Well fart, looks like I have to come out of my barrel to help with this thread. I'm addiction specialist amongst other things. Anger is an extremely addictive behavior for a number of reasons, one of which is because of the wonderful cocktail of chemicals released into the bloodstream by a variety of glands. However, there are other reasons for anger to be addictive, especially for people who have trouble dealing with emotions. There is a wide range of emotions that we have not been trained to deal with as they appear in life. Frustration, grief, disappointment, betrayal etc. are often difficult to experience or to express. However, we have learned how to deal with and express anger, even if not in a socially acceptable manner, so other emotions have a way of being converted to anger just as a stress relief mechanism. If nothing else, we will get angry at ourselves for feeling these difficult to deal with emotions. The problem with anger is that it requires a target to vent upon and unfortunately it is often innocent humans that become the targets for aggressive expression of anger. These victims of of Anger often get angry themselves at the unfairness of the whole situation and go off seeking a target to vent their own newly acquired anger upon and the cycle begins a new, the comparison to anger as being a fire is a pretty apt analogy.
As far as seeking offense that is a psychological disorder known as "victim's Stance" Unfortunately it is one of the byproducts of our current educational system, among other factors. The 'learned helplessness' that typifies a Victim's Stance is a cycle of emotional rewards for assuming that role in society as a more or less permanent role in society.
As far as addiction in general, we are born addicts. We are addicted to oxygen, food, shelter etc.. Obviously it is difficult to see how being chemically addicted to those things needed for survival can be viewed as a bad thing and of course it is not. However, the neurological mechanisms responsible for our addiction to the things necessary for life, are easily hijacked by behaviors and substances that we do not need in life. For those of the forum who have been around for a while, you know I've 'preached' on a number of occasions on the 'evils' of the reptilian mind, that is because it is this primitive portion of the brain that can be held responsible for addiction, as well as other self-destructive behaviors. The reptilian brain controls what is known as the dopamine loop. Dopamine is produced in a small region of the brain that is controlled by the amygdala, which in turn is controlled by the reptilian brain. The problem is that this region will only produce a certain amount of dopamine in an individual's entire lifetime and some drugs release up to 100 times the normal amount of dopamine into a person's bloodstream. As the dopamine becomes depleted it takes higher and higher doses to achieve the same 'high' and eventually the dopamine supply becomes completely exhausted and even if individual take insane amounts of a drug they simply can not get high...
This negative cycle plays out to a certain extent in simple behaviors as well. We do certain things, because we are rewarded by the reptilian brain with a shot of dopamine, so we repeat the behavior time and time again. However, the dopamine we become a bit tolerant to, so it takes increased amounts for us to achieve the same 'high', so we modify the same behavior in some way to increase the "thrill of it all" again. INTPians may be very fortunate in this regard, I do not think that we fall into this trap nearly as often as the SF types...
Any Questions?
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