Habits are choices that one continues to do repeatedly without actually thinking about them. Habits start with a decision, but they eventually become automatic. One can probably think about things we do every day that we wish we did less of, perhaps like binging Netflix, constantly checking social media, or snacking when not being hungry. If one can understand how habits are triggered, one can learn how to overcome them. The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg and “Rat Park” by Lauren Slater will reveal the main strategies to recognize and overcome habits. Angie Bachman, a women who developed a gambling habit due was well aware of her habits, but she continued to drag herself into debt, resulting in losing all that she owned and getting sued by …show more content…
He ran a series of experiments that he called Rat Park. The experiments led him to conclude that drugs like heroin and cocaine don’t cause addiction, the user’s environment does. Alexander constructed Rat Park with wheels and balls for play, plenty of food and a mating space, with 16 rats of both sexes mingling with one another. He tested a variety of theories using different experiments to show that the rat’s environment played the largest part in whether a rat became addicted to opiates or not. In the experiment, the social rats had the choice to drink fluids from one of two dispensers. One had plain tap water, and the other had a morphine solution. He found that the caged rats ingested larger doses of the morphine solution, more than Rat Park rats. The Rat Park rats preferred the plain water. Even when the rats in cages were fed nothing but morphine water and then moved to Rat Park, the rats voluntarily went through withdrawal. Based on the findings, the team concluded that the drugs do not cause one’s addictions. Rather, how a person’s environment feeds their addiction. Feelings isolated, lonely, hopeless, or a lack of control based on unsatisfactory living conditions is what make a person dependent on substance addiction. Alexander once said, " I f I lived like that in a cage, I'd get as high as possible too."(Duhigg 10) Alexander’s goal was to prove that drugs do not cause …show more content…
The casino kept offering different things and after this she was unable to refuse. She was offered anything she wanted, the casino would negotiate any request. At one point Bachmann had walked away from all the gambling, but soon after her parents passed away she returned to the casino and there she was seduced into coming back. After her inheritance, she had told Harrah’s that she was almost out of money, but they told her to come anyway. The casino told her, they would give her a line of credit to start off with. Bachmann ended up borrowing a total of about $125,000. Bachmann eventually lost everything she and her family had, including their family home. Bachmann tried to win back the money she was losing but she wasn't able to. Bachmann wasn't able to repay the money back to the casino and the casino then sued her. Bachmann was then found guilty for her gambling habit. You see if the casino wouldn’t have encouraged Bachmann to continue gambling and offer her money to play it, perhaps she wouldn’t have lost all that she owned. The casino kept seducing her to come in, making it impossible for her to refuse. Bachmann was enjoying all the perks her gambling addiction was able to get
Angie started by breaking the rules that she had set for herself. “Bachmann’s rules gradually became more flexible as the size of her winnings and losses expanded.” (Duhigg 249) When someone breaks a rule, especially in gambling you will have to come to a conclusion that there is going to be a problem in the future. An example is Shirley from the article “How the Brain Gets Addicted to Gambling”; she “was convicted of stealing a great deal of money from her clients and spent two years in prison.” (American 1) Angie should have known better to quit at that moment that her losses expanded and when she stopped keeping track of herself. In my opinion, Angie realized that she had a problem with gambling when she started going to the casino every day and it would have been the perfect timing for her to quit. “The only mistake I made was not quitting.” (Duhigg 249) Immediately she should have seen that as a red flag and should have come to the conclusion that she is fully responsible for what she does. Instead of quitting she pursue winning back all of her losses, which is impossible “compulsive gamblers pursue ever riskier ventures.” (American 2) Pursuing something that is not good, in her case gambling, can lead to riskier ventures like it is said; she lost a lot of money and the line of credit of her home. To add on, Angie was
Brain is the most powerful organ in the human body, since it’s responsible for everything from the way you move to what you think; however, the lack of distinguishing between good and bad habits challenges individuals to understand the habit loop. In his novel, The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg presents a diagram of the habit loop cycle explaining how habits form with the presence of a cue, followed through by a routine, and ending with a reward. From Duhigg’s theories on habits, I continue my habit, or routine of constantly listening to music with lyrics while doing schoolwork whether that is studying for a test or doing homework for a class because I crave the reward of finishing schoolwork while listening to music; however,
Alexander and Shaler make the observation that the current stance has many celebrating free markets for their advancement while ignoring the connection it has to dislocation and addictions. Additionally, there is constant attention drawn, with medical reasoning and facts, to how addictions are individual problems, either medical or criminal (Paragraph 12). Society is on a search to fix social issues yet they have not found one of the right culprits: addictions. People are living with damaged families and social ties or none at all and they are left to self-medicate without the correct tools they need to find the cure. All that is a toxic mix resulting in addictions that are further tearing apart and tearing down what little there is left.
Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit, acknowledges how habits control our daily lives in every decision we make. For Instance, an ambitious woman named Lisa Allen, has not always had a fruitful life. Previously, she had abused her body with harmful toxins such as tobacco and alcohol since the beginning of her teenage years. Carrying out these habits everyday resulted her into being unmotivated and unconfident. In fact, she never kept a job longer than a year and began to fall into major debt. “She needed a goal in her life, she thought. Something to work toward” (xii-xiv). It begins with the “three-step loop” a cue that triggers our brain to do the habit. Next a routine, a set of actions that are either physical or mental. Finally a reward of satisfaction that determines whether or not this habit will be continuous (19). Not all habits can be good, but this is where the golden rule applies. Duhigg explains that in order for you to change your habit “ you must keep the old cue, and deliver the old reward, but insert a new routine”(62). “However, simply understanding how habits work- learning the structure of the habit loop makes them easier to control”( 20). Reading The Power of Habit, helped me understand the process by which I made a positive change to fight procrastination.
He argues that addiction is a behavioral disorder caused by the person’s social environment and the lack of resources. Levy believes that, most of the time, an addict does not have services or resources available in order to remove herself from “the environment” where drugs are found constantly. He also stated that most of these addicts are physically unfit since they are poorly nourished, and they are struggling with their own personal stress. Levy, in his article, highlighted that a person’s environment, his health, and the resources he has, play a crucial role in determining whether or not the person will abuse drugs. Levy’s arguments seem to hold a strong position concerning addiction and its causes. However, his arguments seem to contain ambiguous words which can leave readers wandering about the actual definition of the word, and also interrupt their reading. For instance, Levy argues that addiction can be defined as a disease only if it includes pathological deviations from “norms of brain function” (Levy, 2013). He also mentions claims like addiction can lead to some deficits that are “relatively minor”, and addiction can cause impairment only in “certain” social environments (Levy, 2013). These words, norms, minor, certain, can be viewed as ambiguous words since it can have more than one meaning. In addition, Levy, in his article, seems to contradict some of his
Many people dislike the term ‘addiction’ in relation to drugs or other substances, particularly as it infers that a person is powerless over their use of a particular drug or in some circumstances, a number of substances. Whilst others maintain it is this powerlessness that is the foundation of diagnosis and treatment – that treatment is not possible without recognition of addiction itself as the ‘problem’ being addressed. The professional and public perception of addiction is complicated. There are many approaches and models to explain addiction, the role of the addict, and their environment. This essay will compare and contrast two of these approaches, the medical/disease and the social model. Initially this essay will describe the origins of each model, and follow by explaining their respective strengths and weaknesses, and finish with an overview of the key differences between them. This essay will conclude by demonstrating that a holistic approach, and a cross-pollination of these models is the most successful approach to treating addicts. As is the case for all diseases, there are multiple treatment options, and as ever person is different, the results in each individual cannot be predicted.
Levenkron, S. (1991). Treating & Understanding Crippling Habits. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders. New York, NY: Warner Books.
The casino would call her to go play for them and she would go because she already had her routine of going everyday. She is fully responsible for her action towards her gambling addiction and destroying her life because she made a bad habit. Bachmann knew that her gambling addiction can lead into trouble and she set rules for herself . For example, “Protecting people from their bad habits in fact, defining which habits' should be considered "bad" in the first place is a prerogative lawmakers have eagerly seized’’(qtd in Duhigg). This explains that protecting people from their habits is bad and can lead them into a consequences in their life. People have similar problem with gambling in their life as well with Angie Bachmann . They can’t stop gambling in their life because once the person has a addiction in playing games at casino and the person gets a habit where it starts growing to them in their
The fact that addiction is a brain disorder is a new detail that I learnt from the HBO video. As pointed out by Dr. Volkow, addiction as a brain disease renders the addicts unable to control themselves in relation to curbing their addiction problem. In conceptualizing addiction as a brain disease, Volkow illustrates this standpoint with the fact that the brain has a “natural reward system” that facilitates the learning of “behaviors that are necessary for survival” (NIDA 2006). Learning that the abused drugs take over this system – the dopamine system of the brain - was pivotal in finally grasping the rationale behind referring to addiction as a brain disorder. The brain with time becomes dependent on the abused drugs. This arises from the fact that natural rewards no longer have the capability to produce “normal levels of dopamine or pleasure” (NIDA 2006). As time goes on, the continued intake of drugs subsequently makes the addict lose all control over their use and dependen...
Every person possesses some type of habit, whether we realize it or not. A habit is a repetitive way of thinking, doing, or acting that is acquired from a previous experience. Most habits are done unconsciously and can be anything from shopping, drinking, and licking your lips, to telling lies, crying, and brushing your teeth. Though habits seem to be embedded in us, it is possible for us to do away with them. This paper will dissect my habit of smoking tobacco. I will discuss how I developed this habit and why I continue to pursue it. Also presented, will be different theories as to why I have this habit and what I can do to change it.
Drug users rationalize that they would be unhappier if they were kept from addictive substance, therefore they increase drug use. Increased drug consumption displays what is labeled as addiction in this theory. A situation is created where high drug use becomes a daily problem. Harmful addictions have two properties: reduced welfare and increased need for the good (Henden, Melberg, & Rogeberg,
Everyone develops habits in their life, but it depends on whether or not you have an obsession or develop an addiction for it. In Chapter 9 of “The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg, Angie Bachmann has a gambling addiction which led her to massive debts. She is a wife of Brian Thomas and have 3 daughters. Angie Bachmann should be held accountable for her gambling debts because her set of rules weren’t working, was tempted by Harrah’s perks, and her environment shaped her to become addicted.
... addicted gamblers that they encountered. In Bachmann’s case they allegedly accused the casino for specifically targeting Bachmann by using some of her cravings to get her back into the casino. In my opinion that is totally absurd and a poor excuse for blaming a casino that she went to on a daily basis.
“She knew gambling could lead to trouble, so she set strict rules for herself. No more than one hour at the blackjack table per trip.” (pg 247, Angie couldn’t control the impulse to gamble even though she knew that her gambling was hurting her loved ones. “Years later, after she had lost everything and had ruined her life and her husband’s, after she had thrown away hundreds of thousands of dollars and her lawyer had argued before the state’s highest court that Angie Bachmann gambled not by choice, but out of habit, and thus shouldn’t bear culpability for her losses, .....
What is a habit? A habit is a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up. Every person has a habit. From small, non dangerous, habits like biting nails or high pitched laughing, to dangerous ones such as smoking, drinking, and reckless behavior. Habits can go un-noticed by people because they vary in seriousness. Breaking habits varies greatly. It can be as simple as not doing something in the morning, to stopping drugs and alcohol.