Please elaborate your question.Addiction is a clinical issue and needs clinical management.

Yes Khalid, your response is a clinical response, but there are other perspectives to addictions. My response to this question would be two-fold: first that it is important to understand the personality type of the person (which in turn will provide insights into the causal connections), and secondly, I have found that it is never a good idea to simply remove a behavior, but to replace it (even if temporarily). Creating a behavioral void in the life of some who is already weakened is rarely successful.

Addictions do not usually originate from a lack of knowledge (that something is not good for you), but often stem from emotional needs.

I agree with Mr. Rauf, but would like to add that I am certain that self-knowledge is one key of several to recovery. As someone who has studied addiction and has personal family experience with addiction I have seen the most stable and long lasting recoveries in those who have very keen insight and who have the ability to recognize self-deception and take appropriate action to negate that self-deception. Often this skill is learned through cognitive therapy. That is just one tiny part of a very complex subject, but one I have seen as very important.

I view addictive dependence on unhealthy substances as often being most essentially rooted in the attempt to cover over and thereby escape from the experience of emotional insecurity and inner emptiness, which may be produced by lack of genuinely loving or caring connection to other individuals. That lack of caring connection to others, and the excessive narcissistic self-concern that that can involve, cuts one off from the relational energy of life as love, as the source of a more genuine sense of security and well being, which is imitated by the pseudo euphoria induced by unhealthy addictive substances such as narcotics and excessive sensationalism. I believe that this view is consistent with the views of philosophers and psychologists such as, Martin Buber, Abraham Maslow, Erich Fromm, and Lynne McTaggart. It seems to me that no kind of abstract theoretical knowledge can produce genuine, substantial, and enduring liberation from addictions, but the relational energy of life as love, evoked through genuinely caring or loving relationships with other individuals, can replace addictions as a more genuine experiential knowledge of emotional security, euphoria, and well-being.

I have recently published two books in which I discuss the psychological basis of how addictions develop and can be overcome. In these books, I also discuss the psychological, ethical, philosophical, and spiritual basis of compassionately transforming individuals, personal relationships, and society. For more information about my books, please see the attached flier, my ResearchGate profile, and/or my author website, http://sbprabooks.com/MaxHammer

Thank you all for your considered and thoughtful answers. Please could you add how the addict learns to recover. What does she need to learn in order to recover? And how do you think a group (support group, 12 step etc) facilitates this? Many thanks.

I believe I understand your point of view Barry, but it somehow seems limited to substance abuse. I do agree with the importance of a loving and caring environment, but when it comes to addictions, there are many (within a loving and caring environment) who struggle for liberation from addictive behavior. I'm certain I do not need to point out numerous well known obese evangelical ministers who cannot find the strength to limit their caloric intake.?

In addition there is gambling, video games, and what about all those who simply cannot go a day without their mobile phone! In my opinion, addictive behavior is addictive behavior. There are many who view addiction as being limited to substance abuse or similar destructive behavior (as thought addiction is limited only to bad people). In fact many in the church also seem to categorize sin as being a severe sin or a not quite relevant sin. Almost as though sin or addiction could be placed on a severity scale of 1 - 10.

Now back to what Margot is interested in, ... for recovery from all types of addiction, it is important to bring that person to a place where the addiction stops being satisfying and becomes an inconvenience to daily activity. This is certainly not a "one size fits all" challenge, but the addict must find satisfaction in other areas in order for recovery to be possible. BTW, I am also one of those counselors who Do Not believe that a person is addicted for life.

In my view, addiction may be the most complex disorder to discern cause. Also, there is no one-size-fits-all explanation for the group of sufferers as a whole. This is true for other disorders, but I feel addicition has a greater number of possible causes, and the question of the 'chicken and the egg' invariably arises when identifying probable causes, as does the question of the interactions between those probable causes.. The genetic aspect may be dealt with through medication. The psychosocial aspects will be much more difficult. That is just identifying likely causes; then comes the issue of how to deal with and/or eliminate any single likely cause. Just one such issue is the 'cocaine vaccine' as it is called in the media. The subject has been in the news for many years now, and each iteration usually proclaims we are very close to having this drug in use sometime soon. No 'cocaine vaccine' is in use, and it never has been in use. But without a national policy and adequate funding, we are not making rapid progress on any front.

I agree, this is very interesting and allows for a variety of contributions. I personally agree that one's emotional and psychological health matter. So starting with that, when I see kids and teens willing to tell me things about themselves but who aren't able to share at home, due to a multitude of factors, I see how they often try a drug, any drug, and by accident, they suddenly aren't socially anxious and they enjoy a party for the first time in 15 years. We all have problems, and if we are raised in a way that encourages us to hide our 'flaws' versus have an honest discussion, then in a lot of cases those problems remain. That 15 year old will in all likelihood drink again, lets say it was alcohol, not to get high or mellow, but because he finally feels normal. That 'model' can apply to any sort of problem and any sort of drug or substance, with the caveat that the more biologically-based or appetite-based reaction he has, the more likely it is he'll repeat the behavior because it allows him to appear normal and he wants the euphoria (i.e., a dopamine related issue). Let's take example 2: someone who always tries their hardest, doesn't really have problems like anxiety when growing up, but put pressure on themselves to try their best in life. At some point they often want to just sleep, or just relax, and in our society (Drink! Drink! So good for your heart), its easy to pick up what appears to be a minor change in behavior. So they do, and it takes more and more, be it alcohol, prescribed meds, borrowed meds, etc. Habituation plays a strong role in this example as do expectations, desires, sadnesses, and a person who increasingly feels they gave their life away, to others, never caring for themselves. That may or may not be true, but they feel that way, and continue to feel a need/dependence on their substance of choice IMO because their emotions continue to intensify if they don't, and these people tend to prefer at least the image of a person who is (nearly) perfect, and this substance helps. Or, the very common depression/anxiety overlap that alcohol is often used to self-medicate.

Whether I am correct or not in the origins I've laid out, I am 100% certain about recovery. After doing research for the NIAAA, and working with inpatients in a local hospital, I was able to see with my own eyes how hard true recovery was. So I began to ask questions of the patients (the idea of the 15 year old came from me asking how someone could do 5 different, typically abused drugs and not ever become addicted, then hit #6, a relatively minor drug in the Abuse Community, and become an addict almost immediately, lose everything, wind up inpatient). To sum it up, most said something to the effect of "Once things bottomed out, once I hit bottom, once I had no other choice...I realized, or in tx I had an insight that (insert problem: social anxiety, depression, trying to hard) was a problem I never dealt with. I think that was when this all began." Often when they are finally clear minded, they are able to see/feel clues, then it all falls into place. So why aren't they better? It made me so sad when I saw: they were too busy doing everything not to use again, it left nothing to give to what they identified as the original (and still there) problem. So they wanted to become less depressed, or less socially anxious, but it really took all their psychic, physical, cognitive, emotional resources to just not use. And I worked in the field long term, and saw very few people dig down and find just a little more energy, just a little bit of hope, and through sheer determination, 'doing the work', changing their thinking patterns, they were able to be genuinely free at some point. But they were SO FEW, and its so understandable to me. We are pretty clear about how addicts often start, and Twersky is an incredible author/expert on how addicts think, maintaining their addictions, but I am not sure how many people realize that educating someone about those things, or watching that person figure it out, either way, they are so exhausted by their need, they simply can't do the work, so the problem stays, and they often relapse.