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.

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35 votes
1 answer
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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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31 votes
3 answers
3k views

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 ...
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12 votes
1 answer
762 views

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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105 votes
2 answers
19k views

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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14 votes
1 answer
1k views

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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9 votes
2 answers
5k views

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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7 votes
2 answers
1k views

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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6 votes
0 answers
592 views

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 ...
Matteo's user avatar
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5 votes
1 answer
626 views

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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