A conversation ensued. I used some Motivational Interview Techniques to both qualify (or disqualify) the "journalist" for certain forms of attachment to outcomes in general, and to cause, risk and rescue obsessions in particular. He "failed" all the "tests." (Sigh.) And waxed enthusiastic (in somewhat bipolar hypomanic and possibly OCPD fashion) about setting off soon to "immerse" himself into the group as a "spy" to get a better look. (Look. Mr first BA was in journalism. One learns in a decent school to be cautious when doing "investigative reporting." And to make sure one has plenty of informed and assertively watchful "back-up.")
In a limited effort to "reason" with him, I offered links to a pair of pop psych articles somewhat on the topics here. He didn't "get it." But I discovered that -- at least in the Google realm -- there isn't anywhere near the information on "behavioral process addictions" vs. what one will run into on substance addictions. Given what little I found on the former, it looks to me like one has to dig into such as a Complex PTSD Library (and even deeper into my own list of over 650 "psych" books) to locate much of any substance on non-substance addictions other than the most obvious ones. Which are gambling, sex, romance, relationship, religion, work and sadomasochistic abuse. But there are many others... and cause, risk and rescue (as well as persecution) are on the long list.
If one stops to recall one's acquaintances over the course of a decade or two (or three), it won't be that hard to find a "ward-heeling," political, or social welfare, or save-the-planet, or join-the-march-against-whatever (at the front), and/or religious cause addict or two (or three) in there.
Nor will it be unlikely that there's a risk freak running the gamut from the kid who does 15-foot-high flips on his motorcycle off the humps in the hills... to the one who smokes gange and races drag races with others out on the back roads... to the one who's been raped four times because she keeps going to the bar and leaving at midnight with men you wouldn't be caught dead with in broad daylight... to the one who came back from Iraq in a wheelchair he'll never get out of after volunteering for his ninth patrol in the "bad neighborhood"... to the one who was raised in a bizarre religious cult but left it in a huff as soon as she was old enough only to join an equally bizarre human potential cult known for enslaving hundreds of slave laborers in barbwire-fenced compounds in California and Florida. (I could go on, but I'm hoping the examples are sufficiently clear to illustrate the concept.)
Rescue addicts are somewhat like cause and risk addicts combined, though they get no obvious excitement from their obsessive behaviors. Most of the ones I have encountered are so obviously trying to escape the "victim" corners on their intra- and inter-personal Karpman Drama Triangles. Deeply -- but unconsciously -- conditioned, in-struct-ed, socialized, habituated and normalized to what researcher Martin Seligman called "learned helplessness" and psychotherapist Stanley Block called the "victim I-dentity system," they cannot see, hear or otherwise sense their anxious attachment schemes and dire need to fix others so they can feel "okay" and "secure" themselves.
All of these behaviors manifest the reward-&-reinforcement schemes of Watson's, Skinner's and Bandura's operant conditioning and Bateson's, Watslawick's, Haley's and Jackson's notions of the "double-bind." The cause, risk or rescue addict may indeed experience cognitive (and emotional) dissonance about their behavior on occasion. But they are so powerfully rewarded by it in the short term of their bias toward immediate gratification that they return to the behavior regardless of its possible long-term consequences.
How is that any different from the addiction cycle any "drug & alcohol counselor" with an AA degree and a CADC sees in his or her patients at the local rehab? Because once the addict of any kind experiences any form of internal persecution or punishment on his Drama Triangle, he will start back into subconsciously rationalizing the addictive behavior as the means of "rescuing" himself and escaping the "persecution" (one more time).
BUT... one may ask, how do people get on that cyclical treadmill to begin with? In my experience of knowing thousands of substance and behavioral process addicts since 1977 (and with a bit of schooling since 1987, and with a lot of schooling since 2006), it all comes down to having been conditioned, in-struct-ed, socialized, habituated and normalized to learned helplessness and the helpless victim identity in early life, usually by the time they were no more than about five years old.
(World-renowned addiction experts Michael Bozarth, Patrick Carnes, Carlo DiClemente, Lance Dodes, Edward Khantzian, George Koob, Pia Mellody, Anne Wilson Schaef and Harold Shaffer -- as well as child development, abuse & treatment experts Sandra Bloom, John Briere, Christine Courtois, Judith Lewis Herman, Richard Kluft, Peter Levine, Marsha Linehan, Alice Miller, Bruce D. Perry, Frank Putnam, Arielle Schwartz, Ono van der Hart, Bessel van der Kolk and Pete Walker -- and many others have been all over this topic since the 1980s.)
Beyond that, however, it seems to me that the concepts of defense mechanisms in general and dissociation in particular point to the foundation of the dire need to find some way out of the bottom of the Drama Triangle to the socially approved -- however dysfunctional and costly -- "rescuer" corner thereon... vs. the socially disapproved "persecutor" corner at the other end of the top line. The sad fact, however, is that once on the Drama Triangle, there is no getting off without facing the fact of its existence and manifestations in any addict's life.
See also "Cult Membership as an Addiction Process... and Process Addiction"
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