How Has Your Loved One's Addictions Impacted You?

When you speak of addictions, generally people think about drug and alcohol addictions. As a matter of fact, when you typically see a definition for addiction, it references drug and alcohol dependency. Here is a typical definition of addiction: Addiction is the body's need for a drug to avoid withdrawal symptoms, and psychologists study aspects such as addictive behavior, dependence, tolerance and treatments for addiction. Addiction’s first stage is dependence, during which the search for a drug dominates an individual’s life. An addict eventually develops tolerance, which forces the person to consume larger and larger doses of the drug to get the same effect.

However, those of us who run in the psychological circles, we know that there are many other types of addictions. As a matter of fact, the ten top addictions include alcohol, smoking and drug addiction, as the first three. Others include gambling, food addictions, video games, food,  sex, shopping and work addictions.

 How has your loved one's addictions impacted you?