Systemic Addiction

When we hear the word “addiction”, we often imagine drug or alcohol abuse. While substance abuse disorders are absolutely examples of addiction, addiction is also a systemic pattern that appears in many different contexts and settings. Like other systemic patterns, once you learn how addiction truly works, you’ll see it everywhere.

Why the Pain

In his outstanding book In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction, Dr. Gabor Mate recounts his experiences working with heavily addicted patients in Vancouver’s Eastside neighborhood. This work led Dr. Mate to the following definition of addiction. It is:

· Seeking out something that causes pleasure in the short-term,

· Having that pleasure-seeking behavior cause problems in the long-term,

· And despite the consequences, being unable to stop.

There are two critically important insights in this definition. First, people become addicted to “something.” There is nothing about this cycle that is inherently limited to drugs and alcohol. There are plenty of pleasure-seeking activities that people can become addicted to — gambling, eating, working, shopping, watching pornography. According to Dr. Mate:

“Addiction is a continuum that extends from the disheveled street person using injectable drugs…