Before I leave my house, I always prefer to double check my bedroom switches and gas appliances to be off or not. I know it’s good to be sure for anything. But returning to room while stepping outside is something not everyone does. It has become a sort of addiction to me. When I closely examine all these, I feel it’s something more than addiction- and so closer to disease. Here, I am going to make a slight difference in meaning of both addiction and disease. I would be making a clear statement on ‘what is addiction?’ and ‘what is disease?’, and how we could be aware of not being diseased.
What is Addiction?
Addiction is a surplus amount of your energy spend on unwanted tasks which has no good for your personal growth. Perhaps, addictions could act as a barrier to your growth. It could challenge your natural inclinations towards life and could divert your will towards unnecessary selections. For example- You want to wake up early and practice morning walk but you couldn’t do so, because you spend your night time by being glued to your phone screen. Addictions are intentional clogging to your mental abilities. It stops your abilities to discern between right and wrong. However, addictions could also be your choice in life. It could be your routine or the way you would like to spend your life. It could be your happiness and the reason to live. It could be your favourite habits and patterns of living. Addictions, sometimes, become so well settled that they could leave no space in between your actual self and personal identity. For example, a youtuber addicted to its passion may rarely find his time outside his blogging world. In such situations, you would like to forcefully impose the substance of addiction to be available to you at the space and time you desire.
How addictions turns into a disease?
In case, your inclinations could not work independently to your substance of addictions, then it turns into a disease. For instance, if you couldn’t pass your day without encountering your addicted stuff, then you are most likely to feel hopeless and useless. There is a very thin line between addictions as a habit or disease. In the case of habit, it sometimes feels alright to miss your habit for a day or twice. In the case of being used to daily sips of coffee, you would be unlikely to be called addicted (in the sense of disease) on switching sometimes to tea or juice. Addiction is a habit if you do it regularly. On the other hand, your addictions become your disease if you “necessarily” or “compulsorily” do it regularly. The concepts of “necessity” could change definitions of habits from addictions to disease. The concept of necessity brings an impositions to your actions. To avoid impositions, it’s alright if you miss some rigid patterns of living.
Addiction is fine to a certain limit
Let’s examine an area from our life when we feel fine to be addicted. Some people are an achiever in their life, achievement lies in their nerves. They are called addicted to success and achievements. They could not digest failures. They have a clear vision on how to keep achieving heights and they do keep proper track of it. There are other groups of people who are addicted to challenges in life. They will do super daring things to feel a kick beneath their core. They are the groups of people who love taking challenges and risks. They play deadly games with their life because they feel they have a hunger for it. I would mention the other kinds of addictions where curiosity drives a person to achieve an intellectual operation. Such people are addicted to inspecting the theories, the contraries, and the unending phenomenon of life.
Now the three addictions I mentioned here looks normal. Isn’t it? It may seem absolutely fine to be an extraordinary achiever, a courageous and daring personality, and a bookworm in life. All this appears as a normal habit or a pattern of living. There might not be an issue for anyone to encounter such lists of people in their lives. Many of our friends or relatives might be under such categories and we feel absolutely right to interact with them.
Crossing limits of addictions turns into disease
Now let’s turn the table down. Suppose our achiever starts engaging in foul play to the cause of winning the race. Secondly, the die-hard challenge-seeker starts breaking the laws by exceeding the speed limits of his vehicle, and our intellectual genius starts skipping the diets for the fear of missing the focus of his ongoing research. These three members start altering the normal behaviour to the unmeasurable dimensions sounding closer to the term disease or sickness. On the way of their conduct, these three members start spoiling their social health, physical health and mental health. In another way, we see the excess of anything would lead to disease. Having an addiction to a moderate amount seems fine unless it causes major changes to our body, mind and self.
Addicted- let’s do a quick test?
To find out your level of addictions, You may try doodling joint lines on your notebook each time you have an inner craving. You may note the total number of lines at the end of the week and assess whether your addiction is just fine or diseased.
Balance of passion and vision- Learn from leaders
To have a better understanding of addictions and disease, we may study the life of following leaders and then really choose to live a balanced life of passion and vision.
Mary Kom, Indian Boxer, the Only female boxer with a medal in each one of the first seven World Championships, Padma Vibhushan
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), Indian Poet, Writer, Philosopher, Composer and Painter
Kalpana Chawla (1961-2003), First woman of Indian origin to go to space
Ratan Tata, Indian Industrialist, Philanthropist and Former Chairman of Tata Group
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Stay happy. Stay connected!
PhiloTreat 
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