Addiction

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Interesting topic. But:



I feel that this is already somewhat outdated.

Quite the contrary, I think. I was having this exact conversation with some German people on saturday (who expressed horror/amsuement at what passes for an ordinary Saturday night's consumption here), and my housemate (who doesn't know the city) independently commented on how less 'up for it' Paris was when he visited a tthe weekend (and he went to the good places).
 

Tentative Andy

I'm in the Meal Deal
Quite the contrary, I think. I was having this exact conversation with some German people on saturday (who expressed horror/amsuement at what passes for an ordinary Saturday night's consumption here), and my housemate (who doesn't know the city) independently commented on how less 'up for it' Paris was when he visited a tthe weekend (and he went to the good places).

Well if you're talking just about booze-fuelled madness then you might be right, that's been engrained in our culture for a very long time and isn't something that people are going to be able to let go of easily. Even with that though, and just based on what I've noticed of the behaviour of myself and my group of friends, I reckon people are starting to move into this pattern where, consciously or not, they save up for quite a while for a big night and then go on a total blow-out. That's in itself different from the routinised sort of thing where people were getting fucked up every weekend or even every of couple of nights, as you were talking about in the initial posts. Not sure if it's better or worse, but it is different.

In general though, I don't think you can overlook the fact that people just don't have much money right now. For levels of consumption to reach the kind of addictive, life-consuming levels that we are considering, the majority of the population must have either (a) large ammounts of disposable income or (b) ready access to credit which can stand in for actual wealth. Neither of these are widely available at the moment, so people are being forced to adopt a more basic, survivalist approach to their day to day lives. Around my neighbourhood, it seems that every business that is offering inessential and/or over-provided services is closing down - cafes, pubs, expensive shops etc. And this is far from a poor area by any means, I'm sure it's worse elsewhere.
Sorry if this is derailing the topic slightly, but I felt it was worth saying.
 
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zhao

there are no accidents
I've become increasingly interested of late in the concept of addiction, construed widely,where addiction is (roughly speaking) repeatedly acting in a way that only fulfils one's first-order desires rather than second- or third-order, and so results in repeatedly doing things that one doesn't really want to do (although, in one sense, one does 'want' to, of course).

So, aside from the extremely obvious (heroin, cigarettes, extreme alcohol intake), I woudl suggest that modern life bombards us with possible addictions, to the point that it confuses and disorients so many people from what they really want that it leads to mass low-level unhappiness/search for 'meaning'.

So these addictions would be connected to...the internet, 'casual' sex, facebook/email/twitter, TV, 'fun' as a catch-all, uninterrogable excuse-word for flight from life, TV, dieting, low-level 'going down the pub most nights' alcoholism, holidaying to 'escape' or 'chill out'....and, more controversially perhaps, romantic love as a panacea.

Also, who has written well on this kind of thing?

feeling this entire angle. in fact i've been meaning to make the EXACT SAME post for months now. i really think it would have come out almost identical.

the commodification of the most basic human/animal needs is only possible by taking away that which truly satisfies them, and replace with substitutes which only feel good for a short period, before more is needed.

and some of these "things which truly satisfy basic human needs" which are taken away from us are:

real intimacy
connectedness
extended family
community (knowing your neighbors for one thing)
sense of belonging
sense of connected to one's "work"
sense of genuine "play"

etc. etc.

i really think the nuclear family is at the bottom of this loss/lack, and is simply not a good unit/principle of social organization. children should not be brought up by only 2 adults, but by many of different ages. in our times children grow up with loneliness and lack of connection, and we think it's "natural"...

damn i can go on and on.
There's also more to be said on orders of desire... I would have thought that any definition of addiction which bases itself on that would have to go some way to explaining how those orders can be distinguished.

i second this. someone link to or articulate what these orders constitute?

_________________________________

also, i have emailed our long time friend, you know the one i was fighting with, and asked her to come back. sure would make this already interesting topic even more interesting... lets hope she does.
 

zhao

there are no accidents
I woudl suggest that modern life bombards us with possible addictions, to the point that it confuses and disorients so many people from what they really want that it leads to mass low-level unhappiness/search for 'meaning'.

i suppose i am, with the post above, moving the "unhappiness" before the addiction in the chain of causality.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
@ T Andy: Take your point, definitely, but I just see no evidence of that here in London (and I'm not hanging out in the posh parts generally). It seems that lots of other inessentials go before booze does. Maybe people are just drinking at home a bit/lot more, because there's no appreciable difference on nights out here. i think we just live in quite a nihilistic culture, and that's what I've always thought; and, like any good nihilist, a British person is adept at finding cheaper ways to get fucked when the going gets tough.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
i suppose i am, with the post above, moving the "unhappiness" before the addiction in the chain of causality.

Very true, good point. On your opther post, I couldn't agree more about (in particular) play and extended family. I would rather have had more adults in my life than just two (and obviously many people have one or none), and fully intend, if I have kids, to bring them up with other adults they know well. Problem is being in close proximity to close friends, for that to be possible (or finding new close friends where you 'settle').
 

zhao

there are no accidents
complete parallel with the books thread: reading "Drama of Gifted Child" right now and author is talking about the essential need for all children to be, gross simplification here, emotionally validated, and to be made to feel safe with the expression of their feelings.

if i may get a little therapy session on us:

i myself was always treated like a "project", which the initiators/owners want to become a success, but with zero regard to how this "project" might have felt, as a human child.

i believe this is the root of all my addictions/problems; but also it has become a strange drive: to become the best at whatever it is i do, and to win back the love and approval that i never had from a cheering crowd or happy clients or magazine articles...

or even approval of people on the internet.

edit: but of course the "drive" i speak of is just another addiction: success. which is, not coincidentally, but very much ironically, the only thing my parents cared about.
 
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luka

Well-known member
im horrified at the amount of time i spend on dissensus. its actually quite distressing. its the only thing i worry about. i dont watch tv or eat junk food or need sugar. i can smoke cigs every day for months and then stop without getting the slightest craving. drinks never been an issue. i smoked an 8th os skunk yesterday but i'll have a week or two off now. i hate not having control. not being able to decide.
burruoghs is definitely the one here, he breaks it all down so precisely its utterly awe inspiring. the same ruse. over and over. press the pleasure button! again! again!
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
I remember studying someone (possibly frankfurt)who talked about orders of desire in undergrad philosophy ages ago, and it made a lot of sense to me.

Edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Bullshit. I may well have to read this.

@luka - in terms of pure addiction, the internet is the only one I worry about. As with you, drink/cigarettes/drugs i can rationalise away and keep at manageable levels. And which Burroughs book do you recommend in this context?

@zhao - in terms of the success drive, have you spoken much (you may well have done) to people who have reached a certain pinnacle of their profession/interest area? From my experience, I suspect that such people are not that much happier than the rest of us - perfectionism is an awful cross to bear. (In fact, cult-ish UK critic Charlie Brooker wrote brilliantly on it once - how all the people he thought had achieved what he always wanted to, were in fact themselves plagued by the things they had not achieved, even in areas in which they had no expertise/training).
 
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zhao

there are no accidents
@zhao - in terms of the success drive, have you spoken much (you may well have done) to people who have reached a certain pinnacle of their profession/interest area? From my experience, I suspect that such people are not that much happier than the rest of us - perfectionism is an awful cross to bear. (In fact, cult-ish UK critic Charlie Brooker wrote brilliantly on it once - how all the people he thought had achieved what he always wanted to, were in fact themselves plagued by the things they had not achieved, even in areas in which they had no expertise/training).

"Drama of Gifted Child" talks about this: that as soon as effects of the drug of fame or money wears off, and like all drugs they always do, the addict becomes depressed and suffers from a loss of purpose and profound feeling of emptiness... not that i'm all that successful (yet!) but i experience a bit of this regularly...
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
"Drama of Gifted Child" talks about this: that as soon as effects of the drug of fame or money wears off, and like all drugs they always do, the addict becomes depressed and suffers from a loss of purpose and profound feeling of emptiness... not that i'm all that successful (yet!) but i experience a bit of this regularly...


which I suppose is why lots of artists repeat the mantra that (can't think of a less corny way to put it right now) it's all about the journey and not the result. There's no reason why fame would provide any more sustenance than the megabucks a, say, banker earns - ultimately most acclaim is transitory anyways.

and a lot of famous artists/stars do, in their less guarded moments, talk about trying to use fame to make up for some perceived/actual emotional deficit in earlier years. The 'centre of attention' thing is a less extreme version of the same drive.
 
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woops

is not like other people
depressing thread.
i'll mention david foster wallace's Infinite Jest though.
a book about addiction to drugs, sex, entertainment and all that fun stuff...
 
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