Addiction | Steven Laviolette | TEDxWesternU
Here Steven Laviolette speaks about the story of addiction, and speaks of it as an aspect of the human condition that effects most people – either directly or indirectly. You maybe aware of your own addictive nature or you maybe effected my the addictive behaviour and consequences of another, and like me you may have experienced both. Addiction is around us and in us in many forms and guises. We may not be as obvisouly addiction as the drug abuser or the alcoholic – but we have similiar if less destructive habits and addictions running the show more than we may like to acknowldge or admitt.
How we understand addiction is vital in relation to how effective the treatment of addiction is.
To help us search through our understanding of addiction he asks questions like:-
Do we see it as a choice? A Moral failing? A personality flaw? Beyond our control? A permanent state – “once and addict – always an addict” or in the more recent past; do we understand in terms of disease?
He as neuroscientist he brings this understanding to it and suggests that it may be best understood in terms of misinformed pain pleasure system. I find this helpful and insightful and very hopeful and optomist for future treatments of addiction.
I welcome your thoughts and experiences – feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below or on facebook.
