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What are behavioral addictions?

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  3. What are behavioral addictions?

Until a few decades ago, the concept of addiction was only associated with drug use, but in recent years addictions that do not involve the ingestion of psychoactive substances, such as:

  • Excessive use of video games.
  • Compulsive buying.
  • Gambling games.
  • Sex addiction.
  • Etc.

All these addictions fall under the umbrella term behavioral addictions (BA). In principle, they are generally pleasurable and harmless human activities, but depending on their use and under certain circumstances, they can lead to:

  • Loss of control over the activity or behavior.
  • Dependence on said action or behavior.
  • Dangerous interference in daily life , causing people to stop doing activities that were previously enjoyable (for example, a child "hooked" on a video game may stop going out with friends, playing football, etc.).

According to some clinicians and researchers, the problems that these types of addictions generate in a person are similar to those of substance use or abuse disorders (SUDs):

  • Loss of self-control: Losing control over the problematic behavior or activity, even knowing that this may have negative consequences for the person (family, social, economic, academic, work, legal problems...).
  • Tolerance : the person needs to perform the action more and more to achieve the effect they initially obtained.
  • Withdrawal: the person is unable to control their discomfort (nervousness, irritability, etc.) when trying to quit the habit of performing the problematic behavior.

Although the demand for treatment is increasingly common in clinical consultations, the main diagnostic manual of mental health disorders (DSM-5) only recognizes gambling disorder and online video game addiction as such (See chapter 1 of this document).

It is worth noting that, although there is support from the scientific community regarding the existence of behavioral addictions, a debate remains open concerning some aspects, such as the potential for over-pathologizing excessive daily activities when the term is generalized. Thus, there are two key elements for considering a behavior as pathological and, therefore, as a disorder:

  • When this behavior is accompanied by a disruption in the person's daily functioning.
  • When this behavior persists over time.