The Adverse Childhood Experiences

It’s interesting to see, or to ask “Who becomes an addict?” For instance, people can have sex without being addicted to it, they can go shopping, but for some people they become severely addicted to either pursuit. A pack of cards can or can’t be addictive, it is depending on the individual. So, it’s the same process no matter what the addiction is. The only difference is that the substance addict is getting the dopamine from an outside source, where the behavior addict is having it triggered from the particular behavior.

A behavior becomes an addiction when it brings negative consequences; it impairs their health, endangers their life, and undermines their personal relationships. If it doesn’t do any of these things, we can’t call those people

The loss of a parent to death, a rancorous divorce, a parent being jailed, a mental illness in the parent, an addiction of the parent, or violence in the family. For each of these ACE, the risk of addiction goes up exponentially. By the time a male child has had six of these ACE his risk of having become a substance-dependent injection-using addict is “4600% greater than that of a male child with no such experiences” (Adverse Childhood Experiences). The reason for this is that the trauma shapes their brain in such ways as to make the addictive substances more appealing to the individual. That trauma also gives that person the pain that they will try to then escape from or soothe through the addictive behaviors. It’s the social and emotional environment that shapes the actual biology of the brain, so when trying to understand someone’s addiction, look into what created the pain in their lives and what has affected

We have to make a real distinction between the use of substances and the addiction to substances. In the article, “War on Drugs” it is being waged against people that were abused and traumatized as children and have mental health problems. There is enough punishment in there-in the negative consequences of the addiction that we don’t have to add punishment on to that. Elkhart Tolle says, “Addiction begins with pain and ends with pain” (Passport to Recovery). So all addictions are attempts to soothe the pain. Whether it’s a work addiction, shopping, the internet, or a relationship these are all attempts to get away from distress. People will try to do whatever they can, to try and run away from their pain. “I don’t care what they tell you, about genetics or choices or any of that nonsense, it’s always pain” (Mate). Whatever anyone does they need to try to not escape their pain but be with it because if they try to escape from it they are only creating more pain and this is the reality that is going on with