9 votes
Accepted

Can music be addictive?

According to the article "Addiction to Music Has Biochemical Basis" on Softpedia News by Tudor Vieru, which reports on findings by Robert Zatorre and Valorie Salimpoor (Salimpoor & ...
Yvonne Liew's user avatar
7 votes
Accepted

Are there any types of good addiction

As I pointed out in Technical term for "hidden addictions", the term addiction is defined as not having control over doing, taking or using something to the point where it could be harmful ...
Chris Rogers's user avatar
  • 12.2k
6 votes

Is it possible to become addicted to sleep deprivation?

Possibly of interest: 2011 study from Berkeley, published in the Journal of Neuroscience: Pulling an all-nighter can bring on euphoria and risky behavior: https://news.berkeley.edu/2011/03/22/pulling-...
Claire Gilmore's user avatar
6 votes

Is "Emotional Pain Addiction" real?

There are 2 phenomena that you could be referring to here. One is negativity addiction, and the other is general negativism. While psychoanalysis is considered by some here to be pseudoscientific, ...
Chris Rogers's user avatar
  • 12.2k
5 votes

Brain and General Sections

It depends on the type of addictive substances (i.e., opioid, amphetamine, LSD, etc). Different types bind to different sets of receptors of neurotransmitters (i.e., dopamine, serotonin, GABA, etc.) ...
user287279's user avatar
  • 1,825
5 votes

How addictive is Heroine?

"The United Nations World Drug Report 2013 estimated that approximately 16.5 million people worldwide aged 15 or older used heroin or opium. Of these users, approximately 23% are estimated to develop ...
steveLangsford's user avatar
5 votes
Accepted

Why do people get addicted to things like TV, Facebook, games?

At least two phenomenons can be found here : The drive to wath the TV series is higher than the drive to study. The TV series are structured in such a way to attract and hook viewers. I will try to ...
DesignerAnalyst's user avatar
5 votes
Accepted

Can someone be healed from a long-held addiction or compulsive disorder in an instant and without therapy due to a dramatic spiritual experience?

The answer to this question is indeed: We don't know - as @ChrisRogers correctly explained. However, let me mention some related research that may help shed some light on the question. Previous ...
Arnon Weinberg's user avatar
  • 19.6k
5 votes

Why are there substances that give positive psychological effects but become unhealthy addictions?

Short answer The brain with its reward centers did not evolve with purified plant-based stimulants (nicotine, cocaine) or synthetic variants ((meth)amphetamine and other designer drugs) around. ...
AliceD's user avatar
  • 20.6k
4 votes

Is there a technical term for someone being burnt out on something they enjoy?

There is no specific term for this entire phenomenon because there is more than one psychological theory playing a role in your overindulgence or "binge". Fatigue from repetitiveness, durability bias, ...
Gepard's user avatar
  • 66
4 votes
Accepted

Why is Internet Addiction Disorder not listed in the DSM-5 manual?

There's debate over whether Internet addiction is it's own disorder or a symptom of an underlying psychosis. See this essay by the first man to publish the term: https://theconversation.com/is-...
Nir Eyal's user avatar
4 votes
Accepted

Is there a formal name for the compulsive and recurrent urges to pick one's nose in order to remove perceived imperfections?

Excoriation disorder (ED) formerly known as dermatillomania, and more popularly as Skin Picking Disorder (SPD): a mental disorder characterized by the repeated urge to pick at one's own skin, ...
the gods from engineering's user avatar
3 votes

Brain and General Sections

Whereabouts in the brain gets triggered/switched on when an addictive substance is ingested/taken. Irrespective of their particular pharmacology, the one thing that all drugs of addiction have in ...
faustus's user avatar
  • 1,247
3 votes
Accepted

Why does an addict always remain one?

Short answer, which is one of many: One interesting hypothesis about this is the "reward hijacking" model. Essentially, when somebody becomes addicted their reward circuits become hypersensitive to ...
gabiwab's user avatar
  • 46
3 votes

How addictive is Heroine?

Short answer Addicition is defined as: repeated involvement with a substance or activity, despite the substantial harm it now causes, because that involvement was (and may continue to be) pleasurable ...
AliceD's user avatar
  • 20.6k
3 votes

Long term cocaine use and personality change - Scientific references?

I couldn't find a longitudinal study on this, which would be direct evidence, but it seems plausible due to circumstantial evidence: Just taking a dose to lowers the perception of facial sadness (...
the gods from engineering's user avatar
3 votes

To what extent is control over when a substance is used relevant to addiction?

This is a tough question to answer definitively. I won't address heroin specifically but rather drugs of abuse more generally since a lot of the addictive patterns are the same and heroin is less ...
Bryan Krause's user avatar
  • 7,376
3 votes

Best meditation techniques to overcome Behavioral Addictions?

Several years ago, I was unsuccessfully searching for a study that evaluates the efficacy of many different interventions in the context of addictions. However, I did find a cognitive behavioral ...
Wuschelbeutel Kartoffelhuhn's user avatar
3 votes

Childhood IQ and pattern of drug use in adulthood

I don't know how reproducible those findings are, but this study (Schretlen, van der Hulst, Pearlson, & Gordon, 2010) found a moderate association between fluid intelligence and openness to ...
Giovani Granzotto's user avatar
3 votes

Childhood IQ and pattern of drug use in adulthood

First, thank you bringing that White et al. (2009) paper to my attention -- I am currently accumulating a whole bunch of cohort studies focusing on cognitive epidemiology, or health outcomes ...
faustus's user avatar
  • 1,247
3 votes
Accepted

Is tianeptine addictive?

The internet is flooded with anecdotal reports of 'Tian' relating to the drug's addictive potential after recreational use, for example here, here and here. Often, though, these reports come from ...
AliceD's user avatar
  • 20.6k
3 votes
Accepted

Can one become addicted to learning?

Any form of excessive secretion of dopamine, can not be good, be it drugs, learning, sex etc. workaholism is a form learning addiction, workaholism is said to be as an addiction very similar to ...
Nai chan's user avatar
  • 169
3 votes

Can someone be healed from a long-held addiction or compulsive disorder in an instant and without therapy due to a dramatic spiritual experience?

I haven't got half an hour at the moment to sit and watch this video at the moment, but there can be many reasons someone with religious convictions may be able to abstain from addictive behaviours. ...
Chris Rogers's user avatar
  • 12.2k
3 votes
Accepted

Are there cases of drug addict that "forget" their addiction after some brain damages?

I'm not aware of truly "forgetting" as in amnesia, but there have been reports that brain damage can disrupt the behavioral pattern of addiction which I think qualifies as what you describe ...
Bryan Krause's user avatar
  • 7,376
3 votes

Dopaminergic basis for gambling addiction

Gambling disorder (GD) as a type of behavioral addictions has different mechanism compared with neuroadaptive addictions caused by substance use disorder (SUD). Wikipedia source on operant ...
cinch's user avatar
  • 297
3 votes
Accepted

Recovery program alternatives to the 12-step program

Alternatives to the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) Twelve-Step Program While AA is certainly a leading (and, in the US, the dominant) self-help recovery program for alcoholism and is noted for its ...
Robert Columbia's user avatar
2 votes

Is it possible to become addicted to sleep deprivation?

"The more you do something (whether you particularly "enjoy" it or not) the more likely you are to build it up as a habit" This simply is not the case. "So in this regard, ...
Mark Choi's user avatar
2 votes
Accepted

Comparison of Aversion Therapy to other interventions for nail-biting

One of the techniques used for nail-biting is the (training) habit-reversal: Developed by Nathan H. Azrin and R. Gregory Nunn (1987) focused on the treatment of nervous habits (although in general, ...
hexadecimal's user avatar
  • 1,069
2 votes
Accepted

Can you get addicted from using topical or local anaesthetics to ease pain?

Short answer Basing an answer strictly on the DSM-V criteria, local anesthetics may, purely hypothetically, be associated with a mild form of addiction. But realistically, I think it is unlikely that ...
AliceD's user avatar
  • 20.6k
2 votes
Accepted

Beyond CBT and MBI, what are effective behavioral interventions for modern lifestyle addictions during their engagement?

Alas there's not much in the way of interventions that can curb impulsivity on the spot. Quoting from a somewhat dated but widely cited review, Moeller et al., 2001: Of the operant therapies used ...
the gods from engineering's user avatar

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