“If we found a way to remove addiction, would we be altering human behavior that we might find out later to be a core element of our humanity?”

This is a comment by Thaddeus Howze on the post “What Marijuana Means to Me“.

Thaddeus Howze said:

Given that we know so little about the capacities of the human brain, how addiction alters that function and what can be done once addiction has formed, we can presuppose drugs are to blame, we can blame our brain chemistry, we can blame lifestyle choices, there are a multitude of things which could be considered when a person becomes addicted to something. Is it nature, is it nurture, are we programmable by natural interactions with chemicals toward addictive behaviors? (The answer is D. All of the above.)

These are all questions we must all address in the course of our lives. Quiet as it’s kept most of us are addicted to something: salt, sugar, carbohydrates, fat; many of these addictions are biochemical processes which evolved to help us remember good food supplies and have now been taken over by companies seeking to “addict” us to their products. The one thing I do feel confident of is our ability to make an effort to understand addiction as a subset of natural tendencies. People become addicted to the internet, for example, because it reinforces our belief systems. Such reinforcement “feels good” to our brains and we seek it out. This “addiction” is also a natural response pre-programmed into us as a means of developing social interactions.

Unfortunately we don’t have just one hypothesis as to why some people become addicted and others don’t. Given the complexities involved we may NEVER definitively know how addictions form or why some people are vulnerable to addiction and others aren’t.

Removing the propensity for addiction may not even be possible. Or desirable. Who knows how much of what we are may be embedded in the codes that make addiction possible? How many desirable behaviors could be linked to it. If we were to discover a means of removing addiction, would we be altering human behavior in a way we might find later to be a core element of our humanity?

What we must try to do with people is to understand they may not know why their addicted only that we have to do everything we can to help them come to grips with it. Addiction is never overcome, it is only managed. That does not mean we shouldn’t strive for a better outcome wherever possible. I hope you and your family never give up on your brother. Loving him may be the only thing that will help HIM make the choice to change his lifestyle.

Only he can do the work. He has to want to first.

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