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OpiniOn Articlepublished: 15 May 2013

doi: 10.3389/psyt.2013.00036PSYCHIATRY

Research into addiction has a long historyalthough there has always been much debate

as to what the key components o addictionare. Irrespective o the theory and modelo addiction, most theorizing on addictiontends to assume (implicitly or explicitly)that loss o control is central (i not unda-mental) to addiction. This short paper chal-

lenges such notions by arguing that there area minority o individuals who appear to beaddicted to a behavior (i.e., work) but donot necessarily appear to display any losso control.

Primary and Secondary

addictionS

Research into many dierent types oaddiction has shown that addicts are not a

homogeneous group, and this may also haveimplications surrounding control and losso control. Many years ago, I argued that in

relation to problem gambling there appearto be at least two sub-types o addiction primary addictions and secondary addic-

tions (Griths, 1995). I dened primaryaddictions as those in which a person isaddicted to the activity itsel, and that indi-viduals love engaging in the activity whetherit is gambling, sex, or playing video games(Griths, 2005). Here, the behavior is pri-

marily engaged in to get aroused, excited,and/or to get a buzz or high. I denedsecondary addictions as those in which theperson engages in the behavior as a way o

dealing with other underlying problems(i.e., the addiction is symptomatic o otherunderlying problems). Here the behavior is

primarily engaged in to escape, to numb, tode-stress, and/or to relax. This distinctionbetween primary and secondary addictsshares strong conceptual, pragmatic, andtheoretical similarities with other addic-tion typologies such as Skogs (2003)

distinction between happy addicts andclinical addicts, and the notions o posi-

tive and negative addictions as put orwardby theorists such as Glasser (1976) andRachlin (2000). In all o these typologies,

whether primary, happy, or positive,the key characteristic is that the addict isnot ambivalent about their behavior andthey have not tried to change it.

Therapeutically, I argued that it is easier

to treat secondary addictions (Griths,1995). My argument was that i the under-lying problem is addressed (e.g., depression),the addictive behavior should diminish and/or disappear. Primary addicts appear to bemore resistant to treatment because theygenuinely love the behavior (even though

it may be causing major problems in theirlie). Furthermore, the very existence oprimary (or positive and happy) addic-tions challenges the idea that loss o controlis undamental to denitions and conceptso addiction. Clearly, people with primary

addictions have almost no desire to stop orcut down their behavior o choice because itis something they believe is lie arming andcentral to the identity o who they are. Butdoes lack o a desire to stop the behavior theylove prevent loss o control rom occur-

ring? Arguably it does, particularly whenexamining the research on workaholism(and will be returned to later in the paper).

the addiction comPonentS model

One increasingly infuential model oaddiction that I have popularized is the

addiction components model, particu-larly in relation to behavioral addiction(i.e., non-chemical addictions that do notinvolve the ingestion o a psychoactive sub-stance). The addiction components modeloperationally denes addictive activity as

any behavior that eatures what I believeare the six core components o addiction(i.e., salience, mood modication, toler-ance, withdrawal symptoms, confict, andrelapse) (Griths, 2005).

I have consistently argued that anybehavior that ulls the six criteria (outlinedin more detail below) can be operationallydened as an addiction. Support or theaddiction components model comes roma number o studies that have developed spe-

cic screening instruments to assess behav-ioral addictions, such as exercise(Terry et al.,

2004; Griths et al., 2005), shopping (Clarkand Calleja, 2008), video gaming (Lemmenset al., 2009),work(Andreassen et al., 2012a),and social networking (Andreassen et al.,

2012b). My six core components o addic-tion (Griths, 2005) comprise:

Salience This occurs when the acti-vity becomes the single most importantactivity in the persons lie and domina-tes their thinking (preoccupations and

cognitive distortions), eelings (cra-vings), and behavior (deterioration o

socialized behavior). For instance, eveni the person is not actually engaged inthe activity they will be constantly thin-king about the next time that they will

be (i.e., a total preoccupation with theactivity).

Mood modication This reers to thesubjective experiences that people reportas a consequence o engaging in the acti-vity and can be seen as a coping strategy

(i.e., they experience an arousing buzzor a high or paradoxically a tranquili-zing eel o escape or numbing).

Tolerance This is the process whe-reby increasing amounts o the acti-vity are required to achieve the ormer

mood modiying eects. This basicallymeans that or someone engaged inthe activity, they gradually build up theamount o the time they spend enga-ging in the activity every day.

Withdrawal symptoms These are theunpleasant eeling states and/or physi-

cal eects (e.g., the shakes, moodiness,

Is loss of control always a consequence of addiction?

Mark D. Grifths*

International Gaming Research Unit, Psychology Division, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

*Correspondence:mark.grifths@ntu.ac.uk

Edited by:

Hanna Pickard, University o Oxord, UKReviewed by:

Serge H. Ahmed, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifque, France

Bennett Foddy, University o Oxord, UK

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Grifths Addiction and loss o control

that enthusiastic-type workaholics hadhigh sel-ecacy that led to high autonomy(i.e., independent, sel-controlled work out-put). Furthermore,Tabassum and Rahman(2013) noted that perectionist workaholicsexperience an overbearing need or control

and are very scrupulous and detail-oriented

about their work. Unusually among addic-tions, workaholics usually have no desireto reduce or regulate their work behavior(i.e., there is no ambivalence or confictingdesire or them). In this instance, there is no

evidence o loss o control as traditionallyunderstood, because i they had ambivalentor conficting desires, they would changetheir behavior (i.e., reduce the amount otime they spend working). Although not anexhaustive list o studies, those mentioned

here appear to indicate that some workahol-ics appear to be more in control than not

in control.When the addiction is primary, the

goal/end o the behavior is desired and/or endorsed without ambivalence by the

addict. In these situations (as in some caseso workaholism), there is no evidence orloss o control, because no (ailed) attemptsare made by the addict to alter their behav-ior. However, this could arguably still becompatible with the claim that there is loss

o control in the sense o ability and/ormeans, because, i the workaholic tried towork less (or work in a less controlling way)

because they started to recognize ill eectsthe addictive behavior was having on theirpersonal lie, then they may ail to do so.Thereore, the lack o evidence is indicative

rather than conclusive.However, one o the reasons that

workaholism raises interesting theoreti-cal and conceptual issues concerning theloss o control is that it is an example oan addiction where the goal/end is itsel

a orm o control (i.e., control over theirproductivity/outputs, control over others,control over time-keeping, etc.). Unlike

many other addictions, such behavior isnot impulsive and/or chaotic but careullyplanned and executed. So this raises the

question, in what sense is workaholisma loss o control, understood in the typi-cal way, as ability/means to the behaviorsgoal/end? In some cases o workaholism,there is no evidence that the workaholiclacks control over this goal/end, as they do

not try to change their behavior (and thuscannot ail to do so).

irritability, etc.) that occur when theperson is unable to engage in theactivity.

Confict This reers to the confictsbetween the person and those aroundthem (interpersonal confict), conficts

with other activities (e.g., work, social

lie, hobbies, and interests) or romwithin the individual (e.g., intra-psy-chic confict and/or subjective eelingso loss o control) that are concernedwith spending too much time engaging

in the activity.

Relapse This is the tendency or repe-ated reversions to earlier patterns oexcessive engagement in the activity torecur, and or even the most extremepatterns typical o the height o exces-

sive engagement in the activity to bequickly restored ater periods o control.

One o the observations that can be madeby examining these six criteria is that losso control is not one o the necessary com-ponents or an individual to be dened as

addicted to an activity. Although I acknowl-edge that loss o control can occur in many(i not most) addicts (Griths, 2005), losso control is subsumed within the confictcomponent rather than a core componentin and o itsel. The main reason or this is

because I believe that there are some addic-tions particularly behavioral addictions

such as workaholism where the personmay be addicted without necessarily losingcontrol. However, such a claim depends onhow loss o control is dened and the

highlights the ambiguity in our standardunderstanding o addiction (i.e., the ambi-guity o control as ability/means versuscontrol as goal/end).

defining loSS of control and the

caSe of WorkaholiSm

When theorists dene and conceptualizeloss o control as applied to addictive

behavior, it typically reers to (i) the loss othe ability to regulate and control the behav-ior, (ii) the loss o ability to choose betweena range o behavioral options, and/or (iii)the lack o resistance to prevent engagementin the behavior. In some behaviors such

as workaholism and anorexia, the personarguably tries to achieve control in someway (i.e., over their work in the case o aworkaholic, or over ood in the case o ananorexic). However, this in itsel is not a

counter-example to the idea that addictionis a loss o control i workaholics and ano-rexics have lost the ability to control other

aspects o their day-to-day lives in their pur-suit o control over work or ood (i.e., thereis a dierence between control as the goal/end o behavior, and control as an ability/

means).There is an abundance o research indi-

cating that one o the key indicators oworkaholism (alongside such behaviors ashigh perormance standards, long workinghours, working outside o work hours, andpersonal identication with the job) is thato control o work activities (Porter, 1996).

In a recent paper, I also noted that the needor control is high among workaholics, andas a consequence they have diculty in dis-engaging rom work leading to many othernegative detrimental eects on their lie

such as relationship breakdowns (Grithsand Karanika-Murray, 2012). Even someo the instruments developed to assessworkaholism utilize questions concern-ing the need to be in control. For instance,Mudrack and Naughton (2001) developeda workaholism measure comprising twoscales (the Non-Required Work Scale and

the Control o Others Scale). The Controlo Others Scale included our items refect-ing the interpersonal and intrusive natureo workaholism (such as taking respon-sibility or the work o other people, and

checking on the accuracy o other peopleswork) all o which suggest a behavior thatis about being in control rather than out oit. Mudrack and Naughton also reportedthat the Control o Others Scale correlatedpositively with job involvement, numbero hours worked, and confict with non-

work activities. However, as noted above,the need to be in control in these examples,is not the opposite o loss o control asthe there is a subtle dierence between anindividual trying to control their behavioro choice, and loss o control as relating

to not being able to resist engaging in thebehavior o choice.

There are also other studies that suggestsome workaholics do not experience a losso control in the traditional sense that isused elsewhere in the addiction literature.

For instance, Mudrack (2004) reportedthat two particular aspects o obsessive-compulsive personality (i.e., being stubbornand highly responsible) were predictive oworkaholism. Libano et al. (2010) noted

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Grifths Addiction and loss o control

Libano, M. D., Llorens, S., Salanova, M., and Schaueli,

W. (2010). Toward the development o a math-

ematical model o workaholism, in Modelling or

Addictive Behavior, Medicine and Engineering, ed. L.

Jodar (Valencia: Universidad Politecnica de Valencia),

6065.

Mudrack, P. E. (2004). Job involvement, obsessive-com-

pulsive personality traits, and workaholic behavioral

tendencies.J. Organ. Change Manag. 17, 490508.

Mudrack, P. E., and Naughton, T. J. (2001). The assess-ment o workaholism as behavioral tendencies: scale

development and preliminary empirical testing. Int.

J. Stress Manag. 8, 93111.

Porter, G. (1996). Organizational impact o workaholism:

suggestions or researching the negative outcomes

o excessive work.J. Occup. Health Psychol. 1, 7084.

Rachlin, H. (2000).The Science o Sel-Control. Cambridge:

Harvard University Press.

Skog, O.-J. (2003). Addiction: denition and mecha-

nisms, in Choice, Behavioural Economics and

Addiction, eds N. Heather and R. E. Vuchinich

(Oxord: Elsevier), 157175.

Tabassum, A., and Rahman, T. (2013). Gaining the insight

o workaholism, its nature and its outcome: a litera-

ture review. Int. J. Res. Stud. Psychol. 2, 8192.Terry, A., Szabo, A., and Griths, M. D. (2004). The exer-

cise addiction inventory: a new brie screening tool.

Addict. Res. Theor. 12, 489499.

Received: 06 December 2012; accepted: 02 May 2013; pub-

lished online: 15 May 2013.

Citation: Griths MD (2013) Is loss o control always

a consequence o addiction? Front. Psychiatry4:36. doi:

10.3389/psyt.2013.00036

This article was submitted to Frontiers in Addictive

Disorders and Behavioral Dyscontrol, a specialty o

Frontiers in Psychiatry.

Copyright 2013 Griths. This is an open-access arti-

cle distributed under the terms o theCreative Commons

Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and

reproduction in other orums, provided the original authors

and source are credited and subject to any copyright notices

concerning any third-party graphics etc.

despite objectively negative consequences(e.g., relationship breakdowns, neglect oparental duties, etc.). What the empiricalresearch on workaholism suggests is thatit is an example o an addiction in whichthe problem is better characterized as loss

o prudence rather than loss o control, as

traditionally understood.

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Pallesen, S. (2012a). Development o a work addic-

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Griiths, M. D., and Karanika-Murray, M. (2012).

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Koob, G. F., and Le Moal, M. (1997). Drug abuse: hedonic

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concluSion

It could be argued and this is admittedlyspeculative that loss o control as is tradi-tionally understood appears to have a greaterassociation with secondary addiction (i.e.,where an individuals addiction is sympto-

matic o other underlying problems) than

primary (or happy or positive) addic-tion (i.e., where an individual eels totallyrewarded by the activity despite the nega-tive consequences). Such a speculation hasgood ace validity but needs empirical testing.

However, a complicating actor is the act thatmy studies on adolescent gambling addictshave demonstrated that some individualsstart out as primary addicts but becamesecondary addicts over time (Griths,1995) a nding that has also been applied

to transitional stages o drug addictions (e.g.,Koob and Le Moal, 1997). Again, this suggests

that control (and loss o it) may be somethingthat changes its nature over time.

In essence, workaholics appear to makepoor choices and/or decisions that have

wide-reaching detrimental consequencesin their lives. However, at present we lackevidence that (should they decide oth-erwise) they would be unable to work ina more healthy way. Furthermore, andequally as important, the nature o worka-holic behavior is not impulsive and chaotic,

but careully planned and executed. This isparticularly striking among some worka-

holics, because as I have noted (Griths,2011), it is an addiction that or someindividuals they continue to work happily

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