Today, the strangest addictions in the world are very present in everyday life, especially in a digital age where immediate gratification or reward is sought. Now, being addicted is not just about consuming a specific substance or drugbut also covers other types of activities that are equally harmful to health in general.
At Supercurioso we have investigated on numerous occasions myths about addictions that are really curious. In this new entry, we show you rare addictions that some people may have. Keep reading!
First of all, what is an addiction?
Addiction can be defined as the strong and harmful urge to have an everyday behavior or to have a strong interest in something. It is also considered a chronic brain disease, which aims to reduce anxiety levels through activities with addictive patterns.
Addictions result in the lack of resistance of the person in the presence of a desire to consume. Likewise, he is unable to accept and see that he has a problem, which can make it difficult your relationships with other people. The longer the person stays in this addictive frame, the more likely it is that his quality of life will worsen.
Sometimes people have cravings that psychologists can’t accept as real addictions. Although these “obsessions” are not cataloged in a diagnostic manual, below we show you some of the rarest cases that exist.
1. Eat human ashes
A woman that eats the ashes of her cremated husband is one of the people with a rare addiction that is presented in the well-known English program «My strange addiction».
In the program it is seen how the widow, saddened by the death of her husband, carries his ashes with her everywhere. In an oversight, some of her ashes falls on her finger and instead of brushing the dust off her hand, she decides to eat it. Since then, the woman has consumed about half a kilo of ashes.
2. Drink air freshener
In another chapter of the aforementioned program, a woman is presented as addicted to drinking air freshener. We can see how a woman is dedicated spray liquid air freshener almost 50 times a day which turns into almost 20 cans of air freshener per week.
The routine began when, by accident, some spray fell into the woman’s glass of water. According to her comments, her favorite flavor is “sheets”. Horrible!
Surely on more than one occasion you have taken to chewing the ice that was left in the glass, it is normal. But, there are people who they have a tendency to chew compulsively and consume large amounts of frozen water. This addiction is called Pagophagia and it comes from the predisposition to eat foods that do not provide any nutritional value.
In this case, compulsively chewing ice can be a sign of problems due to stress or obsessive-compulsive disorder, in addition to some nutritional deficiency such as iron deficiency.
4. Glass-based diet
The normal thing is that to gain weight we have a diet high in calories and proteins, as usually happens in most cases. However, for some people, food can be anything they can eat, regardless of whether it is harmful or even deadly.
One of the rare addictions that have been seen is that of John, who has a recurrent consumption of glasses. This is known as Hyalophagia, which is the addiction to ingesting all kinds of glassware, ranging from plates, through glasses to light bulbs. Clearly, it is one of the most dangerous practices that exist for the body, because it is not conditioned to digest this type of element. Don’t try it at home.
5. Swallowing toilet paper
It seems that some of the strangest addictions in the world have to do with eating substances or elements of daily use. A clear example is that of Micaela, a young woman who exceeded the limits of addiction by consuming toilet paper without control.
The young woman began her journey when she was six years old, and since then she has not been able to put an end to this activity that she continues to carry out daily. She even confessed that she finds it much more pleasant to eat toilet paper than other more nutritious foods. Also, Micaela has been able to consume a full roll of paper in just under three hours.
6. Excess tanning, among rare addictions
When summer comes, people look for any means to make their bodies look their best. Exercise, diet, buy new clothes and other types of activities that are very common during this time. One of these is to tan and show off a tropical skin tone, which can be considered normal.
However, hThere are some people who are considered addicted to this practice, which is called Tanorexia. It is defined as the obsession of wanting to be tan at all times, which leads them to abuse the sun’s rays and apply solarium sessions throughout the year.
Although the sun’s rays contribute their grain of sand to a person’s general health, the excess of these can also be harmful. In this sense, there is a risk that the person will contract skin cancer due to the constant action of UVA light.
It’s not just cats that are used to ingesting their own hair when cleaning themselves. Indeed, there are people who recreate this activity and they develop one of the rarest manias that exist, such as consuming hair.
This activity is known as Trichotillomania, an uncontrolled obsession with eating hair. In the long run, it can cause a person to lose hair on certain parts of the body.
8. Addiction to tattoos
It is one of the addictions that has become more popular in recent times, largely thanks to the fact that tattoos have become normalized in society. Nevertheless, there are people who are not satisfied with having a couple of drawings on their skin, but instead seek to cover their entire body with ink.
Additionally, it is characterized as one of the most expensive addictions, because tattoo sessions involve a huge amount of ink. On the other hand, if the person does not control this constant urge to get tattooed, he ends up becoming someone totally unrecognizable in the face of so many drawings and marks on his body.
9. Eating dirt, one of the most common addictions in the world
Perhaps as a child you have some memories in which you ate dirt, but it was probably out of curiosity. Nevertheless, some people continued with this activity, developing an addiction known as geophagia.
It is also considered a pica disorder, but it becomes classified as an obsession when the person does not control their desire to eat dirt.
10. Drink nail polish
For some, the particular smell that nail polish gives off can be a total disgust, while for others it turns out to be very appetizing. This was the case of Bertha, a woman from USA that thought that it would be a good idea to consume these products instead of any normal drink.
Drawn to the smell and appearance of the bottle, she didn’t hesitate to try one when she got the chance. From that moment on, she developed a toxic obsession with drinking nail polish, to the point that she consumed up to five bottles a day. However, given the number of compounds and chemical elements with which these substances are made, this addiction could cause detrimental damage to her health.
What do you think of the strangest addictions in the world? Clearly, they are not the only ones and there may be some rarer than these. If you know of any other feel free to let us know in the comments!