My grandma used to buy those supermarket “rags” in the checkout line. The over-the-top headlines and doctored photographs were just barely plausible enough you could imagine stories titled “Santa found frozen in chunks of ice,” “Jesus action figure heals the sick” and myriad references to Elvis being alive and well long after his demise could be true, even though deep down inside you knew it was all fiction. If you ran into someone who believed…
Dopamine actually gets released with many activities we engage in. Sex, eating, listening to music, driving fast, anger, getting a tattoo, gambling, hunting, fishing…pick your poison. Addiction has many “risk factors” just like many maladies. These include physical, mental, emotional, environmental and genetic factors. Now if you just want to talk about substance dependence, dopamine is a component, but using substances is just a symptom of “the disease” if you believe it’s a disease. True addiction is made up of obsession (the continual thought or self-talk that tells you to engage in a behavior) and compulsion (once started you cannot stop). My experience is that the solution is spiritual, mental and physical.
In the end, you cannot rescue someone who refuses to participate in their rescue.