We have already gone through the first 5 weeks of the new year, and the time appears suitable for a revision of how well we have done so far with keeping up with our new year’s resolutions.
Have we really broken up with some of our harmful addictions – like smoking, excessive drinking, junk food or even relations with “unsuitable” people who all do us more bad than good?
Why does it take so less to build a bad habit or an unhealthy behaviour or relationship, but it seems quite impossible to break it? Here comes our word of the day – addiction.
We easily indulge in experiences which provide us with short-term rewarding stimuli without thinking of the long-term adverse consequences. Lighting up a cigarette can create a state of relaxation or help us concentrate (only smokers can explain how nicotine has the ability to provide both a sharper thinking, yet a relaxed attitude; for the rest of us – it only sounds illogical); but could also kill us in the long-term. And that goes for all the bad addictions, they provide us with moments of temporary happiness or satisfaction but would eventually have serious consequences on our physical and mental health.
And those are not only words, but stable facts backed up by years of study and research. We all know the facts, but tend to find our comfortable ways to neglect them, thinking that we might prove to be unique and escape all the negative effects of a bad habit or comforting ourselves with the thought that could quit at any time. After all, Mark Twain said it well: “Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I’ve done it thousands of times.”
The word addiction, in the sense of habit and inclination, derives from the Latin addictionem (nominative addictio) “an awarding, a devoting.” With the earliest written reference in the English language coming from 1532, where the term was used in its meaning of dedication, devotion to a thing or an activity.
The first written evidence of alcohol addiction comes from William Pittis, who in his Dr. Radcliffe’s Life & Letters wrote in 1716: “The Doctor..made a Forfeit of them, by his too great Addiction to the Bottle, after a very uncourtly manner”.
And the first tobacco addiction was described in 1779, in Samuel Johnson’ Prefaces, biographical and critical, to the works of the English poets: “His addiction to tobacco is mentioned by one of his biographers.“ The chain smoker, described, is the 18th century English poet John Philips.
The term drug addiction appeared first in the June issue of The Medical and surgical reporter: ”A clerk, aged forty-two years, a widower, no family history of alcoholism, drug addiction, insanity, marked nervous disease, or syphilis”.
And when comes to addiction treatment, the first mention appears in a 1921 March issue of New York Herald Tribune: “None of us like to accuse directly those interested in institutional addiction treatment with advocating this inhuman course, but we are forced to do so.”
It is hard to understand an addiction unless you have experienced it, yet with most addictions, it is less our bodies and more our brains to crave for the stimuli. And in order to break up with an addiction, we shall firstly change our thinking.
