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Addictions Driven By ‘Emotions and Feelings ’: Understanding the Dark Side of Emotion and Addiction



Working through our emotions helps us to learn, grow and develop. It increases our resilience and makes us more alive to our experience.Conversely, our attempts to cut off may render us emotionally immature and often, far less functional. Moreover, we cannot selectively numb pain without also numbing joy. Turning to addiction can leave us feeling frozen or numbed to all our feelings. In this state, we risk losing a sense of our true identity. We disconnect from our real selves.




Addictions Driven By ‘Emotions and Feelings ’



Oftentimes, people are driven to excessive use and abuse of drugs by a desire to escape or forget. They may have suffered some type of trauma in the past, or may be undergoing some trauma in the present, that leaves them plagued by feelings of stress and anxiety.


In many instances, inpatient drug addiction treatment will include family therapy sessions that allow loved ones to participate in the recovery process, while also letting them speak about their feelings and the impact of addiction on their lives. The idea in family therapy is not to evoke guilt or shame in the recovering addict (these emotions are never productive) but to facilitate good communication, mutual respect, and more constructive family dynamics moving forward.


Conventionally, violence is understood to be often driven by negative emotions, such as anger or fear. For example, a person might become aggressive because they were enraged at another person, or they were afraid the other person might hurt them.


Some people may believe that no one should care what sites children and teens visit or what clothes they buy. We have always had advertisers creating fads and selling the latest fashions. That is not what I am addressing. I am addressing the consequences of creating a fully controlled environment where the emotions, feelings, and the self-esteem of children and teenagers are molded solely for profit. There are children and teenagers, fortunately not most, that get severely depressed and anxious when they do not get the likes they need, or even worse, get insulted and bullied by thousands of strangers. These victims (yes, that is exactly what they are) get so anguished that they will cut themselves, do other acts of self-harm, and even commit suicide. Others try desperately to lose weight (anorexia and bulemia) or take selfies of themselves doing dangerous things just for the attention. I believe that META knows all of these possible outcomes but nonetheless continues its pursuit of profit.


Our unresolved emotions have to be identified. An addictive person can be struggling with feelings of being deprived, refused, controlled, helpless, rejected, betrayed, abandoned, criticized, hated, and so on. Even when the addictive person is not actually being, say, refused or controlled, this individual is unconsciously determined to experience events and situations through these unresolved, negative emotions.


Physicians who decide to prescribe controlled substances to patients with addictions should be aware that they may be drawn into the patient's own system of denial.12 The physician should pay attention to any atypical emotional responses in himself or herself. These include anger, guilt, wish to disengage, pity, revulsion and other emotions that diverge from their usual experiences of confidence and empathy in patient interactions.


Countertransference is a psychodynamic term that refers to feelings leading to the emotional response of a caregiver to a patient. It is only partially conscious, and it is always present. It is determined by the physician's own background, emotions, issues, etc.


In societies where men and women pair up freely, they both have a number of indicators that are socially accepted as signs of love; such signs include character compatibility, having fun together, physical attraction, etc. Buss (1989) has identified a number of love acts that function to signal romantic suitability and to ensure reproductive success (in Ackerman et al., 2011 ). Intense emotions and feelings which accompany sexual interest become confused with love, a physiological drive which is different from a sexual drive. However, owing to the fact that humans can experience very intense emotions ( Hebb, 1949 ), love has been allocated as purely an emotional entity.


It is important that the scientific community accepts and spreads the fact that love is not an emotion, although it can definitely be accompanied by intense emotions. In fact, in human evolution love promoted the capacity to experience the most intense emotional states, firstly in women in the mother-child relationships, and later in men in sexual relationships. This evolutionary viewpoint would underlie some detected adaptive sex differences in romantic attachment with respect to some personality dimensions, such as anxiety and avoidance ( Del Giudice, 2011 ). The vast majority of laboratories and love researchers already assume its motivational component ( Fisher et al., 2016 ), and although still in debate ( Reynaud et al., 2010 ), its relationship with addictions ( Burunat, 2007, 2014b ; Burkett & Young, 2012 , Fisher et al., 2016 ).


The people we polled said that certain forms of alcohol were more likely to give them different feelings. Men told us that wine, cocktails, and India pale ales (IPAs) made them happiest when they drank, while women said that cocktails, wine, and vodka left them with the most positive emotions. However, vodka was also listed by both men and women as a drink that made them feel anxious, and men told us it made them feel sad and scared. Whiskey was also frequently associated with negative feelings. Men and women told us it made them feel overwhelmed and sad. While some men found whiskey created a feeling of nostalgia, a portion of women said drinking it made them feel scared.


Art therapy focuses on the use of creative imagination and techniques such as painting, sculpting, drawing and collaging. For those with an appreciation of the arts, and with the assistance of a therapist, individuals are assisted in decoding nonverbal metaphors that are often found in different art forms. This often promotes a deeper understanding of emotions, feelings, and behaviours that are often in need of being resolved.


Certain environmental risk factors have also been found to put people at a higher risk of developing shopping addiction. For example, having a higher income or having credit cards may make compulsive buying more accessible. Changes in your personal environment, such as a divorce, or moving away from your loved ones, could also influence emotionally driven compulsive buying, as some people report shopping to alleviate feelings of loneliness, helplessness, or guilt. 2ff7e9595c


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