There’s no quick fix for curing addiction

SUGAR is as bad for our health as smoking. Video games are as addictive as heroin. Energy drinks are as harmful as crack cocaine. These are just some of the ludicrous comparisons made by researchers to try to get their work noticed.

But they insult our intelligence. We are perfectly capable of understanding that something is risky, dangerous or unhealthy without having to listen to such daft hyperbole.

This week, we were offered more of this claptrap. ‘Shopping addiction is as bad as drug addiction,’ we were told by a consultant for charity Action On Addiction.

Are we really expected to believe you can die from buying too many skirts in Topshop!?

While a shopping obsession can have an impact on someone’s life and get them heavily into debt, it’s not in the same league as drug addiction.

But even though the researchers have overstated their case, they raise an important point.

Shopping addiction, drug use, alcohol dependency, eating disorders are all what doctors call ‘maladaptive coping strategies’ — behaviours that give someone a temporary sense of relief or respite. Of course, it’s just an illusion — buying new shoes or downing several vodkas doesn’t really deal with your problems, but it gives, for a moment, the feeling that it does. This fleeting relief can be very powerful.

The fact is that these behaviours are the symptom of an underlying problem — often serious issues relating to how people can regulate and cope with their emotions.

Ultimately, though, the key solution means having to tackle the root of the problem. But NHS mental health services don’t work in this way.

While there are individual treatment areas for drugs, alcohol, over-eating etc, there is no over-arching service to tackle the root difficulty.

This means that when someone overcomes one problem, they risk developing another. For example, a cured bulimic might then turn to drug use because while they dealt with the eating problem, they didn’t address the underlying issue.

If only the NHS would treat people in a more holistic way and set up mental health services accordingly, then we might make more headway in helping the unfortunate people dogged by such self-harming behaviour.