We are all pleasure seekers. There are pleasure centers located within the human brain, which, when activated, are associated with feelings of euphoria. This is part of the daily cycle we all experience. During the day we go through naturally occurring periods when we feel comfortable, secure, happy, and fulfilled – and this is followed by periods when more negative feelings are aroused (anxiety, insecurity, discomfort). We humans are highly reinforced by positive feelings of pleasure. We want to experience euphoria again and again. Fortunately, that’s not all there is to life.

Addictive behavior can be seen as an attempt to control our daily cycles by maximizing pleasurable feelings and decreasing the frequency of negative feelings. At first we may even succeed for a while in doing this, but our basic natures have a way of catching up with us. We probably need our down phases of the daily cycle as much as we need the more positive ones – if for no other reason than that the negative parts of the cycle help us appreciate the positive ones even more. Our negative experiences strengthen us and help us to become survivors. They assist us in learning wisdom and integrity. There are few things in nature which are not cyclical. Attempts to find constant pleasure through addictive behavior are always futile. The negative phase always revisits us and brings balance back into our lives. There is no escaping our basic nature. And there is no escaping the escalating and debilitating results of the addictive process.

Addiction is an uncontrolled search for gratification through a relationship with an substance or activity to the exclusion of other more diverse life experiences. The substance or activity with which the addict forms a relationship varies with each person. Common sources of addiction are alcohol, tobacco, illegal drugs, prescription medication, sex, love, food, shopping (and shoplifting), gambling, television, computers, and work.

The addictive quest for pleasure has some defining characteristics. Many addictions aim to increase arousal. This is the all-powerful feeling that might come from cocaine, amphetamines, the first few drinks of alcohol, shoplifting, sexual acting out or gambling. This omnipotent feeling, however, is eventually undermined when the addict realizes that a dependency has been formed. A feeling of fear replaces the feeling of being all powerful – fear of losing the source of addiction and fear that others will find out how powerless the person actually is. Negative experiences always accompany the positive feelings the addict is seeking.

Other addictions aim to increase satiation. This is the feeling of happiness and fulfillment that might be achieved through the use of heroin, marijuana, tranquilizers, pain medication, watching TV, or overeating. The feeling of satiation serves to camouflage a person’s underlying pain. Again, however, negative feelings always show themselves. The person who strives for satiation not only re-experiences the underlying pain when the feeling of satiation wears off, but also experiences the grief accompanied by the loss of the satiation high. Satiation addicts must increase the dosage of the drug or the frequency of the addictive acting out behavior to cover up their original pain. The quest for a satiation high takes over the person’s life until, ultimately, the pain returns in the form of despair.

Note that satiation reflects our quest for pleasure while arousal exemplifies our quest for power. Pleasure and power are two of our most primitive behaviors and are experienced by children in the earliest years of life when the range of experiences is focused largely on forming one’s sense of self. Adulthood brings us beyond these simple levels of experience into a more complex, diverse and meaningful way of relating to the world. When we move past pleasure and power, we are able to form intimate relationships with other adults, to contribute to society, to understand our responsibilities to others, and to incorporate moral convictions into our actions. Addictive behavior prevents us from achieving these more complex levels of behavior found in adulthood.

Working Through Life’s Challenges...

We all face problems, stressors and anxieties in our everyday lives. This is a fundamental part of the human condition, and there is no escaping this basic truth. Indeed, challenges help us to grow. The normal process is to perceive a problem and then bring our emotional and thinking abilities into play in order to solve the problem. We can draw on our own legacy of experiences, and we can find support from our life partners, friends, the community, society’s body of knowledge, and spiritual sources. Faced with a problem, we experience some anxiety – and this uncomfortable feeling motivates us to solve the problem in order to find our balance again. In the process, we become more flexible and more adept at dealing with problems in the future. As we mature, we discover that problems are not insurmountable – and we get better at problem-solving.

Consider, however, the addictive way of dealing with problems. The addict, too, faces life’s challenges. Rather than easing the anxieties associated with a problem by drawing on a diversity of healthy resources for a solution, the addict knows that at the end of the day there is always the alcohol, the drug, the food, the gambling, the sexual outlet, the work, any addictive substance or activity which will ease the anxiety. Thus, the problems are never solved in the real world, and the addict instead develops the illusion that the problem has been solved. The pain is gone and there is no perceived need to work on solving the real problems.

Unfortunately, it is the children, the partner, the family and friends of the addict who must suffer. Their needs for comfort, nurturance and safety are compromised, since the addict’s primary relationship is not with them, but with the addictive substance. Instead of finding true meaning in life, the addict pursues an illusory and primitive quest for the feeling of pleasure and power over life’s challenges – and it is those who truly matter in the addict’s life who suffer greatly.