HUMAN BEHAVIORS AND ADDICTIONS

 One of the most important behaviors of human is falling under the control of the habit of doing something without ability to stop, this habit can grow stronger and stronger within the mind and the body to become an addiction, where a person can’t exercise his/er self-control to overcome such habit.

 

Definition of addiction

In general, addiction is a powerful habit which occupies the mind and body, dismantles the ability of self-control, and directs the person to do specific action or actions to satisfy such addiction.

Types of addiction

There are many types of addiction which may include severe laziness, workaholic, shopping, internet, gambling, sex, smoking, drug, alcoholic, and others.

In the case of shopping addiction, some people just go the stores to buy things they don’t even need or want, just shopping, several years back there was a TV program showing a lady who was very addicted to shopping, she just go everyday to buy things, she couldn’t stop.

In the case of internet addiction, it is now a known fact that many people are addicted to internet & video games, they spend most of their time playing, no work or study, just playing.   

Sources of addiction

The source of addiction differs from one type of addiction to another, but most of them involve lack of self-control.

Let’s analyze together one type of addiction such as cigarette smoking to give an idea about the sources which may contributed to the addiction of smoking

1-     Movies and TV stars

As young people see their favored movie and TV stars smoking and looking  attractive and sexy with the cigarette in their hands and how good they look blowing away the smoke, they fall in love with smoking, why not and their favored people are doing it, the child wants to be like the movie star

2-     Peers’ pressure

Again a young person among a group of friends or school mates, everyone is smoking, why not to smoke, let’s share it

3-     Parents and family members

Father, mother, older brother or sister are smoking, so, the young person wants to grow up, the smoking will start

In addition, lack of guidance, and inability to understand the danger of smoking, along with the lack of self-control and confidence, all contributed to the starting point of initiating the habit of smoking, which gradually became an addiction of smoking     

Effects of addiction

The addiction causes a lot of physical and mental health, financial and social problems of the human life. The severity of effect will vary from one addiction to another, but all of them will do harm to the individual and the society  

Treatment

The type of addiction will determine what kind of treatment should be used, some addiction may causes a drug dependency which will need a medical interference and rehabilitation treatments, others may need building up the self-confidence and the ability of the mind to control their actions.    

Prevention

1-     Parents should do their best to provide a free addiction environment for their young children

2-     Empower the self-confidence, self-control of the children and strengthen their personalities to enable them to make their own decisions based on what is good for them not on what others do.   

3-     Teach the children in an early age about the harmful effects of any bad habits

4-     Create trust and respect between the parents and the children to make it easier to initiate a discussion about various issues including addiction

5-     Schools and the media should get involved by showing how any addiction may harm the individual and the society

6-     The most effective method is by reaching the mind of people, analyze the reasons for starting such habit, dismantle the effect of those reasons, empower self-confidence and self-control, and make the person become fully convinced that there is no need to continue in such addiction. 

  

Whatever the type of addiction is, it will harm the individual, his/er family and the whole society as well. The simplest addiction should not be ignored, because it shows a lack of self-control which can initiate other more dangerous addiction.

It’s recommended that any individual who feels doing something beyond his/er control, to seek help before it becomes an addiction.

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