Friday, August 6, 2021

Behavioral Addictions

 While many addictions involve some kind of drug, there are also behavioral addictions that people can develop. These addictions can be either healthy or unhealthy. A main example of an unhealthy behavioral addiction is gambling. There are many people who like to use free time to go to the casinos in places like Atlantic City or Las Vegas. They like to gamble at these casinos and could potentially lose a lot of money. If somebody is losing money, then they may feel compelled to gamble even more to make up for their losses. This sometimes leads to losing even more money and it can ruin lives. People can lose everything through these gambling addictions, including their homes and their families. 

While gambling is an unhealthy addiction, there are also positive behavioral addictions such as exercise. Exercise can be a positive addiction because it generally improves a person's health and fitness. It makes you feel good both during exercise and also usually afterwards. However, if somebody who exercises frequently has to stop exercising for a long period of time, then there will be negative effects on them, which is similar to how drug addictions work. These negative effects include depression, anxiety, and getting easily irritated. Personally, I could probably say that I have an exercise addiction, as I lift in the gym five or six days a week. However, there have been times where I had to take several days off in a row because of injury, work, or other reasons. I could definitely feel myself feeling negative effects of not being able to work out, and it made me anxious to get back into it.

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