Addict is and has operational defined by the researchers who work on this. Why would you think someone who want to call themselves an addict if they were not one, though? Honestly, I'm really having trouble understanding your POV. What benefit do you think someone being called an addict has that would make someone who does not have the addictive personality call themselves an addict?
Are you even reading the same thread as me? None of the people I am talking about have been clinically diagnosed as addicts by any researchers. The sole deciding factor is that they can't control their behavior. That is it.
Why would someone call themselves an addict if they weren't, and what benefit would they get? I don't know. Apparently there is a lot about human psychology and the physiology of the brain I don't understand. Maybe they would rather label it as a disease instead of taking responsibility for their own self destructive behavior? Maybe not, i've already been lambasted for having the audacity to question their motives and their inner workings.
Like I said, i've read up on the subject, but i'm by no means an expert. It's not my field of study, and i've never done research on it. I understand that different people have different reactions to similar stimuli. I don't understand if it's a qualitative difference, or just a quantitative difference (my understanding was that it is simply a matter of intensity - I get my pleasure center tickled in the same way, just not as much).
The people who defined this as a disease where the researchers/experts in this topic, not the addicts themselves. You seem to be blaming a lot on the addicts without understand the subject. And what do you mean "qualitative difference, or just a quantitative difference"? Qualitative Data can be observed but not measured, quantitative can be measured so yes, the difference is quantitative. Normally researchers like quantitative.
How do you know what medical help ever addict you know has gotten? And honestly I doubt you know who all the addicts are in your circle.
Qualitative, as in different. As in does an addict release a different chemical, or react on a different circuit of the brain than the non addict does. Not just a matter of intensity, but qualitatively different from the response of a non addict. Or is it simply a matter of intensity?
I know some of them because they are family members. I probably don't know who all the addicts in my life are, and some of the ones I know are addicts I don't have details for, but some of them I definitely have the details for and am close with.
I understand that the researchers/experts defined it as a disease, but they didn't diagnose the people I am talking about. Addicts most certainly diagnose themselves as addicts all the time, which is the crux of this thread. They can't control some behavior, therefore they are addicts. The responses in this thread seem to confirm that. If you have a compulsion and can't/don't control it, then you are an addict. No brain scan or testing necessary, you are an addict by virtue of your inability (or lack of) stopping that behavior. Everyone here seems pretty damn sure that every "addict" I know would have a stereotypical addict brain scan, and I would have a nuerotypical brain scan. Maybe that is true, I don't know.
