Rat Park. Would would’ve thought that the correlation between happiness and addiction can be highlighted in a 1970s study of rats. The study was conducted (simply put) where they had different group of rats, in different habitats, observing their reactions. One group was a few rats who were separated into small cages in which the rats only had the choice of either drinking water or water laced with morphine. In the other group, there were many rats living in a “Rat Park” in which they lived comfortably, had toys, food, and loads of sex. There was also two different sections for drink, morphine laced water, or regular water. The rats in the amusement park ended up being 19x less likely to drink the morphine provided. Many ended up disliking the morphine and those who tried it would never try it if it interfered with their social life. This may be synonymous with humans. There are many parents who promise their kids that they will stop smoking for them, but do they ever do so? Of course not (majority of the time.) Quitting and/or straying away from addiction is not just a matter of doing it for someone else, but a matter of being truly happy with yourself. I’m going to do further research on this topic for fun but I just thought to share this with you all as I found it extremely interesting.
Really Cool Comic About This: http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comic/rat-park/#page-1