The Psychological significance of Dependency

Scraper
Mar 19
5 min read

The Human condition and The Search for Equilibrium

Addiction, in all its forms, is as old as humanity itself. The desire to alter our state of mind—to escape, enhance, or simply exist differently—has been documented for millennia. Whether through wine, opium, nicotine, or the modern pharmacological cocktail, we have always sought substances to tweak the delicate chemistry of being.

But why? Why do some people fall into the cycle of dependence while others walk away unscathed? Why does addiction persist beyond withdrawal, long after the body has expelled the last traces of a drug? And perhaps most importantly, what does this tell us about the fundamental nature of the human psyche?

The Psychological Roots of Dependence: Why Do We Cling to the Things That Hurt Us?

For all the ways we talk about addiction—disease, moral failing, brain chemistry malfunction there’s an angle we don’t explore enough: The fact that humans are creatures of dependence. It’s built into our wiring. From infancy, we rely on external sources for comfort, safety, and meaning. The need for attachment and relief doesn’t disappear just because we grow up. We just start looking for replacements when the ‘healthy’ dependencies fail us.

The dominant narrative in modern psychiatry is that addiction is a disease—chronic, relapsing, and neurobiologically rooted. This is not without merit. Research has shown that long-term drug use alters brain function, particularly in the mesolimbic dopamine system, which governs motivation, reward, and impulse control (Volkow et al., 2016).

However, some argue that addiction is not merely a disease but a developmental process—an interaction between neurobiology, psychology, and environment (Lewis, 2011). This perspective shifts the focus from "What is wrong with the addict?" to "What led them here?" Addiction, in this view, is an attempt—albeit a misguided one—to solve a problem, to self-regulate in a world that offers few alternatives.

Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol, morphine, or idealism. - Carl Jung

Jung understood that addiction is not about the substance itself, but about the hole it attempts to fill. The substance is the symptom, not the disease.

Self-Medication: The Rational Escape That Becomes a Trap

The self-medication hypothesis, first proposed by Khantzian (1985), suggests that individuals do not use drugs randomly—they gravitate toward substances that alleviate specific psychological distress.

Stimulants often appeal to individuals with ADHD or depression, offering a temporary sense of focus and energy. They are attractive to those suffering from trauma and emotional pain, numbing the unbearable. They soothe the anxious, slowing an overactive mind to a tolerable pace.

This framework suggests that addiction is not merely a lack of willpower but an imperfect solution to an internal imbalance. As Nietzsche put it, "Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings—always darker, emptier, simpler than these.* In other words, sometimes substances articulate what words cannot.

A lot of addiction is self-medication. People don’t just wake up and think, "Let me ruin my life today." They’re trying to fix something, to cope with an overwhelming reality. The Incentive-Sensitization Theory (Robinson & Berridge, 1993) argues that addiction isn’t just about liking drugs—it’s about wanting them, intensely and irrationally. Over time, the brain’s mesolimbic system rewires itself so that the craving remains even after the pleasure is gone. This explains why people relapse even when they hate the substance, even when they know exactly what will happen next.

And let’s be honest: if life were easier, if emotional pain were easier to process, if people had better alternatives, a lot of substance use wouldn’t escalate to addiction. But the problem is that people don’t just use substances to get high—they use them to function, to numb, to simulate a version of reality that feels tolerable. This is why the “just stop” approach fails. If you take away the drug but don’t replace the relief it provided, what you get isn’t a healed person—it’s a suffering one, white-knuckling their way through life, waiting for the next relapse.

The Stoic Angle: What If Addiction Is Just Misplaced Desire?

If you strip addiction down to its core, it’s essentially a pursuit of control—control over emotions, over thoughts, over pain. But the irony is, the more you try to control these things through substances, the more control you lose.

Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor & philosopher, once wrote: You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.

That’s the thing about addiction—it tricks you into thinking you’re managing your emotions when, in reality, your emotions are managing you. The medical world distinguishes between dependence (a physiological reliance) and addiction (a compulsive behavioral pattern). You can be dependent on antidepressants without being addicted. You can crave a substance without being physically dependent. The two often overlap but are not the same.

This distinction matters because it reframes addiction as more than a simple biochemical equation. Dependence is predictable; addiction is personal.

Dostoevsky, no stranger to compulsion, once wrote: Man is a creature that can get accustomed to anything, and I think that is the best definition of him.

Addiction is not just about chemistry—it’s about the stories we tell ourselves, the ways we adapt to survive.

Step Towards a More Compassionate Understanding

So where does all this lead us?

If the discussion on dependence and addiction are true, then addiction is, at its core, an issue of perception, of inner turmoil externalized. To treat it, we must do more than take away the substance—we must address the suffering that made it necessary in the first place.

Addiction is not a singular narrative—it is an intricate interplay of biology, psychology, and philosophy. It is neither purely a disease nor merely a bad habit, but something in between: a symptom of deeper existential struggles, a response to pain, a misguided search for balance.

The answer isn’t just in breaking the habit. It’s in replacing it with something better. Connection, purpose, philosophy, introspection, structure. Rehab helps, therapy helps, but what really changes things is when a person finds something to be addicted to that actually builds them up instead of tearing them down. Call it passion, call it discipline, call it a new form of dependence—whatever keeps you from seeking refuge in self-destruction.

There’s this idea that addiction is a permanent state, that once you’ve been hooked on something, you’re marked for life. But what if addiction isn’t the problem? What if it’s just the symptom of a deeper issue—of a world that doesn’t teach people how to sit with pain without reaching for an escape? What if, instead of asking, "Why do people get addicted?" we started asking, "What are people trying to run from?" Because until we answer that, we’re just treating the symptoms, not the cause.

Maybe the real cure for addiction isn’t just quitting. Maybe it’s learning how to live with yourself, unmedicated, and still finding meaning in the chaos.

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