It all makes so much sense now to me.. I never had a problem. (sarcasm)

I have encountered various sites online as well, and they frustrate me. ah well. Such is life; we will all continue to cling to our own belief systems until something radical makes us adjust them.

My mother, aunt and grandmother always described their gambling as a hobby and a way to go out together and have fun. I actually believed them until I went with them to the casino when I was 24. When I saw what they were doing and how they looked with my own eyes, I realized none of their justifications had been remotely true.

However, having now lived here in the US, I do feel that there is also a worrying tendency to use the addiction framework to make sense of all kinds of behaviour. I think this is overly simplistic and dangerous. I once had a therapist (an expert in relationship addiction) who told me that I was in the beginning stages of alcoholism, and made me feel guilty because I questioned that, and didn't want to do the whole 60 meetings in 60 days thing.

I realize that it is typical addict behaviour to deny there's a problem but, quite simply, I am not an alcoholic and I can't imagine I ever will be. I was just going through a bad, stressful time in my life where I drank too much to cope. Sure, that's certainly not healthy behaviour, but I don't do that anymore. It didn't help me at all to be told I was an alcoholic because when I went to the meetings, it just felt like the wrong fit. It also felt like this therapist was trying to shoehorn me into a certain therapeutic category.

On the other hand, though, I am perfectly willing to admit that I've got classic love addict/sex addict tendencies.

More seriously, I think we are at the beginning of a rethink of human behaviour. This sort of "It's all normal" nonsense is a bit of a misreading of this shift. I would say that most of the stuff you talked about here is normal, inasmuch as it happens lots, and one doesn't have to be a "broken" person to exhibit the behaviour.

However, it isn't constructive behaviour. It doesn't make the person or those around them happy. This isn't exactly a radical concept - toddlers having tantrums is normal, but we understand they need to learn not to do it. Why we think we all grow out of normal, unhelpful (and actively destructive) behaviour when we grow up eludes me. I know I haven't. I also know I am normal and I have to keep trying to overcome it.

Oh dear, nursing croupy baby makes me waffle.... Sorry.

I've run into those people too, and I always think that if they care *that much* about it, there must be something at stake for them--it must come a little too close to home.