-This TED talk was given by Johann Hari in June 2015 in London. Hariis a British journalist and novelist, known for his work on addiction and depression. As he mentioned in the opening of his TED talk, he took interest on the topic of addiction because some of his loved ones were addicts. When trying to understand their suffering and searching ways to help them, he realized there were not that much knowledge on how and why addiction appears, and few solutions on how to tackle it. He thereby started to travel the world to look for answers, by meeting researchers, addicts and law-enforcement professionals. In this conference, he explains to the audience what he has figured out from all of those encounters : according to him, addictions cannot be understood solely by the medical angle of chemical hooks, but rather as a response to the lack of connection in someone’s life. Hence the title of his presentation, “everything we thought we knew about addiction is wrong”, because we mainly consider the addictions as this chemical response of the brain to psychoactive substances that provokes the need for more, the craving and feelings of withdrawal. But Hari evokes the experiment of the rat park and the soldiers of the Vietnam war to highlight the social dimension of addiction : in those situations, social interactions are favored to the use of drugs. The two points of view are maybe not so opposite : psychoactive substances do have an effect on the brain, trigger reactions, create a cycle of craving and withdrawal, but the social dimension highlighted by Hari could be seen as what sets off the process of addiction.
-The second part of his presentation is centered on the way we treata nd take care of addicts, based on the new approach of addictions that he previously developed. He points out the fact that society mainly reacts to addiction with coercive laws rather than care, which heightens the isolation and marginalization of addicts, thus worsening the cycle: “lack of connection – substance-use” that seems to exist. But Hari keeps an optimistic angle by exposing the solution to drug abuse established in Portugal where all drugs are decriminalized and the money formerly used to drug regulation has been injected in health care systems, resulting in a drop of crime and overdose related deaths and a growth of well-being and remissions. What is reassuring and pleasant in this model is that as Hari puts it : “the opposite of addiction is not sobriety, it’s connection”, meaning that this lack of connection that feeds the addiction process could also be a solution : recreating those interactions and human relations could be a powerful tool to help addicts get clean and sober.
-The target audience of this TED talk is most likely not only health professionals, but also students and non-specialists on the field of addiction. In that sense, Hari proves to be a very good and convincing speaker, because of his spontaneous and candid way of speaking. His presentation does give an interesting new look on the addiction field, but would probably be considered incomplete by professionasl working with addicts. Indeed, some critics could be underlined by comparing Hari’s point of view with other research in psychology. For example, some authors showed that there is such at hing as “addictive organization” which is a sort of personality type characterized by a stronger inclination to use drugs as a defense against intense and ill-managed emotions. This process strongly resembles the use of psychoactive substances as a self-medication mechanism that has been described by McDougall and Khantzian. Emotions and situations are perceived as unbearable and painful, and drugs are thereby a solution found by the subject to alleviate inner suffering. Furthermore, the etiology of addiction cannot be boiled down to social dimension and lack of social interaction and bonding only : there is a neurobiological substrate that has to be taken into account when trying to understand the functioning of addiction. There are indeed many scientific papers on the interaction between genes and brain functions : heredity is a vulnerability factor, no matter what the social context surrounding the subject is.
-From a methodical point of view, it is also important to put the results of Bruce Alexander’s rat park experiment back to a larger scale, by reminding that rat and human behaviors are not equal. In that regard, the ecological value of this research for human is questionable, which is why making inference from those results is not necessarily scientifically valid.
-To conclude, Hari’s intervention is a very interesting way to tackle the subject of addiction from a more original point of view than the one usually evoked which centers on medical and legal angles. However, in the same way that only focusing on the concept of chemical hooks gives a partial vision, and considering the social dimension as the new and best answer to addiction-related problems is also incomplete. Indeed, it masks other factors that contribute to the spark and maintenance of addiction. The format of the TED talk only gives space to some arguments and informations, which leaves out other explanation models. Therefore, Hari’s presentation is an interesting additional vision, but should not be considered as the only good way to think about and handle addiction.
Words we have learned :
-To alleviate : calmer, soulager
-Withdrawal : syndrome de manque
-Inclination : tendance, propension
-Boil down to : se limiter à, consister à
-Bonding : nouer des liens affectifs avec quelqu’un
-Substrate : substrat, essence
Thomas Angibaud & Clara Champigny