coming up empty....

today! finding it hard to think of something worth saying...perhaps that's because i have spent most of the day researching addiction

i'm doing an assignment on whether or not addiction is physiological or psychological - which sounds easy right...but then again, reading about the various drug addictions and interventions (medical/psychological speak) has left me feeling flat...really really flat

i guess it's made me realise (which is a good thing) that i'm pretty fortunate, and don't get me wrong, i've had times in my life when i'm sure i've had something like an addiction (be it to alcohol, shopping, food etc) but i guess when i read the DSM IV definition i actually don't really fit the bill..

again, this is not a bad thing! but as i've been doing my research today, there does seem to be plenty of evidence that addictions can form if you a) have a genetic predisposition to it or b) don't progress well through the various development stages of childhood, and in particular, they talk about the impact that 'attachment' can have on addiction forming behaviour...now there are other reasons that people form addictions (psychosocial, behavioural, physical) and i'm not really talking about behavioural addictions, but rather drug/alcohol, but i guess it leaves me feeling sad that some people, through possibly no fault of their own, may end up with some sort of addiction...

and then of course there is the flipside to that argument and one where i actually do believe that we are all (to greater or lesser extent) in control of our destiny - so now the question is, given two people with similar genetic pre-disposition (perhaps they can, for the sake of argument, be sisters) and with similar attachment anxiety (ie the same experience as children re the relationship with their parents), how is it that one is an alcoholic and the other is not?

makes me wonder what else is at work here? what other factors influence the choices we make?

interesting question for someone who had nothing to stay at the start, don't you think???