The Addictive Personality: Understanding the Addictive Process and Compulsive Behavior

by Nakken, Craig

• ISBN13: 9781568381299
• ISBN10: 1568381298
• eBook ISBN(s): 9781592858026
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1996-09-01
• Publisher: SIMON & SCHUSTER
• More Book Details

Summary

Second Edition For nearly a decade, The Addictive Personality has helped people understand the process of addiction. Now, through this second edition, author Craig Nakken brings new depth and dimension to our understanding of how an individual becomes an addict. Going beyond the definition that limits dependency to the realm of alcohol and other drugs, Nakken uncovers the common denominator of all addiction and describes how the process is progressive. Through research and practical experience, Nakken sheds new light on:Genetic factors tied to addiction Cultural influences on addictive behaviors The progressive nature of the disease Steps to a successful recovery The author examines how addictions start, how society pushes people toward addiction, and what happens inside those who become addicted. This new edition will help anyone seeking a better understanding of the addictive process and its impact on our lives. Craig Nakken, M.S.W. a certified chemical dependency practitioner, is a lecturer at the Rutgers School of Alcohol Studies and the Florida School of Addictions. A worker in the field of addictions for more than 25 years, Nakken has a private practice in St. Paul, Minnesota and lectures nationally and internationally on topics related to addiction studies.

Author Biography

Craig M. Nakken, MSW, CCDP, LCSW, LMFT, is an author, lecturer, trainer, and family therapist specializing in the treatment of addiction. With over twenty years of working experience in the areas of addiction and recovery, Nakken presently has a private therapy practice in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Excerpts

Part 1Addiction as a Process Over the years, addiction has been described in many different ways a moral weakness, a lack of willpower, an inability to face the world, a physical sickness, and a spiritual illness. If you are a family member or a friend of a practicing addict, you may have more colorful ways of describing addiction. However, addiction can be more accurately described and defined in the following way: Nearly all human beings have a deep desire to feel happy and to find peace of mind and soul. At times in our lives, most of us find this wholeness of peace and beauty, but then it slips away, only to return at another time. When it leaves us, we feel sadness and even a slight sense of mourning. This is one of the natural cycles of life, and it's not a cycle we can control.To some extent, we can help these cycles along, but for the most part they're uncontrollable all of us must go through them. We can either accept these cycles and learn from them or fight them, searching instead for elusive happiness.Addiction can be viewed as an attempt to control these uncontrollable cycles. When addicts use a particular object, such as a substance or an event to produce a desired mood change, they believe they can control these cycles, and at first they can. Addiction, on its most basic level, is an attempt to control and fulfill this desire for happiness.Addiction must be viewed as a process that is progressive. Addiction must be seen as an illness that undergoes continuous development from a definite, though often unclear, beginning toward an end point.We can draw a strong comparison between addiction and cancer. For us to understand all the different forms of cancer, we must first understand what they all have in common. All cancers share a similar process: the uncontrolled multiplying of cells. Similarly, we must first understand what all addictions and addictive processes have in common: the out-of-control and aimless searching for wholeness, happiness, and peace through a relationship with an object or event. No matter what the addiction is, every addict engages in a relationship with an object or event in order to produce a desired mood change, state of intoxication, or trance state. The alcoholic experiences a mood change while drinking at the neighborhood bar. The food addict experiences a mood change by bingeing or starving. The addictive gambler experiences a mood change by placing bets on football games and then watching the action on television. The shoplifter experiences a mood change when stealing clothing from a department store. The sex addict experiences a mood change while browsing in a pornographic bookstore. The addictive spender experiences a mood change by going on a shopping spree. The workaholic experiences a mood change by staying at work to accomplish another task even though he or she is needed at home. Although all of the objects or events described are vastly different, they all produce desi

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Excerpted from The Addictive Personality: Understanding the Addictive Process and Compulsive Behavior by Craig Nakken
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