[mancerayder]

>This to me matches up most with gambling addiction. There is a great book on the subject that I recommend to the Author called "Addiction by Design" by Natasha Schull. The main thrust of her argument is that machine gambling addicts don't care about winning at all but have found gambling machines (slots, video poker mostly) as a reliable way to activate that "flow" state where the rest of the world falls away.

Maybe to escape anxiety?

[wincy]

Interesting, I get this flow state where the world falls away when I have a good programming task for work and I can accomplish a Herculean amount of work in a day. At the end of the day it feels like it was in a blink of an eye and I feel super good about myself.

I got into a great flow state earlier this week the day after seeing my relative in hospice care. I didn’t have to think about the pain of that for a day and it was pretty great.

[oramit]

Anxiety is certainly part of it but I think it's simpler than that. We can't be "on" all the time. We need hobbies, distractions, and escape just as much as we need productive work. As the author notes though, this escape can become all consuming and ultimately hurt the person.