But it sure makes a lot of sense...

The Huffington Post

[CANDC]

some excerpts

But in the 1970s, a professor of Psychology in Vancouver called Bruce Alexander noticed something odd about this experiment. The rat is put in the cage all alone. It has nothing to do but take the drugs. What would happen, he wondered, if we tried this differently? So Professor Alexander built Rat Park. It is a lush cage where the rats would have colored balls and the best rat-food and tunnels to scamper down and plenty of friends: everything a rat about town could want. What, Alexander wanted to know, will happen then?

In Rat Park, all the rats obviously tried both water bottles, because they didn't know what was in them. But what happened next was startling.

The rats with good lives didn't like the drugged water. They mostly shunned it, consuming less than a quarter of the drugs the isolated rats used. None of them died. While all the rats who were alone and unhappy became heavy users, none of the rats who had a happy environment did.

If you still believe -- as I used to -- that addiction is caused by chemical hooks, this makes no sense. But if you believe Bruce Alexander's theory, the picture falls into place. The street-addict is like the rats in the first cage, isolated, alone, with only one source of solace to turn to. The medical patient is like the rats in the second cage. She is going home to a life where she is surrounded by the people she loves. The drug is the same, but the environment is different.

This gives us an insight that goes much deeper than the need to understand addicts. Professor Peter Cohen argues that human beings have a deep need to bond and form connections. It's how we get our satisfaction. If we can't connect with each other, we will connect with anything we can find -- the whirr of a roulette wheel or the prick of a syringe. He says we should stop talking about 'addiction' altogether, and instead call it 'bonding.' A heroin addict has bonded with heroin because she couldn't bond as fully with anything else.[/QUOTE]

So the opposite of addiction is not sobriety. It is human connection.

[Willcat]

Psychological Causes of Addiction - Addictions

I'm with the scientific community with regards to addiction recovery. Therapies like CBT & DBT helped me move past addiction. Knowing that I can effect substantial changes in my life, using life skill building practices has proved vast positive mood changes.

To go from a street living gutter drug slave. Wearing filthily clothing, no bed or bath to occasion, hungry, cold, abandon, destitute, hopeless, "to a person that embraces life" abiding secular recovery practices is as miraculous of the holiest of the heap Gods'.

As the 12 Steps are a major social model.
What is clear to me that change, positive change occurs outside the the 12 step concept constantly and profoundly. Like myself.

[Mygrandjourney]

Many addicts have found themselves lacking connections precisely because of the outcomes of their disease, however.

To go from a street living gutter drug slave. Wearing filthily clothing, no bed or bath to occasion, hungry, cold, abandon, destitute, hopeless, "to a person that embraces life" abiding secular recovery practices is as miraculous of the holiest of the heap Gods'.

For better or for worse; we become whatever in life we embrace.

Many addicts have found themselves lacking connections precisely because of the outcomes of their disease, however.

Evidence suggests that the lack of healthy connections is what causes people to become addicted in the first place.

The point is: Emotionally healthy people do not engage in destructive behavior.
We have the power to heal ourselves if, and only if, we understand ourselves.