After my post about the joy I feel in receiving a package, someone (perhaps a tall man I’ve lived with for 30+ years) brought up the question of addiction.  If purchasing something on-line creates the release of chemicals in the reward center of my brain that feels so good I want to do more of it , could this be considered an addiction?  I’m glad you asked, Mr. Someone, as it’s an important point to consider. 

We can in fact, become addicted to behaviors.  Behavioral scientists are researching the similarities and differences between substance addictions and behavioral addictions.  Behavioral addictions can occur with any activity that’s capable of stimulating your brain’s reward system, according to their work.  Behaviors such as gambling, shopping, video gaming, or even exercise, which we think of as a healthy behavior, can be potentially addicting.  Knowing when our behavioral habits cross this line is an important perspective to be aware of, I would agree.

The DSM-5, the manual of official psychiatric diagnoses, only lists gambling addiction as a diagnosable behavioral addiction in the subsection of “non-substance-related disorders” in the category of “substance related and addictive disorders.”  But according to researchers, this is only because other behavioral addictions lack a body of research evidence at this time.  A growing body of literature is supporting the validity of other behavioral addictions, like phone addictions, shopping, and viewing pornography.  In fact, the research suggests that any activity or habit that becomes all consuming and negatively impacts your daily functioning can cause significant mental, social, and physical health issues, as well as financial issues, in many cases.

So if any behavior can become an addiction, how do I know when my actions cross the line from a habit into an addiction?  According to researcher Mathias Brand, PhD, the line between activity and addiction lies where an activity that is positive or neutral takes a decidedly negative turn.  There are some guidelines for behaviors that do not involve chemical substances scientists have outlined to use to evaluate your relationship to these behaviors and signs to watch out for.

The first sign is importance.  How important is this behavior to your sense of yourself and how you live your life?  How much are you not doing other things to engage in the behavior?  In other words, is it taking priority in a way that doesn’t seem appropriate?

Another sign is prevalence.  Do you find yourself doing it more often and for longer periods of time than you intended?  This is the never-enough feeling.  You have to keep doing it and don’t feel satisfied by just a little of it.

The reward feeling is another sign.  Does doing the behavior make you feel better, specifically, more in control?  Or more often the opposite, does it cause you distress when you’re not doing it?  One way to gauge how reliant you are on the behavior is to consider doing without it.  Your emotional and/or physical response may be very informative. The higher the level of panic or pain you anticipate can tell you a lot about your need for the behavior.  In addition, the level of pain or shame you feel for having engaged in the behavior or for someone finding out about your behavior is also very telling.

One of the biggest indicators of an addiction is the disruption it causes in your life and relationships.  We only have so much time and attention. Is your behavior causing you to neglect other people or tasks that are important in your life?  Have other people complained or requested you to limit this behavior? Research shows that often it’s the significant people in our lives who can best determine if we are addicted to a behavior or not.  We tend to fall back into patterns when we’re addicted, called “reverting.”  We say to our loved ones, and to ourselves, that we’re going to limit our behavior or stop it, only to be pulled into the pattern once again.  We explain away our broken promises with layers of rationales as to why we need to do it.   We tend to minimize the negative impact of our behavior and overvalue the positives.  

All these signs are indicative of a habit that is controlling you.  Absent an outside chemical or substance that’s involved, it’s a part of ourselves – an impulse, pleasure, anxiety, and/or preference – taking center stage in our judgements and decision making.  When we cross over into addictive behavior, we overprioritize the behavior and lose our ability to see the impact and consequences of it with clarity or to act on this awareness the way we know we should.  

Soooooo…what do I think?  Am I an addict?  I’m on the edge, if I’m honest. I get a little nervous at the thought of not shopping online for a period of time and probably minimize its impact on my budget and my time allocations.  But, I would also say that just because I enjoy something, doesn’t make it an addiction.  Fortunately, I don’t feel it controls me and I’m not feeling the need to hide it from anyone.  But it probably crosses the line sometimes when I get into a rabbit hole of scrolling through choices of purchases or get excited when an item goes on sale that I wasn’t even thinking about wanting or needing before I saw it.  

But the most telling thing is probably the little sense of emptiness I feel if something is not on its way to my doorstep.  It’s probably good that I’m becoming more aware of the line I’m walking and can put more attention to the role my love of packages arriving is playing in my life.  As I suppose the key to most things is balance and awareness.  Do I have other ways of finding joy and relieving stress?  Of feeling cared for and nurtured?  Can you become addicted to kissing a mini donkey?