I guess one could argue that modern life in industrialized world is deeply understimulating, and the phones just provide an escape from that, but that's just living conditions, not a trauma.
As soon as I put my smartphone away I realise I'm confronted with challenging feelings: the fear of engaging with the people around me, worrying what they're thinking, looking stupid if I'm not doing anything, or just plain boredom. So it's "avoiding psychological difficulty" that is the fundamental factor.
I also wasted too much time, thousands of hours, reading and writing on the newsgroups and on the web.
There are similarities between these 2 things. For example, both reduce the amount of motivation and drive available in a life. But they feel very different, and in my experience, avoiding the former is extremely important whereas avoiding the latter is merely one more important thing in a life full of important considerations.
In an ideal world, there would be a word or short phrase for the second thing so that "addiction" could be reserved for the first thing. "Insufficient vigilance against superstimuli" is the shortest phrase I can think of right now. (I'm sad that I cannot use the word "vices" without provoking an immediate negative reaction: "vices" is shorter than "superstimuli".)
Its one of those "paid for your mental disorder" situations that are a lot more common than people realize.
On the one hand, it sounds preposterous - a bit like saying you're addicted to consciousness, or meditation. On the other, I can relate to how my enjoyment and pursuit of it strains my relationships with others.
It's a fascinating suggestion. I'd like to hear more about why you feel that way.
I had chronically-high cortisol. The flow state provided a profound but temporary relief from the cortisol. There are better responses to high cortisol.
DHEA (which is available over-the-counter in the US) is a better response because it allows me to dispense with the hour or 2 of intense concentration necessary to get into the flow state (freeing up the time and the mental energy for more productive uses).
Starting a friendship with a person who gets me and doesn't trigger my trauma triggers was a better response because the cortisol-lowering effect of such a friendship has lasted for years whereas the effect of being in the flow state ends as soon as the flow state ends.
The “trauma explains everything” meme has become more of a way to get people to accept therapy than a real explanation.
It transforms the problem from a personal failing (I can’t control my addiction) to a situation where the person is a victim of something external (Trauma inflicted on me has forced me to become addicted). People find it easier to accept treatment when they think they’re a victim of something external.
Gabor Mate (the trauma influencer mentioned in the comment above) uses trauma as the basis of his therapy, so he finds a “trauma” for everyone. If he can’t find something with the patient, he believes being born is their trauma, because the childbirth process is painful. Everyone was born, so he has a fallback trauma to assign to everyone.
For some it can be consuming the same psychoactive substance over and over again. For others it may be compulsion to repeat a limited set of rituals and behaviours.
The first thing they need help with is accepting that they will not be able to exercise control over everything. There are many ways to get there, but for many, labelling this pattern as "addiction" and getting help and support in this context, is easier than other options.
Generally: While suppressed memory of trauma exists, the vast majority of people are aware of trauma and there is no evidence suggesting otherwise. And there is clear evidence that lots of mentally well people get addicted as well, so just claiming "it's always some underlying condition" is probably not a great idea. It can, often even, be, sure. But that doesn't make it mandatory and especially doesn't allow the "I struggle with addiction, so there _must_ have been a problem beforehand" conclusion.
So honestly, I'd just not search any deeper to not risk inducing any false memories.
Like the comment above said, many “repressed memories” are actually false memories or, in rare cases, false stories that get constructed and encouraged by a misleading therapist who is convinced that some repressed memory exists and pushes too hard to get the patient to “remember” something. When the only way to satisfy the other party is to come up with a story, many people will eventually come up with a story and even believe it themselves.
The same thing happens with false confessions.
It is problematic, but not in the way that you think. While memories can be suggestively altered or created by questioning, the evidence for doing so for traumatic childhood sexual abuse is anecdotal and those anecdotes were pretty heavily cherry picked by the clearly biased FMSF, which was run as a support and advocacy group for parents accused of abuse.
That said, my understanding is that in general, dwelling on traumatizing experiences isn't beneficial to recovery. There are times they may need to be confronted and processed, but generally if it isn't causing a problem, don't go digging it up and spending a lot of time thinking about it unnecessarily.
I'm addicted to sugar. I have some trauma now? What trauma? My life has been relatively smooth sailing. You're right, this is just a way of creating the "need" for "therapy".
The clarity usually comes in retrospect for me.
I generally engage more in my own flavor of addictions (caffeine, social media, workaholism) when I am more overwhelmed, understanding that I do this and why… was helpful.
Don't worry about it. The trauma diagnosis has been ludicrously poor at treating addiction.
From what I've read, it performs worse than placebos, random chance, etc.
For treatment of substance abuse, therapy is literally at the bottom of the performance chart, below things like hypnotism, alternative medicines and plain old prayer.
Where is the trauma in that scenario? The brain damage from the cigs? I can hardly get over that 'trauma' since I've never known a world without it. The trauma of repeatedly getting addicted to things? I DON'T hold that against myself, I just like how they feel. Where is the trauma in that scenario?
It can get people started on therapy because it uses therapy speak and therefore feels like therapy is an obvious solution. However, it also makes the person into a victim of external trauma while minimizing their own role in the choices that led to the addiction.
It’s really appealing for people who need something external to blame, but it’s less helpful in getting at the root of behavioral issues that aren’t really external.
For the narrow slice of patients who actually have severe trauma response issues, it can be helpful. For everyone else it’s becoming a big distraction.
It’s another example of something that isn’t really correct for everyone but can be useful to get people to go to a therapist and get treatment.
I've really come around to that theory though and I think he's very wise.
We need to take a close look at the way we are living our lives under capitalism, the decisions we're forced to.make, and the way we treat our children.
I guess the upshot is that "I'd rather be doing..." is not actually very simple at all IMO.