Addiction is rampant. Drugs, alcohol, sex, gambling, shopping, food, social media, digital games, movies, whatever the ‘substance’ the effect is the same—numb out, dissociate, flee from the perception of pain (be it physical, psychological, emotional, spiritual). The number of people who are considered addicts has reached pandemic proportions—no one place, no one race, no one culture is free of this infectious disease.
But, is it a disease as many associations responsible for intervention state? Or is it a reflection of our inability to self and/or mutually regulate our affective state? Are these behaviors, labeled as addiction or addictive, are these monikers—addict, addicted— accurate? Or, do labels simply shadow deeper manifestations motivating people to reach for something to quell their emotional fluctuations, to smooth the ups and downs in their bodily being?
These questions and more are considered in our Winter issue. Our contributors share their thoughts on addiction, on behavioral patterns that become ‘stuck’, automated, reactionary in the face of overwhelm and affective arousal. Possible physiological causes are considered—think trauma and all that comes with that terminology—and potential interventions are pondered.
We invite you to read our articles and to respond to our authors. We write from our place of experience and curiosity, and we write to engage others in a conversation. Each author offers an email address at the end of the article, and we have a general email option: [email protected] where you can share your thoughts and we’ll pass them on to the authors and to our readers.
And if you find something of value in our Winter issue and you want to read more, please consider a donation via our website to keep us going strong into the new year. We’re grateful for your readership and look forward to providing quality articles and reviews, personal and poignant author reflections, and more on our website.
Our Cover Designer, Diana Houghton Whiting, MA, adds, “Addiction can take innumerable forms and have its origins from countless sources. It is a complex issue that we as a society have had a hard time finding the right way to work with its varied parameters. I hope you receive a little more clarity from the contributors to this issue. With gratitude we feature Sebastian Eriksson (Sebmaestro) for his piece entitled, Lost in Thought, for our cover. You can find his work here: https://sebmaestro.deviantart.com.”
