Addicted to Pleasure

Every day millions of people engage in activities just because they give them pleasure. They seem to be “hooked” on work, sex, food, money, gambling, fighting, religion, relationships, and even certain types of thinking, because they feel stimulated and experience positive mood changes whenever they engage in these activities. They compulsively seek out these activities. And when they are deprived of them, they experience great discomfort.

Is the mechanism underlying these strong desires similar to that of drug addiction? This question has plagued the minds of many prominent researchers as they have sought to explain our obsessions. The answer may have important implications, not only for understanding the traditional drug addictions, but for explaining why many otherwise normal and healthy people—including deeply committed Christians—behave the way they do. Obsessional thinking, preoccupation with certain sexual practices, eating disorders, workaholism, compulsive confessing, persistent thrill seeking or risk taking, and the compelling urge to feel wonderful—all may have something in common with traditional addictions: Both drug addiction and these compulsive behaviors may be caused by the body’s tendency to become “hooked” on chemicals.

Making a case for the similarity of drug and activity addictions is not difficult. But there are some obvious differences: “substance” addictions are destructive, whereas “process” addictions may or may not be. And there are differences in the mechanism of onset and maintenance.

But despite these differences, there is a growing belief that almost any activity can become “addicting,” because the world’s most prolific manufacturer and user of drugs is the brain itself. Thoughts, feelings, pain, pleasure, and even the emotional response to the so-called recreational drugs are mediated by chemical messengers in the brain.

Lawrence Hatterson, in his book The Pleasure Addicts (A. S. Barnes and Co., 1980), asserts that addiction is a central human experience and that “the addictive process transcends specific substances.” While he sees addiction as the “disease of choices,” the body’s ability to manufacture dependency-producing chemicals to control pleasure or pain underlies many of these decisions.

In true addiction there is almost always excessive use of pleasurable activities to cope with unmanageable internal conflict or stress. Clearly, this could include manipulating our own body chemistry as well as ingesting chemical substances.

The Agony Of Withdrawal

The fact that extreme physical discomfort, often resembling the withdrawal symptoms of drug addiction, is experienced when we abstain from certain activities points to the possibility of many behavior addictions having a chemical basis. Workaholics, for example, report very poor adjustment to enforced idleness, according to Herbert C. Modlin, psychiatrist at the Menninger Foundation, Topeka, Kansas. My clinical observation of high-pressured executives, as well as of myself, is that weekends and the first days of vacations can produce a postadrenaline letdown that provokes one to seek stimulation. Tension, restlessness, and nervous activity are brought on by idleness that I, and others, believe to be due to the withdrawal effects of lowered adrenaline and other stress hormones. (Fortunately, relaxation training can reduce the pain of withdrawal from this work-related stress.)

Psychological and sociological factors, hitherto thought to be the primary determiners of “dependency,” may well be mediated by chemical changes throughout the body. The release of adrenaline in “emergencies” has long been known to be stimulating, and in recent years the discovery that the brain manufactures its own opiatelike endorphins (short for “endogenous morphine”) that produce a tranquilizing and pain-reducing reaction, has added credence (some would say final proof) to this understanding of how certain behaviors can be addicting.

Foremost among the researchers who have stressed the mediation of chemical factors in activity or pleasure addictions is Dr. Harvey Milkman of Metropolitan State College, Denver. In Craving for Ecstasy (Lexington Books, 1987), he states, “Scientifically, we have reached a turning point in our perennial battle with passion and pleasure. Sound principles from psychology and sociology can now be integrated with rapidly emerging discoveries in brain science.” Milkman believes that the stage is now set for a deeper understanding of euphoria and its addicting properties. The realization that the central nervous system can produce its own narcotics is provoking a re-examination of the fundamental causes of human behavior and the close relationship between mood and brain chemistry.

The Need For More

In addition to withdrawal symptoms, “tolerance effects”—demands for an ever-increasing “fix”—are also noted in behaviors not involving substance abuse. After a period of excitement, say buying a new car, the system craves more excitement. Compulsive shopping is often associated with this need to seek a higher state of pleasurable arousal because the present state soon seems too ordinary.

Personality factors have also been shown to be common to both substance and activity additions. A landmark report released from the National Academy of Sciences in 1983 identified many of the common characteristics. Addicts are more likely to have low self-esteem (where the addiction is a search for self-fulfillment and enhancement of self-image); to be depressed and trying to find escape; to feel alienated; to behave impulsively and unconventionally; to have difficulty in forming long-term goals; and to cope less effectively with stress (and, I would add, to experience a higher level of anxiety from which they seek relief).

Feeling Good By Doing Good

Allen Luks, executive director of the Institute for the Advancement of Health in New York City, writing in Psychology Today (Oct. 1988), reports on two studies showing that “helping others” produces a calmness and freedom from stress that does not occur in other forms of altruism such as giving money. Drawing on the experiments of psychologist Jaak Panskepp of Bowling Green State University, he concludes; “It is just about proven that it is one’s own natural opiates, the endorphins, that produce the good feelings that arise during social contacts with others.”

Thus it appears that addicting mechanisms could operate both through arousal (as when the adrenal glands release their stress chemicals, the corticosteroids) as well as through the calming and tranquilizing effects of the endorphins. Compulsive habits can be both pain producing as well as pleasure provoking—and the high can come from tension reduction or the relief from distress associated with the act itself. We are still a long way from understanding this complexity of process and activity addiction.

The Ultimate Responsibility

The fact that brain chemistry may mediate mood does not remove personal responsibility for the activity that produces it. If anything, it increases the realization that thoughts play an important role in addictions and that many addictions are self-induced and perpetuated. Once the addicting pattern is established, however, the person loses the ability to control these habits and becomes a slave to them.

While not denying the mediating effects of brain and body chemistry, G. Allan Marlott of the University of Washington stresses that addictive behaviors of all sorts need to be seen not as moral or disease modes, but as acquired habit patterns (“Relapse Prevention,” Guilford Press, 1985). From a social learning perspective, addictive behaviors represent a category of bad habits. Rather than seeing them as fixed categories, there are many levels of addiction along a continuum, and they are all governed by the similar processes of learning. Very often, addictive behaviors are performed in situations perceived as stressful, where the activity is carried on during or after the unpleasant situation. In this way they represent maladaptive coping mechanisms to the extent that they lead to delayed negative consequences in terms of health, social status, and self-esteem.

Of course, any given pleasurable activity may not be a problem, provided it is engaged in only occasionally and in moderation. But the long-term effect can be devastating, leading to accelerated wear and tear on the human system. It behooves all of us, therefore, to pay careful attention to our habits and lifestyles—especially the most dangerous stress of all: the excitement and pleasure derived from interesting challenges and demanding schedules. This stress, which produces devastating damage to the cardiovascular system, can be controlled if understood.

This reminder, that all our pleasurable pursuits and intensive preoccupations may lead to addictions (even though it is through hidden chemical reactions), and that self-control and personal responsibility for our condition is the only prevention and cure, is a warning to all who consider themselves committed Christians. Ignorance of addictive mechanisms may exonerate us from guilt, but it is no protection against stress disease and the negative consequences for our faith. Overindulgence—whether in alcohol or excitement—is epidemic. The admonition of the apostle Paul that each of us “should learn to control his [or her] own body in a way that is holy and honorable” (1 Thess. 4:3–4, NIV) needs to be heeded today more than ever.

Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.