We're still learning about addiction - how it works, why it's just not that into some of us, but so crazy about others that it brings all its stuff and moves in on the first date and refuses to move out even when they stop being nice to it.
What we don't know about it would fill a squillion times more books than are filled with what we do know, with "know," in this case being defined as "what the people who wrote each book thought the year the book was published."
wrigleyvillain has thoughtfully provided us with a concise but accurate summation of the entire body of knowledge on the subject:
I'm not singling addiction out. The same can be said about most things that go on in the wrinklypink motherboards we carry around in our heads.
Like all other biological happenings, addiction itself is morally neutral. It has neither emotions, nor ability to reason. It has no values or beliefs, and it doesn't give a possumtoot about ours.
Some choices we make that result in addiction, as well as some events that occur as the result of addiction, may be variously at variance with prevailing cultural norms, even our own personal moralethical matrix of good-bad-wrong-right, but that's a whole different ology cluster, sparkling with drops of different decimal dewiness.
Stroll through a few smoking-cessation website forums, and you'll see a lot of earnest debate on the subject of addiction as it relates to cigarettes.
Another handy "all we know in a nutshell" snack pack:
The "strength" of physical addiction to nicotine, like the larger subject of how "difficult" it is to stop smoking, varies so much from smoker to smoker that we might as well argue about whether cerulean blue is a prettier color than fuchsia, a topic which is indeed the subject of lively debate in certain Xtreme Makeup Nerd circles, so apparently there is a subset of our species that enjoys doing stuff like that.
When nicotine gum and patches first became available, they were hailed as a godsend. Many smokers thought the war was over. Problem solved.
As time went on, however, some of those same smokers made the sad discovery that their jubilation may have been a bit premature.
Dutifully chewing their gum and wearing their patches, their continued "cravings" for cigarettes could no longer be neatly checked off as physical addiction to nicotine, because they were getting that.
We know there are certainly "other things." Lots of them. Whether they're addictive, put there expressly for the purpose of "backing up" or even "enhancing" the addictive aspect, is an intriguing question, but those discussions tend to end up being as much about marketing and business ethics as about anything of practical use to people who want to stop smoking cigarettes.
Where does "habit" end and "addiction" begin?
Because that's not a substance, whether you classify it as an addiction or not, even though it may look and waddle just like a duck, what we can agree on is that it's not the same kind of duck as a physical dependence on a chemical.
Or can we?
Let's play Time Travel! Imagine ourselves into a rosy point in the future where I've successfully phased out tobacco cigarettes and tapered my nicotine ingestion down to zero to boot.
I'm still sitting right here, though, happily holding and notsmoking my 0-nicotine electric hookah-doodle, at long last able to taste and smell that pineapple, and while I'm doing that, you hook me up to some fancy machinery and run all kinds of tests on my levels of this and that.
If you then prevent me from notsmoking a for while, and when I begin to feel so uncomfortable that I'm unable to apply myself to the task at hand or function normally because I want to hold and puff so bad, if you hook me back up to the fancy machinery and run all the same tests you did before, what will you find?
You'll almost certainly see some dramatic changes in things whose names I don't even know, all kinds of brain waves, and indicators that chemical activity is happening there that wasn't happening before.
See? It gets complicated. We can't accurately pinpoint a scientific setting on the dial, and say,
Maybe I'll ramble on aimlessly about that next time...
What we don't know about it would fill a squillion times more books than are filled with what we do know, with "know," in this case being defined as "what the people who wrote each book thought the year the book was published."
wrigleyvillain has thoughtfully provided us with a concise but accurate summation of the entire body of knowledge on the subject:
Here's a dirty little secret: Great strides are made every day in our quest to learn more about the immensity of our ignorance.
I'm not singling addiction out. The same can be said about most things that go on in the wrinklypink motherboards we carry around in our heads.
Like all other biological happenings, addiction itself is morally neutral. It has neither emotions, nor ability to reason. It has no values or beliefs, and it doesn't give a possumtoot about ours.
Some choices we make that result in addiction, as well as some events that occur as the result of addiction, may be variously at variance with prevailing cultural norms, even our own personal moralethical matrix of good-bad-wrong-right, but that's a whole different ology cluster, sparkling with drops of different decimal dewiness.
Stroll through a few smoking-cessation website forums, and you'll see a lot of earnest debate on the subject of addiction as it relates to cigarettes.
Another handy "all we know in a nutshell" snack pack:
An increasing number of smokers have begun to realize that it's not a question that begins and ends with nicotine, though the perky little alkaloid continues to be a popular topic with ponderers and holders-forth alike.
The "strength" of physical addiction to nicotine, like the larger subject of how "difficult" it is to stop smoking, varies so much from smoker to smoker that we might as well argue about whether cerulean blue is a prettier color than fuchsia, a topic which is indeed the subject of lively debate in certain Xtreme Makeup Nerd circles, so apparently there is a subset of our species that enjoys doing stuff like that.
When nicotine gum and patches first became available, they were hailed as a godsend. Many smokers thought the war was over. Problem solved.
As time went on, however, some of those same smokers made the sad discovery that their jubilation may have been a bit premature.
Dutifully chewing their gum and wearing their patches, their continued "cravings" for cigarettes could no longer be neatly checked off as physical addiction to nicotine, because they were getting that.
Are there other things, addictive things, in commercial cigarettes besides nicotine? Do they contain Stealth Cheeseburger Neutrons?
We know there are certainly "other things." Lots of them. Whether they're addictive, put there expressly for the purpose of "backing up" or even "enhancing" the addictive aspect, is an intriguing question, but those discussions tend to end up being as much about marketing and business ethics as about anything of practical use to people who want to stop smoking cigarettes.
Where does "habit" end and "addiction" begin?
I don't know about you, but my hand sure is used to holding a cigarette, and puffing on it.
Because that's not a substance, whether you classify it as an addiction or not, even though it may look and waddle just like a duck, what we can agree on is that it's not the same kind of duck as a physical dependence on a chemical.
Or can we?
Let's play Time Travel! Imagine ourselves into a rosy point in the future where I've successfully phased out tobacco cigarettes and tapered my nicotine ingestion down to zero to boot.
I'm still sitting right here, though, happily holding and notsmoking my 0-nicotine electric hookah-doodle, at long last able to taste and smell that pineapple, and while I'm doing that, you hook me up to some fancy machinery and run all kinds of tests on my levels of this and that.
If you then prevent me from notsmoking a for while, and when I begin to feel so uncomfortable that I'm unable to apply myself to the task at hand or function normally because I want to hold and puff so bad, if you hook me back up to the fancy machinery and run all the same tests you did before, what will you find?
You'll almost certainly see some dramatic changes in things whose names I don't even know, all kinds of brain waves, and indicators that chemical activity is happening there that wasn't happening before.
See? It gets complicated. We can't accurately pinpoint a scientific setting on the dial, and say,
or
Well, I mean, sure, we can go there if we want to, and if we do, the first thing we'll see is a big sign that says "Welcome to the Land of Belief."
Maybe I'll ramble on aimlessly about that next time...
