opinion | inside the mind of an addict

Addictions begin when people start using drugs for medical or recreational reasons, then take extra doses of substances they knew were dangerous. In his 1947 book, “Opiate Addictions,” Indiana University sociologist Alfred Lindsmith found that human users become addicts when they learn that their painful withdrawal symptoms are the result of not having the drug in their bodies.

Apes experience physical withdrawal symptoms like humans, but they do not respond with a frantic search for an additional “cured” characteristic of human addictions. Why not? Because apes do not have brains capable of making a connection between their suffering and the absence of medicine. Although the brain of animals is very similar to that of humans, animals are not able to think about their pain and its causes. Lindsmith believed that healing the addiction required an intellectual understanding of what was causing the pain of withdrawal. As a result, he probably would not apply the term “addiction” to a broader category of compulsive behavior, such as gambling, since the pain of withdrawal is only psychological.

Years later, while studying the way children learn, the iconic Stanford social psychologist Albert Bandura invented the concept of “self-reinforcement”. Bandura’s research explained how the mind’s first experience with something produces a second desire.

Whatever the first experience, the human mind can rehearse it in memory, recall it, and thus make the second experience more appealing. Addicted gamblers experience pain when they are tempted to gamble – but this is purely psychological. His ideas about the pleasure of gambling are similar to the temptations of a drug addict.

The concept of self-reinforcement suggests how a first experience with drugs, sex, cigarettes, or alcohol can lead to a second. It takes the memory of the experience as being at least partially enjoyable. Self-reinforcement does not make the second experience inevitable, but it is necessary for the addiction to occur. Self-reinforcement also reinforces socially accepted habits that are not usually considered addictions. You can become an old novel reader by finding your first reading experience enjoyable.

Individual experiments with socially disapproved behavior do not always begin in isolation, although they all need to be thought through before they are possible. Teens drinking, smoking, or drug abuse may become conspicuous as friends talk about or participate in these activities before puberty. If a guy sees his friends taking drugs, and they have a bright but happy look in their eyes, he can’t avoid jumping to the conclusion that drug use is sometimes pleasurable. If she is offered a beer that others are already consuming, the social influence fuels her curiosity.

The puzzle is not why the unusual behavior is triggered, but why such behavior, once thought to be doable, is more often than not. One sociological explanation is that the rejection resulting from traditional cultural and social norms works successfully against the rejected activities most of the time. Nevertheless, subcultures may still encourage activities that are generally restricted. The association with disapproved behavior may therefore arise not only because of individual actors but also because of the influence of subcultural groups.

Addiction is different from a disease like covid. Since human addictive behavior must be self-reinforcing to be fully established, it is potentially easier to overcome than biological infections. Ultimately, addictions are temptations that have been satisfied and remembered. They will never be completely forgotten. But people, unlike apes, resist the temptations they want to resist.

Mr. Toby is an Honorary Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University.