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The analogy to breathing is a bad one, because breathing air is not an addiction, it is a physical need. If you stop breathing, you die. If you stop reading HN
by sendos 16y ago
The analogy to breathing is a bad one, because breathing air is not an addiction, it is a physical need. If you stop breathing, you die. If you stop reading HN or Reddit or Facebook, you don't die.
So, saying that an addiction is about things you "don't want to want" makes sense if you add the caveat that it applies to things you don't need to survive as a human being.
EDIT: I should add that another way in which the breathing analogy fails is that for addictions, usually we refer to things that you do so much that it adversely impacts your everyday life in the sense it puts you in danger losing your job, your spouse, your friends, etc, or even if you don't lose them, you reduce your productivity and thus your overall chance at success in life. Even though we need to breathe every second, no one has lost their job or friends because they "breathed too much".
- jacquesm 16y agoIf you've ever seen someone go 'cold-turkey' then you realise that plenty of additions have reached the status of 'physical need'. In fact, at a molecular level in the brain almost all addictive substances and activities have a physical component. I once read a book about addiction, the title was 'from chocolate to heroin' or something to that effect. It listed an absolutely amazing number of substances that you can develop an addiction to. Oxygen wasn't one of those, but I get the point the OP tries to make, which is that there is physical discomfort associated with not being able to satisfy your cravings. Now in the case of Oxygen that 'discomfort' will lead to your rapid expiry, a thing that in the case of most - but not all - substances you can be addicted to will not occur. But there are addictions that will make you very ill indeed if you try to break your dependency bonds too quickly.
- cabalamat 16y ago> In fact, at a molecular level in the brain almost all addictive substances and activities have a physical component. Surely you could remove the "almost" from this sentence and it still be right. ALL deliberate behaviours are caused by brain activity, and therefore have physical components because the brain is a physical object.
- jacquesm 16y agoYes, you're right.
- ollysb 16y agoThere's a difference between a physical response to withdrawal and a physical requirement to live. As far as I'm aware there aren't any addictions that change your physiology to the degree that you have a permanent dependency (would be fascinated to know if there are any though).
- jacquesm 16y agoYes, going 'gold turkey' can induce a heart attack which in turn can cause you to die: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Does_cold_turkey_withdrawal_from_narcotics_ever_in_people_with_exceptionally_poor_health_actually_lead_to_death http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Does_cold_turkey_withdrawal_from_n... The 'workaround' is to reduce drug consumption slowly or to use a surrogate (in the case of heroin methadone is usually used).
- sendos 16y agoI never claimed there was no physical component to addictions or that withdrawal symptoms can't be very bad. It's just that it is possible to end all existing addictions (alcohol, drugs, Facebook, etc) and still live, but no one can end the "addiction" to oxygen and still live. That's why it's unreasonable to compare breathing to addiction.