23/05/2025
“Put a rat in a cage and give it 2 water bottles. One is just water and one is water laced with he**in or co***ne. The rat will almost always prefer the drugged water and almost always kill itself in a couple of weeks. That is our theory of addiction.
Bruce came along in the ’70s and said, “Well, hang on. We’re putting the rat in an empty cage. It has nothing to do. Let’s try this a bit differently.” Thus, he constructed Rat Park, an ideal haven for rats. Everything a rat could desire is available in Rat Park – delectable food, ample opportunities for mating, companionship with other rats, and colorful balls for recreation. Interestingly, there are two water bottles in Rat Park, one containing regular water and the other with drugged water. What's captivating is that in Rat Park, the rats show a disinterest in the drugged water. They scarcely consume it, and none of them succumb to an overdose. None of them are used in a way that looks like compulsion or addiction. What Bruce did shows that both the right-wing and left-wing theories of addiction are wrong. The right-wing theory is that it’s a moral failing, you’re a hedonist, and you party too hard. The left-wing theory is that it takes you over, your brain is hijacked. Bruce says it’s not your morality, it’s not your brain; it’s your cage. Addiction is largely an adaptation to your environment.
Now, we created a society where significant numbers of us can't bear to be present in our lives without being on something, drinking, drugs, having s*x, shopping... We’ve created a hyperconsumerist, hyperindividualist, isolated world that is, for many of us, more like the first cage than the bonded, connected cages we need.
The opposite of addiction is not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection. And our whole society, the engine of it, is geared toward making us connect with things, not people. You are not a good consumer citizen if you spend your time bonding with the people around you and not stuff. We are trained from a young age to focus our hopes, dreams, and ambitions on things to buy and consume. Drug addiction is a subset of that."
