The Heart of Addiction by Lance M. Dodes M.D

Author:Lance M. Dodes, M.D. [Dodes M. Lance]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-06-202633-0
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2002-02-07T05:00:00+00:00

ADDICTIVE BEHAVIOR AS A SIGN OF A DEFICIT IN SELF-CARE

Some researchers, thinking about the destructive results of addictive behavior, have raised the question of whether this might indicate some lack of capacity for taking good care of yourself—a “self-care deficit.”5 They described a group of functions that are normally present in people, including anticipation of danger, valuing yourself, self-assertion, skills in relating to people, and selecting safe relationships that they called “self-care” functions. (Interestingly, in one paper, the authors were studying not addiction but accident-proneness in children. They found that those children who tended to have accidents were lacking in these “self-care” skills—rather than that they were consciously or unconsciously trying to injure themselves.6)

The question about addictions raised by their work was whether at least some people with addictive behavior might also have a deficit in their “self-care” functions. Over the years, observation has shown that this is in fact true for some people suffering with addictions. However, as I mentioned in the last chapter, any insufficiency in self-care functions can only help explain the extent to which self-destructive behavior continues before a person seeks treatment. It does not address the origins of addictive behavior. So, a self-care deficit may stand alongside the psychology that drives addiction that I have been describing.

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