UKH

Another thread prompted me to think about whether being keen on climbing could reasonably be considered an addiction. Some of the linked papers seemed to be  based on the premise that this was true, but my knee-jerk reaction was climbing - in general - was no more an addiction than any other activity that you derive pleasure from, e.g., playing the piano or playing with the kids. All these can produce 'withdrawal' symptoms, but that doesn't mean that there's any value in describing them as an 'addiction'.

Is it just a case of a term being miss-applied outside of its relevant field/context?

Is it just a case of psychologist only seeing the world through the lens of psychology?

Or is there some value in this premise?

As far as I'm concerned, the boundary where something goes from being life-affirming fun to being an addiction is primarily defined by when it start to destroy the lives of the participants (yes, I know you can be killed climbing - that's not what I mean by 'destroy') and the lives of those around them. I'm sure that has happen with climbers, but no more so than with non-climbers.

Thoughts?

In reply to Marek:

Isn't true addiction due to well defined neurological changes? I suspect that using the word for something we just enjoy and get satisfaction from, so keep doing, is incorrect or at least sloppy.

Addiction is a medical condition. Climbing isn't.

In reply to Marek:

I’m not sure it’s an addiction, but I certainly feel twitchy if I haven’t climbed for a couple of weeks. 

In reply to Marek:

Being “keen on climbing” doesn’t constitute an addiction.

Indeed, it’s a shame the word has been devalued to describe a healthy like or desire for something.

In reply to Marek:

Plenty of neurodiverse people hyper focus on an activity/hobby like climbing but that's not the same thing as an addiction

In reply to Marek:

This book explores the subject in interesting ways.... not a biochemical research treatise, so largely informed speculation....but seems way more plausible than all this idiocy around adrenaline. I really enjoyed it.

https://publications.americanalpineclub.org/articles/13201212786/The-Alchem...

In reply to Marek:

There isn't a universally accepted line in the sand delineating addiction and non addiction.....certainly some areas such as alcohol dependence will have major physiological changes at cellular level but a good detox will manage these but that is where other aspects of dependency/addiction begins.

I think it's possible that for some people the physiological patterns associated with exercise creates a strong desire to engage in whatever activity it is and a bio-pscho-social response connects well in to this...

I really wouldn't give much credence to what psychologists say..... they often speak with a pretence of science as a foundation to their ideas but in reality the notion of science is mostly flawed in relation to people.

In reply to Marek:

I'm almost certainly 'addicted' to the exercise endorphins and dopamine (aka happiness), vitamin D from being out all day, and mental stimulation of climbing. Anyone who makes climbing a big part of their life is. Doesn't matter though, if it doesn't harm anyone, does it?

Might be different if you've got 8 kids at home and you're at the crag all day while your partner is run ragged, but that's the same for anything.

In reply to Marek:

Yeah, addiction is broadly when you keep compulsively doing something despite it making your life worse overall. 

Psychology is fundamentally about predicting and influencing behaviour. I don’t think trying to understand hobbies, sport and recreation through the lens of addiction is going to accomplish that all too well. It might be someone only seeing the world through their specific area of interest within psychology, or someone wondering if there are elements of overlap that can contribute to a wider understanding, but sport/exercise being an addiction is certainly not a broader view within psychology. 

In reply to Marek:

That seems a very narrow definition. I was addicted to tobacco for years, and whilst it will have knocked a couple of years off my life expectancy it didn't destroy my life, or those around me. 

I was also pretty addicted to caffeine for a long time, without any deleterious effects (until my mental health deteriorated and I realised stimulants weren't v the best thing for an anxious mind.

I suspect there's something slightly unhealthy about the obsession that it takes any of us to be really good at something we do purely for pleasure, and that requires training hard, pushing through pain and fear, and all the chemicals that creates in our brains.

In reply to Stuart Williams:

I fully agree with this. This thread was spawned by the PhD research thread, from which I read a past paper by that thread author's research supervisor (this one: https://akjournals.com/view/journals/2006/5/2/article-p332.xml ). I thought it missed the point entirely by suggesting that climbing withdrawal and "craving" is akin to that of people addicted to drugs, and is needlessly pathologizing of people who like climbing rocks. As other posters have said, you could substitute any activity that someone enjoys for climbing in that context. 

What I thought this paper tried a bit too hard to do was draw an argument that climbing is useful for treating drug addiction because it gives a similar high with similar post-high cravings. A simple explanation could be that the social, problem-solving, and physical aspects of it mean that its fun for some people to do it. 

I'd broadly agree with this, Mark, but I think the problem with this is that applying a term like addiction (which is used to signify both a psychiatric diagnosis as well as used descriptively) is that it requires a judgement call. Some people would consider me taking a year off work to go climbing as reckless and dysfunctional because of lost earnings, having to quit my job, etc, but other people might draw the line at soloing. Since the point at which you judge a pattern of behaviour as an addiction is so subjective, I'm not convinced that it's a useful term for activities like sport.

Having said that, I've definitely taken risks when I was younger because I found the social status and enjoyment of doing bold routes to be reinforcing. I still don't think that addiction would be a helpful way of describing this behaviour though. 

IRT abr1966

Hi, doctor of clinical psychology here 😀  No approach is perfect, but I'd love to hear how you think we should try to learn more about human behaviour (internal and external) in a fairly rigorous way, if not by adapting the scientific method to make it appropriate to study people. 

In reply to Stuart Williams:

That's close to my informal definition, but it begs the question: "Worse as judged by whom? The subject or society?

In reply to Marek:

Yeah, I thought your definition was a reasonable one.

As to who judges what’s worse, that’s a good question as there’s no shortage of people who will say “I’m fine” despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. And on the other hand there are people who clearly have an addiction but in the grand scheme of things it really isn’t a problem in their life. I’d say the better question isn’t about better or worse but “if you carry on doing this will you be moving closer or further away from the life that, deep down, you want to be living”. 

In reply to Marek:

I don't see an addiction per se as destructive. Sure, the addictions that immediately come to mind are... alcohol,drugs,gambling, nicotine etc but i'm damn sure that some addictions are positive e'g, climbing, running, vindaloo curries etc .. I suppose it come down to how you define addiction, personally I'd opt for 'something in your life you'd find it very difficult to do without'. There's also degrees of addiction as well as types of addiction ... are you addicted because of compulsion and enjoyment is secondary or vice versa .. I suspect most fall into the latter camp `as the first camp is not a sustainable position in the longer term.

In reply to Andy Reeve:

A good start would have been (in the survey at least) would have been a better definition of "extreme sports" since this is just an advertising slogan that seems to have been taken over by every trend sport manufacturer. Equating someone running across the Sahara with doing a double front-flip on a motocross bike with us plodders on mediocre rock climbs is certainly stretching things even if outside observers see it otherwise.

Extreme sports like hyper-marathons (or whatever they are called these days) are one thing and require a completely different mind-set and provide a different reward to the competitor compared with say an FMX rider but both have one thing in common, years of training to control every aspect of what they are doing, an unconrolled adrenaline rush is the last thing you want.

In reply to JimR:

One approach I used at work (all those years ago) when it came to definitions was to explore both sides of the boundaries to see if it made sense. To take your definition (for example) how does 'oxygen' fit in? An addiction? Not really - or at least not in any useful way - so I think you need to work on it a bit more

In reply to jimtitt:

I think that the original meaning of the word has now been superceded - English is after all a 'living' language and if I remember rightly, most definitions of life include producing crap -  by the irregular usage whereby when applied in the third person it means "Totally stupid! I would never do that", but applied in the first person means "Look at me! Aren't I amazing!"

The academic paper cited certainly supported the third person view above and since it was peer reviewed, it must be right.

In reply to Marek:

Indeed. It's a bit like that other common irregular verb:

I am improving at climbing.

You are moving up through the grades.

S/He is 'grade-chasing'.

In reply to Marek: I know some people who do things that most people would consider dangerous, and receive great satisfaction from the endorphins and adrenaline kick.  If they don't do such things for a while they become twitchy and grumpy.

Is the above in line with your definition of addiction.  

Ledge shuffling, not so much.

In reply to Marek:

Add the word ‘optional’ after ‘something’

In reply to jimtitt:

I think you've misunderstood, I wasn't defending the research on the other thread. I was responding to abr1966's assertion about psychology and psychological research in general.

In reply to JimR:

Hmm, OK, but I suspect most 'proper' addicts would not consider what they do/take as 'optional'. Perhaps we need to make a distinction between before/after addiction, i.e., it was optional before and now no longer is.

In reply to Marek:

I think "feeding the rat" would be the phrase for me and my climbing. 

In reply to Andy Reeve:

I was pointing out that scientific method implies a level of rigour, defining the terms used is a really good start. From the other thread (and my own failure to relate to the questions) clearly the questioner is working to a different interpretation of which if any of the named sports is "extreme" than most us do.

In reply to Marek:

I'd suggest - when you feel compelled to do something regardless of whether its impact is beneficial or harmful. While maybe not medically addictive (but surely quite plausibly compulsive - you can have what are psychologically deemed 'compulsive' behaviours without biological dependency) - the way in which it can consume a person, and their wellbeing be unhealthily dependent upon it, is definitely true for some (several?) climbers. I couldn't easily say whether climbing has a straight good or bad impact on my life, though it's definitely problematic in various regards, but I fear not having it.

In reply to Marek:

I think the moment climbing or any other "adventure" sport starts to become dangerous, there's bound to be an adrenaline element (which could become addictive). That's a natural, involuntary,  physiological response that's difficult to deny. I'm not sure why that should be controversial.

In reply to John Stainforth:

Agreed. Adrenaline is an important mechanism to help us deal with potentially dangerous situations. I don't think anyone would argue otherwise. But the term 'adrenaline junkie' implies that the person engages in that dangerous activity simply in order to feel the effect of the adrenaline rather than for any other aspect of the activity. That's the distinction. I think for most climbers a surge of adrenaline is inevitable and accepted, but also controlled so it doesn't affect out performance adversely. A 'fight-or-flight' response might be OK in some dangerous situations, but not when you're standing on a wet smear with no handholds, no protection an no obvious way to go.

In reply to Andy Reeve:

I tend to ask them and try and find understanding and meaning in the context of their history and development....but I'm not interested in making generalisations from this....everyone is very different!

Abr...Consultant Clinical Psychologist (NHS) 😊

In reply to Marek:

Again, neurodiversity can play a part here. ND people can have very different relationships with hormones such as dopamine and adrenaline to neurotypical people. They can also have very different risk assessment processes going on in their brains and can have a different appreciation of actions and potential consequences.

In reply to abr1966:

Lol, well that makes me look a fool.

I think they are a lot of problems with psychological research making generalisations rather than aiming for a more idiopathic understanding, but I still think you're rather throwing the baby out with the bathwater with your earlier comment.

In reply to Andy Reeve:

"I think they are a lot of problems with psychological research making generalisations"

That comment has to be close to a definition of generalisations!

In reply to gribble:

IANP (I Am Not a Psychologist), but in defence I'd point out that at lot of the effort of scientific research is about developing and validating generalisation of more specific laws. Quantum theory, Einstein's General Relativity, Maxwell's Equations, Newton's law all are part of that tradition with the TOE (Theory of Everything) as the (infinitely?) distant objective. The key difference - perhaps - the the 'validation' part. You have to demonstrate that the generalised theory is at least as accurate as the more specific theories within their respective contexts. Perhaps that's where psychology falls down?

In reply to Marek:

I injured my back playing sevens as a kid, cracked vertebrae and torn muscles that were misdiagnosed at the time so didn't heal well, I suffered regular back pain throughout my 20s and 30s, until I started climbing around 35, which completely resolved the issues....with the caveat that it flares up very reliably if I don't climb for 5 or so days, so I'm guess I'm stuck with it now. Addiction? Maybe. 

In reply to midgen:

Sound more like 'applied physiotherapy' than addiction.