I actually fully agree with one of anon's points this time.
For some of us in Straight, we actually needed some type of intervention. Straight was an inappropriate intervention for anyone, whatever the problem, b/c it did more harm than good. Many of us needed help in our lives and our families, but that help just didn't exist. Some of us were just dumped in there.
On another point:
The "physical" definition of addiction is actually an oversimplification. Except if you consider emotions to be physical/neurochemical states, which you should. Yes, stimulating a mu-opioid receptor over and over causes a dependence to the mu-agonist. But this relationship is not the only type of addiction. Repeatedly chemically inducing the secretion of seratonin, melatonin, epinephrine, norepinephrine, cyclic monoamine phosphate, dopamine, autogenous benzodiazepines, autogenous endorphins and enkephalins, and others create new neural synaptic pathways in the brain that are the backbone of addcition.
IE-if you stimulate the chemicals enough, you create a central dependence on this stimulation. You may not necessarily vomit or die or shiver (physically) without it, but you most certainly can be addicted. Drugs stimulate the release of these chemicals very well, but other things do too: food, sex, etc.
Research shows that not all of us are prone to addiction. Certainly curiosity and the desire to experience ecstasy are not "defects of character" or symtoms of addiction. But seeking these things repeatedly (in the face of consequences) to the point where the synaptic pathways have been created is beyond "normal" behavior.
