Addiction and Emotion Volume 1

Dr. Lukens discusses the very real possibility of addicts achieving what he calls "transformational recovery." This is a permanent and full recovery that results in there being little to no risk of relapse. The process of recovery has been historically characterized as a lifelong and tenuous struggle, and Dr. Lukens believes this is a false conclusion based on an inadequate understanding of what addiction actually is. He presents his mind-based framework for defining and understanding addiction in this multi-volume set. In this, the first volume, he features the basic tenets of his model for understanding addiction, which is based upon his theory of emotioning. As he explains, our emotional processes and their various interactive manifestations account for all of our volitional or "intended" behavior -- and addiction IS motivated volitional behavior. Addiction is neither simply a choice nor merely a disease, as these two ideas are conventionally understood. To see it as a choice is misleading because the addict's behaviors at some point become compulsive and do not "Feel" at all like a choice is involved. Yet to define addiction as a disease has the unfortunate side effect of utterly confusing the issue of personal responsibility for "doing" addiction. This suggests that the most useful formulation will have to lie somewhere between these two, and be able to coherently integrate "contributions" from both body and mind. Dr. Lukens clarifies much about the intricacies and peculiarities of the mind as these impact the addiction process: for example, the role of trance phenomena in accounting for compulsion and relapse vulnerability; the near universal commitment to "escapism" that addicts must change if recovery is to be full and final; and the "moral factor" as it works its way back into the middle of our understanding of addiction, and accounts for much of the "reason" addicts have to recover. His framework also helps to specify a viable way we can assign "reasonable" responsibility to the recovering addict that helps expose the need to more fully experience the emotional pains that serve as the motivational underpinnings of addictive behaviors, which can then open new vistas for living life "well beyond" the addiction.