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Addictions
Understand the basics of addiction and discover what maintains it while learning methods that can be implemented in freeing ourselves from its grasp.

ADDICTIONS: PART 3: PORNOGRAPHY
Written by Larry Dunning   
Tuesday, 30 September 2008

Sexuality...it's hard-wired into our biology--for good reason!  If we weren't sexual beings, the human race would cease to exist!!  But, because of that "hard-wiring," sometimes sexual behaviors get embedded into our biology so strongly, that they threaten to take over our existence.  Let's look at one such behavior that can become so powerful that we crave it, obsess over it, and devote many hours to pursuing it--accessing of pornography.  Many of those addicted to pornography consider it a "victimless crime"--"It's something I do on my own time, and it's not hurting anyone!!" we sometimes hear.  But is it really?  Do the hours spent poring over internet sites rob us of time we could be interacting with our "significant other" or our children?  Do those hours reduce our productivity at work, which essentially robs our employer, who is paying us to be a productive employee?  Let's take a look at how addiction to pornography can develop, and how it might be brought under control.

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ADDICTIONS: PART 2: SHOPLIFTING
Written by Larry Dunning   
Monday, 25 August 2008
Let's take a look at another addiction, one that perhaps isn't always recognized as an addiction--shoplifting.  Now, not all shoplifting can be classified as part of an addiction.  Tommy taking a Snickers bar from the local Save-Mart probably doesn't rise to the level of an addiction--assuming this is a one-time, spur of the moment event.  However, if shoplifting becomes something difficult to control, becomes somewhat obsessive, if it tends to fulfill financial and/or emotional needs, and is marked by a tendency to want more and more over time, we may be looking at an addiction.  Let's take a look at Emily's struggle with a shoplifting addiction...
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ADDICTIONS: PART 1: EATING DISORDER
Written by Larry Dunning   
Saturday, 09 August 2008

Addictions seem to be an inherent part of our culture.  We’re constantly bombarded with reports about the effects of meth abuse, babies addicted to crack, individuals who are caught shoplifting, pornography rings, and news of crimes that relate to those addictions.  How do these addictive behaviors arise, and why are they so hard to stop?  Addictions seem to offer us a “path to happiness” or at least an immediate relief from suffering and emotional pain.  They seem to offer us an attractive, but misguided, solution to our problems, and unfortunately, become embedded in our physiology.  They become part of our neurochemistry--how our brain copes with life’s challenges.  Let’s look at a few addictions, and see how they commonly develop and why they often persist…

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