Addiction In Charles Duhigg's 'Power Of Habit'

Habits That can’t be Controlled “Addiction isn’t about using drugs, it’s about what the drug does to your life “(Enock Maregesi, author of Kolonia Santila). The Power of Habit, written by Charles Duhigg explains two cases of habits that were out of control. Brain Thomas was a sleepwalker who killed his wife without knowing what he was doing, and Angie Bachmann was a housewife who gambled and lost everything. These cases showed something important about addiction and blame. Thomas and Bachmann were not to blame for the actions they did; it was not their fault. People get addicted to things that are impossible for them to control.
The stories of Thomas and Bachmann are both awful stories. Thomas terrible problem was a sleepwalking, and suffered …show more content…
He had this problem since he was young. Thomas couldn’t control it because he suffered from sleepwalking since childhood. “He would get out of bed, walk around the house and play with toys or fix himself something to eat and the next morning, remember nothing about what he had done” (Duhigg 252). This was Thomas biggest problem and bad habit that he couldn’t get rid of since he was a kid. Since Thomas had this problem, one night he had a nightmare that someone was trying to fight him and when he woke up he found out that it was his wife that he killed not a man in his dreams. In the book Addictive Personality, “By stage three, addicts start behaving in ways they never thought possible. The behavior is so extreme that it scares the addict” (Nakken, par 3). This quote describes Thomas because when he killed his wife he didn’t know what was he doing, and couldn’t control his behavioral. When Thomas got taken to the court, they didn’t find him guilty, and they’re were evidence that showed that he was innocent because he had this problem since he was young. According to Joy Mitchell, (the counselor of problem gambling) said that “Certainly if you are challenged mentally or with addictions, you are open to getting involved with gambling and not being able to regulate it yourself because of your other issues” (Remsen, par 19). This represent Thomas’s problem because he suffered from sleepwalking and it affected his descent …show more content…
When he husband was paying attention to his work more and was busy, and her little daughter started going to kindergarten, she started getting bored and thought about going to casino. “It was the first time in almost two decades – since she had gotten married at nineteen and pregnant by twenty, and her days had become crowded with packing school lunches, playing princess, and running family shuttle services – that she felt genuinely alone” (Duhigg 245). Being alone and not doing anything made Bachmann gamble from boredom. Since she was feeling alone, she thought about playing casino. At first Bachmann was winning lots of money, but she decided not to go to casino anymore, but then casino started hoking her up and sending her free coupons and she would get back and play more. But then after weeks and months she would start losing all her and her family’s money. Bachmann knew that gambling would put her in troubles and, so she decided not to play a lot, but sadly she couldn’t control her bad habit. In the Addictive Personality book in Being out of control section, says that “Addicts develop what is called tolerace, which simply means they get used to the mood change produced by their acting out” (Nakken, par 1). This really meant that when Bachmann wanted to quit casino she couldn’t and that’s because she couldn’t control her mood, and every time she goes to casino her mood would change