNOWS it is a fantasy. Hmm. Re: Movie: Memento
The resistance to dealing/facing the facts is so strong that it often will cause the person to scream/shout to STOP the person from speaking the truth. - too much to bear? To much to handle? Overwhelmed? What is the great fear here? That you will expose the truth to the part of them that is “happy” with/in the fantasy? Re: schizophrenia, categorization - putting things into separate compartments of the mind - isolation as a form of solidarity with the wielding thought life/”fantasy reality”
Protecting the fantasy perception from total obliteration/annihilation
Triggers
Could resistance and the desire to remain steady in that illusion prompt further denial/stronger belief in the illusion as a result of the “intervention/interruption”
interrupt - ex. Newton’s Three Laws of Motion - Law 1: An object in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by a net force.
re: Pastor Eric’s sermon notes “How to Eclipse Your Circumstances”
re: intention
re: A Theory of Human Motivation, A.H. Maslow
fear of being unable to go back - definitely means there is a comfort level there - a desire to return
why do we want to return to something we love?
Because it brings us joy
It relaxes us (however, especially in terms of addictive behavior such as stress how much REAL relaxation is gained through the activity of stressing? What amount of relaxation is perceived?)
Look up: types of relaxation - mental, physical chemical - ex. Endorphins, dopamine, etc.
It produces something that we want to go back to/return for more - ex. Nicotine in cigarettes produces a “relaxing” effect
But WHY is it addictive?
Meaning you crave more of it
re: blocking cravings; cravings are not real - perception of them as being real, levels of intensity
ex. I may have a craving for a certain food but I can CONVINCE myself that I don’t need it right now - how does this translate to an addictive behavior/activity that a person does not even CONSIDER an option for anything other than doing it. Why does no option exist in that mind? What is so different about it? Building in through repetition the desire? Does the desire become so strong that it overtakes the rational mind to give consideration to other options?
What happens when it wins? How hard is to reverse the process or go back to a state where consideration was a factor/involved?
Re: predilections
