Behavioural addiction: an issue for everybody?

Abstract

For many people the concept of addiction involves taking drugs. Therefore it is perhaps unsurprising that most official definitions concentrate on drug ingestion. Despite such definitions, there is now a growing movement which views a number of behaviours as potentially addictive, including many behaviours which do not involve the ingestion of a drug. But do behavioural addictions really exist? Answers this question by examining the various commonalities (psychological, sociological and cultural) between excessive behaviours (behavioural and chemical) and by drawing on the author’s own work into fruit‐machine addiction. Concludes that addictions are not just restricted to drug‐ingestion behaviours and that evidence is growing that excessive behaviours of all types do seem to have many commonalities.