Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Head Shop >

Addiction, the myth of Virginal Purity, and the Rules

04:37 / 06.05.02

How do you define addiction?

The American Heritage Dictionary (Fourth ed, 2000; def 2a) conveniently provides, “The condition of being habitually or compulsively occupied with or or involved in something.”

(more shameless Ronell quoting)
“If culture implies some notion of addictive investment, then what do we hold against the addict? Anything can function as drug--music, TV, love.”

Since most of the posts about the place seem to poo-poo television or videogame addiction, I assume addiction to, say, reading, writing, or shopping are similarly ludicrous and irrelevant. Ronell, obviously, disagrees. Academically and personally, so do I. Ze also suggests that none of /(us)/ are free of addictions:

“[T]hat's a myth and a mystification: the virginal pure body that would be non-addicted, absolutely outside of addiction. That's why I include bodybuilding, vitamins, technology. I think that the structure of addiction is fundamental. That isn't to say that it can't be negotiated, managed, or somehow brought into a rapport of its own liberating possibility. I want to suggest that there are no drug free zones. Now, it could be that there are good and bad addictions… When does the law step in, and according to what discourse? How do we distinguish between good and bad addictions?”

How would you answer those final couple questions?

19:58 / 06.05.02

The necessary conditions for the creation of a law for the purpose of preventing addiction:

The addiction must, in general, be harmful to either the individual or a larger social strucure.
Extensive research has indicated that the proposed law significantly reduces the rate of addiction and that its enforcement does not cause more serious side effects than the addiction itself.
The law can be enforced.
The population agrees that the law should be enforced. If they do not, then the law cannot be enforced.

This almost seems too obvious to mention, except that it is a good starting point. Many people disagree with the idea that a law may be permitted to have any influence on actions that only affect the individual acting upon them. I see no reason that this should be regarded as a concrete rule. I will agree that such laws often fail one of the later tests, but this may be avoided in some cases if a law does not outlaw the action directly, but offers incentives or programs to prevent it.

01:04 / 10.05.02

How do you define addiction?

Loss of control.

All Acting Regiment

03:33 / 05.02.06

I've been thinking about this one and can't find the words, but I'll bump it anyway. what does everyone else think?

Not in the Face

05:18 / 13.02.06

Loss of control

Can this be expanded upon? It does run close to my own thinking where both my parents were, and still are alcoholics, although my father is now teetotal. The big difference is that my mother has never 'lost control' of her public life or required anyone to come in and care for her - even though there has been plenty of loss of control in her family life.

I think its that public versus private sphere that is the key issue = much like the saying that poor people are mad, rich people eccentric. If you are engaged in a compulsive behaviour but are able to maintain a functioning front within society then it seems you are less likely to be seen as addictive, no matter how destructive that behaviour is within other spheres of your life.

16:41 / 15.02.06

From the psychological standpoint, addiction = mental dependence as well as physical dependence. Meaning if you stop whatever it is, you have physical withdrawal symptoms as well as believing you need it. Smokers who quit sometimes replace the mental need for something in their mouth with gum but are still feeling the physical withdrawal symptoms from the loss of nicotine.

Gendudehashadenough

20:08 / 15.02.06

I tend to view addiction as an economic decision based on preference and choice. Some addictions can be beneficial while others not so much. At some point a kind of opportunity cost is inovlved where, if an uninformed choice is made diminishing returns start to become apparent. F'rinstance, I would think that TV has many benefits that a user can accrue from engaging in such an activity but the time spent watching TV can quickly become a section of the day that one should really spend doing other things, such as interacting with society.

This could probably be applied to smoking, drinking, etc. all of which can be preformed in a socially counscious way. To what extent is engaging in an activity (potentially socially negative AND/OR positive) deemed a positive way of interacting with society, and what are the criteria for this? Why is acceptable to display rowdiness while drinking in a social setting, but if one does this alone they have a "problem"?

Not sure where I'm going with this, so please threoize me into a corner.

11:22 / 16.02.06

I should expand on my last post because i think i can make it clearer...

A person can become mentally dependent on just about anything - watching tv, drinking soda, exercising, porn, etc, etc, etc... To be addicted, there must be a physical component to become dependent on as well - caffiene in soda, nicotine in cigs, endorphins (runner's high) from exercising, something that will cause them withdrawal symptoms if it is taken away, you get the idea. But again this is from a technical/medical/psychological perspective. A sociological view tends to be a little more complicated.

23:22 / 16.02.06

-You have a problem wih a given thing when that thing cuases problems...
-If a problem arises and you don't learn from the experience, you've got an addiction.
-When it clearly harms others, others may be needed to step in.

The last point is by far the muddiest, though. There are way too many non-linearities to make that cut and dry. It's safe to say that if someone is driving in an unsafe fashion because of their intoxication, that's an obvious call for intervention. A spouse who doesn't bother divorcing the addict, then complains about it?

Eh...