Status & Success meet Mindset & Mattering
People who are familiar with my work know that addiction is one of the specialties I treat at my practice, I am personally connected to addiction in many ways (including being the spouse of someone in opiate addiction recovery), and I write and create content around addiction to increase awareness and options for folks. I mostly educate on substance addiction. However, there are other kinds of addictions, mainly behavioral addictions. One of the least discussed behavioral addictions is achievement addiction, also known as, workaholism.
Let’s discuss what achievement addiction is and how it happens. First, we can review some definitions and get a foundation established.
Substance Addiction
Addiction is a neuropsychological disorder characterized by a persistent and intense urge to use a drug/substance or engage in a behavior that produces natural reward, despite substantial harm and other negative consequences.
Classic signs of addiction include compulsive engagement in rewarding stimuli, preoccupation with substances or behavior, and continued use despite negative consequences. Habits and patterns associated with addiction are typically characterized by immediate gratification (short-term reward), coupled with delayed negative effects (long-term costs).
Behavioral Addiction
Addiction can exist without psychotropic drugs (behavioral addictions), an idea that was popularized by psychologist Stanton Peele. Such addictions may be passive or active, but they commonly contain reinforcing features, which are found in most addictions. Sexual behavior, eating, gambling, playing video games, and shopping are all associated with compulsive behaviors in humans and have been shown to activate the mesolimbic pathway and other parts of the reward system, which is true for substance addictions, as well.
The term behavioral addiction refers to a compulsion to engage in a natural reward – which is a behavior that is inherently rewarding (i.e., desirable or appealing) – despite adverse consequences. Preclinical evidence has demonstrated that marked increases in the expression of DeltaFosB (gene) through repetitive and excessive exposure to a natural reward induces the same behavioral effects and neuroplasticity that occurs in a drug/substance addiction.
Achievement Addiction
Workism, workaholism, achievement addiction is the pursuit of ultimate meaning and satisfaction through achievement, and work becomes all-important, holding the keys to someone’s happiness and fulfillment.
Workaholism is when a person’s drive to achieve becomes so great that other areas — family, love life, health and leisure — are neglected in the effort to achieve more and more. As you might imagine, many achievement-addicted persons are financially successful, but money, for the most part, is a by-product of the desire to succeed and win. It is important to note that achievement-addiction is connected to the Type A behavior pattern, the hard-driving, competitive, and coronary-prone personality.
It has been described like this:
I am devoted to my job. I feel most myself when I am fulfilled by my work – including the work of writing an essay about work. My sense of identity is so bound up in my job, my sense of accomplishment, and my feeling of productivity that bouts of writer’s block can send me into an existential funk that can spill over into every part of my life.
Status, Success, and Money
In today’s professional world, achievement is often celebrated as the ultimate virtue, especially here in the USA where capitalism rules. We equate success with metrics—titles, salaries, recognition—but rarely pause to examine the price we pay. Relationships, health, peace of mind, and even our sense of self can become collateral damage in the pursuit of status, success and money. Explicitly and implicitly, we get the message that achieving more, having more, accomplishing more is best. It seems to be a message that is interwoven into the fabric of the air we breathe—from birth on. So, of course, it would be hard to shift your biology and psychology away from achievement addiction when the larger economy and society are working against you, telling you this is the way, the truth, and the life to strive for. Thomas Curran, a psychologist, has researched different types of perfectionism and the toll it takes on mental health and well-being. In his examination of unhealthy perfectionism, Curran puts capitalist achievement culture squarely in the crosshairs. “Perfectionism is the defining psychology of an economic system that’s hell-bent on overshooting human and planetary thresholds,” he writes...
There's more to this article. To read more about:
The Role of Perfectionism
The Role of Validation
The Role of Social Media
Maslow, Mindset & Mattering
The Path to Wellness
Find the remainder of this article on MEDIUM.
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