30/05/2025
This is soooo good, it had to be shared!! On The Power of Connection!!
From DAILY DOSE OF INSPIRATION by Craig Goldblatt.
"After hearing about this in a talk, I felt compelled to share. This experiment is using drugs as the substance for addiction but of course in our busy world, it can apply to many things. Probably one of the most common addictions in our society is our phones.
Almost everything we think we know about addiction is wrong. If you get a rat and put it in a cage and you give it two water bottles, one is just water, the other laced with either heroine or co***ne. If you do that, the rat will almost always prefer the drug water and almost always kill itself.
Professor Alexander noticed this experiment is based on putting the rat in an empty cage. He then built a cage that he called Rat Park. In Rat Park, they don’t like the drug water, you go from almost 100% overdose when they’re isolated, to 0% overdose when they have happy and connected lives.
What if addiction is an adaptation of your environment. Human beings have a natural and innate need to bond and when we’re happy and healthy we’ll bond and connect with each other (this can be one person or twenty. It’s about quality, not quantity). If you can’t do that because you’re traumatised, isolated or beaten down by life, you will bond with something that will give you some sense of relief.
The opposite of addiction is not sobriety,
the opposite of addiction is connection.
The last sentence is powerful!"
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Have a happy, connected day and enjoy the beauty of what life has to offer, together with someone you love.
Today is the perfect day to reach out to someone -- Astrid
