My Definition

Which Lines?

Many issues with excessive consumption or outright abuse arise precisely through their categorization and description — what exactly constitutes the matter at hand. With substances, for instance, these are exemplified by the ICD-10 or ICD-11, or alternatively the DSM-5-TR. ​ Other substances or psychological indicators receive analogous treatment.

From a global or interdisciplinary vantage, we are fundamentally 100% dependent upon everything.

Otherwise, existence would prove impossible, contradicting the preponderance of evolutionary-biological, philosophical, spiritual, or religious paradigms. Culturally, socially, or societally, complete independence remains scarcely conceivable. Typically, invariant definitions or comprehension of the precise purport are lacking. Yet we appear to possess at least partial capacity to exert control over the intensity and frequency of dependency. Thus, it constitutes no sudden singularity — no temporally or spatially emergent trait or phenomenon that arises ex nihilo.

Rather, it manifests as a natural baseline condition, temporarily expressed.

This condition evolves dynamically, exhibiting varied expressions in its course. When these expressions assume excessive forms or intensities, we classify them as deleterious, deeming them pathological, disordered, distorted, or dysfunctional. Dependency commences prior to conception and terminates with death. Extending this view cyclically, we transition from one existential stage to the next. What intervenes, we designate as life or incarnation.

Your Choice!

Contested, from diverse perspectives, are the causes, their effects, and preeminently the extension I advocate — consequences that need not coincide fully, or even partially, with those effects.

These phase-spaces constitute the gameboard, and we alone hold the prerogative to determine whether we play as agents or permit ourselves to be played. It hinges upon mindset: whether you position yourself as queen or pawn, advancing move by move toward the next level of a higher game-phase. This demarcates the divide between cause, which becomes law, and effect, which ensues therefrom.

I have always found it perturbing when individuals are prejudged a priori based upon specific behaviors or inclinations — such as consumption — for this frequently obstructs viable paths from contentious, strained situations. Preconceptions regarding the ostensibly correct egress from such situations have already been formulated, enshrined in the literature as so-called "best practices." Moreover, it predictably elicits reactance among those affected, obfuscating clear discernment of the facts — discernment which proves essential.

Oftentimes, the perspective of a topic-bound specialist precludes a global solution, leading to reversion into deleterious patterns after brief initial success. We diverge in our constitutions, and as my thesis demonstrated through bifurcation analysis, we ought perpetually to harbor doubt in individual cases as to whether linearized or scaled methods truly constitute the proper course. Here, mere operationalizability necessitates orientation toward the minimum viable interventions — the so-called lowest common denominator. Counterpoised thereto stands a maximum of syndromic symptoms, along with interconnections manifesting as consequential dependencies, dependency displacements, and cross-linkages among these facets.

Plausible it would be to investigate herein the etiology of exorbitant relapse rates — not solely in substance abuse — through cause-research. For me, this nexus proves paradigmatic in my own work and delineates the dynamics of my prospective online program. It represents, quintessentially, the enactment of my resolve to play as queen upon this gameboard.

*Note: The cited thesis bears the title: Evidence-Based Coaching, "On the Handling of Data"; "The future will differ from the past." In due course, a revised and modernized version shall be made available among the ADD-ONS.