John Dupuy on Addiction Beyond Substances
When people ask me about addiction, they usually assume I mean drugs or alcohol. The reality is wider than that. After my book went out into the world, I started hearing from readers I never expected. One man wrote to tell me he was a sex addict, that it was tearing apart his peace, his sanity, his whole life, and that everything I'd written about drugs and alcohol fit his situation exactly.
It keeps showing up in different forms. Internet addiction. Porn. Workaholism. Gambling. Even something like extreme sports. People find all sorts of behaviors to chase, and the mechanics underneath are the same. The reptilian brain stem, the amygdala, the reward system: those are the parts that light up. Rather than using a chemical to trigger the rush or the euphoria, a person does something compulsively to get there.
Gambling is one of the big ones. You tell yourself you'll be reasonable. You've got a thousand dollars in your hand, the casino is right there, and the sensible move is to pay your bills and maybe put a little away. That's not what happens. The impulse takes over, the control slips, and it goes on and on until it's wrecked the person's life across every area: relationships, health, money, state of mind.
The pattern is remarkably consistent with drug and alcohol addiction. Personality changes. Loss of control. Despair. Finances in ruins. Because the symptoms line up, the way out tends to line up too. The same practices that help someone recover from a substance also help someone caught in a behavioral addiction.
Cross addictions happen as well. Somebody might be dealing with a gambling problem sitting right alongside a cocaine problem. Any of these can stack on top of each other in combination. But the recovery work underneath them is basically one and the same.
As for how my own approach to treatment plays out, that's a fair thing to want spelled out. What someone actually goes through when they come to work with me, and how that differs from other programs, is its own conversation.