Questions tagged [addiction]
Continued physical or psychological dependence on a substance or behavior despite negative or even life-threatening physical or societal consequences. Can also refer to any of the many and varied treatments available for addiction, any of the many and varied explanations for the proposed mechanisms behind addictive behavior, or other social, physical, political, moral, ethical, medical, religious, and legal issues surrounding addiction and its treatment.
21 questions
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Is replacing a bad habit with a good one more effective than stopping the bad habit alone?
Replacing bad habits with good ones is commonplace advice. However, I have seen this claim repeated on reputable sites, suggesting that there is evidence behind it, but no evidence is provided:
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Do video games lead to increased depression, anxiety and aggression?
Nicholas Kardaras is a addiction expert who was a professor at Stony Brook Medicine. In his 2016 NY Post article he claims that screen time is extremely harmful to children. The article intermingles ...
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Did 20% of US soldiers in Vietnam use heroin, 95% of whom quit afterwards?
The following claims were made around 04:50 of this TED talk by Johann Hari:
20 percent of all American troops were using loads of heroin, and if you look at the news reports from the time, they ...
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Is addiction a disease?
In the DVD Pleasure Unwoven, Dr Kevin McCauley, a medical doctor, claims that addiction is a disease.
In the video he argues against the choice model, and explains the neuroscience of addiction
I ...
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Does porn destroy dopamine receptors?
Kevin Majeres, a psychiatrist claims that porn destroys dopamine receptors. A quote from his website:
This is why pornography causes a vicious circle. When someone views
pornography, he gets ...
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Does porn addiction exist and if it does, can a prepubescent be diagnosed with it? [duplicate]
According to this answer from 3 years ago, it was uncertain whether porn addiction existed:
As with many behavioral addictions, including sex addiction, that would be a broader category, pornography ...
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Is the correlation in betwen childhood trauma and addiction stronger than the correlation in between diabetes and obesity?
I came across this image on the internet, which makes the claim, "There is a stronger link between childhood trauma and addiction, than there is between obesity and diabetes. Two thirds of addicts ...
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Is it fair to say that "everything we think we know about addiction is incorrect"? [closed]
A popular channel on YouTube that I previously held in high regard recently published a video, where several surprising claims are made. I think I can sum the claims up as follows:
Addictive ...
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Does giving a drug to a former addict cause reestablishment of chemical dependence?
Joel Spitzer, an anti-smoking counsellor, claimed on whyquit.com that there is a law of addiction which is:
The law of physiological addiction states administration of a drug to an addict will ...
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Can the special sound frequency make addiction? [duplicate]
Supposedly, for certain music track are used any frequencies that the human ear can not hear , but the brain can. And this the frequencies create pleasant feelings, which is why more people choose a ...
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Is pornography addictive?
I saw the Gary Wilson's talk, The Great Porn Experiment, which states that pornography causes arousal addiction which in turn is supposed to have a lot of negative effects like:
ADHD
Social anxiety
...
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Can you get addicted to cheese?
In the documentary "Super Size Me" an interviewee of Morgan Spurlock says:
If you look at the menu at a fast food restaurant, they use all of the addicting
components.
They'll take a slab of ...
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Drug addiction: "You can only help if the person wants to be helped"
"A drug addict can only be helped if he/she wants to be helped." - is a common advice/statement.
Have there been any studies/research which either confirms or rejects this statement?
Looking at for ...
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Are fish addictive to cats?
Today I found an interesting article that claims that feeding fish to cat is not a good idea:
Fish should be avoided, except for occasional use, for many reasons including: heavy metal ...
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Do people smoke only due to psychological reasons?
Many smokers have told me that smoking gives them immense pleasure - that they let go of all their worries when they smoke a cigarette. Their descriptions of the sensations produced are quite similar ...
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Can Marijuana use result in addiction?
From the drugabuse.gov website:
Long-term marijuana use can lead to addiction; that is, people have
difficulty controlling their drug use and cannot stop even though it
interferes with many ...
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Are cigarettes addictive?
At least one person has published alleged doubts about whether cigarettes are addictive, with their doubt/claim being supposedly backed by at least one scientific study.
Is this a reasonable question ...
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Does smoking under three cigarettes a day prevent addiction?
I heard that if you smoke at most three cigarettes a day you don't get addicted to smoking. A similar idea was introduced in a How I Met Your Mother episode. Is this true?
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Is Alcoholics Anonymous effective?
In my research I've found statistics for spontaneous remission from addiction: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10976668. The statistics for A.A. seem to be a little more difficult to find/interpret....
user776
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Does addictive behavior exist?
There are widespread claims that you can get addicted to video games, shopping, internet, whatever, even sex. Not merely "like it very much", but addicted, as in addicted to alcohol.
According to ...
user288
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Are there any viable shortcuts to stop smoking?
A variety of treatments are purportedly available to aid in quitting smoking.
What are effective, scientifically proven ways to quit smoking?
In particular, is any treatment significantly better ...
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