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iQuestions Faculty, Dr. David Eckman 
 
 
Question: 
 
Does addiction just happen? 
 
Answer: 
 
Addiction doesn’t just happen. That’s a message of hope.  
 
In our culture, it’s almost as if people trip into addiction, and that is 
not the case. When a culture is going through tremendous stress, 
there is always a rise in addiction.  
 
Our culture has tremendous levels of addiction occurring, because of 
the divorce issue, the separation, the majority of kids now who will 
have more than two parents— those kinds of cultural issues create the 
stress that feed addiction. Dysfunctional family backgrounds feed 
addiction. Unaddressed pain in the life feeds addiction. Physical 
problems feed addiction. 
 
There are certain predictable factors to addiction, and that’s a 
message of hope. Address those factors, and one’s ability to deal with 
addictive behaviors strengthens and is increased.  
 
Addiction doesn’t just happen. There’s a rhyme and a reason to it— and 
the more sophisticated we are, the more informed we are about how 
addiction works, the better we can protect ourselves, our families, our 
friends, our coworkers.  
 
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