Come on, man, you can’t keep trying to debunk thorough scientific research with your personal experiences. You’re better than this.
It’s hard to monitor ourselves sober, let alone while going through benzo withdrawal. I don’t doubt your experiences, it’s the analysis (and your ability to analyze) I’d call into question.
Psychological addictions, as I presume you mean them, aren’t a real scientific classification, which requires withdrawal by definition, and not just a desire to repeat the behavior. What you’re describing sounds like an internet compulsion. I’d suggest checking out the interview, she explains it.
- Impulsion is: I need to do this behavior right now, consequences be damned.
- Compulsion is: I feel a constant state of unease due to some cause and I need to do this behavior to calm that unease. We tend to think of compulsion only in the frame of OCD, but it’s wider than that.
- Addiction is: both of these things plus I will have a physically uncomfortable withdrawal, like you experienced with benzos, if I don’t.
To be clear, people can have sex and watch porn compulsively. They can also use the internet compulsively:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/compulsive-behaviors
Ultimately, we’re talking about the same thing but differently in a way that’s important. From the perspective of someone who’s experiencing internet or sex compulsion, there’s not much difference. But from the perspective of the treatment strategy, the difference is massive.
To treat an addiction, you need to remove the addictive substance. To treat a compulsion, you need to treat the underlying cause that manifests the compulsion as a symptom.
