Are all addicts addicted because they have an unhealed trauma?

Big brain

 

In the 50s the alcohol addict would just be an Irishman or someone who likes to drink. Today everything is very anal and scrutinizing. It’s like they put Oprah in charge of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. You get ADHD! you get anxiety! you get ocd! Everyone gets depression!

I would argue that the oldest form of addiction recovery is religion (whether you are religious or not the 12 steps mention a higher power) and that was around for at least 100 years before the 50s.

 

I don’t want to get in trouble with the mods. I didn’t prescribe a higher power as the solution to addiction, all I said is that religion has classically been considered as such.

I agree with the gist of what you are saying about simplifying things. Not to say that complicated problems don’t exist, but that there is a tendency to over complicate a diagnosis, for one reason or another, for the sake of looking like a smarty pants, for example. Sort of getting after what @1ANDDONE was saying, most of our problems are simple in origin and simple in remedy. We like to make our problems convoluted in order to inflate our egos. And ego is not a uniquely male facet, mind.

I was listening to the radio the other day and the host said something similar when talking about paying off debt. He said we like to create super complex scientific methods for getting out of problems but the reality is that the only way to get out of debt is to work harder to get more money so you can pay off the debt. Not saying pmo addiction is solved in the same way as is paying off debt, but you get my point.

 

Not all addicts have trauma, and not everyone why has trauma becomes addicted it just makes it more likely like in my case

 

I have come to believe that being exposed to porn is itself traumatic, especially if it's at a young age. They just do a good job fooling you into thinking it's soothing, pleasurable, stress relief. They also do a good job normalizing it for you in pop culture.
I still remember what it felt like to first be exposed to porn at age 11 and it felt a lot like how people describe child sexual abuse. Panic, guilt, shame, helplessness, dread, etc.
Why do you think half of all pornstars die young in suicide, and why porn using men (even casual porn users) end up with ED and many other hidden psychological problems?
What else do you call something that sucks your life away like a vampire, giving nothing in return but a cold, empty feeling at the end?
The porn is itself trauma.

 

Imagine seeing the worldwide rates of porn consumption skyrocket and thinking that the problem is solved because people stop coming to RECOVERY groups.

Checked the mental health stats lately?

 

I think it's a combination of genetic/psychological tendency and a specific environment. I was a rather lonesome child with rather distant parents and a tumultuous relationship with my older brother. I was quietly successful at school but didn't have a lot of friends, mostly forming rather intense relationships with bossy and domineering children (parent substitute?). Although none of my childhood friendships have survived into adulthood, I look back on my childhood fairly fondly. I was mostly a happier child than I am adult, that's for sure.

I didn't have the maturity, confidence or social development to form relationships until my mid twenties, when I was occasionally pursued by girls (thankfully I was fairly good looking). By then I was excitedly discovering late night movies on TV, erotic films at the video store, lads mags etc (although not much that we would recognise as porn by today's standards). As I greatly feared rejection, as you might imagine, break ups were not something I dealt with well at all, and each time was worse than the last. Progressed to porn, chatlines, strip clubs, camgirls. Visited a brothel once but got cold feet at the last minute - thankfully. Combined with my terrible non career that never even got started, well, I didn't stand a chance.

If my circumstances were different it could have been drugs, alcohol. It could have been workaholism, if my career ever took off like it should have done. It could have been a gym obsession or running marathons. And it still could - not all habits are bad.