Many people promote moderation and calculated fun to create a safety net against damaging levels of attachment.

However, this attitude fails to distinguish mere overindulgence from the psychological causes of dependence, and it discourages comfort with spontaneous development.

I strongly feel moderation of anything without physical dependence is a cop-out of self-control and unacceptably restricts a full life.

Obviously toxic or dangerous activities should be moderated to avoid health risks, but we can assume a rational assessment of reality and address moderation of indulgence and self-expression – that is, restraint on where one's mind may go and how one may act.

Full actualization of the self can never occur without allowing whatever thoughts may arise in one's mind. The individual alone must sanction his response to these spontaneous thoughts, and following external instructions about suppressing certain thoughts exactly denies this comfort with oneself.

In fact, suppressing any thoughts at all creates a state of discomfort with oneself from which a person can never be totally happy or free. This fearful approach of calculated suppression underlies the campaigns for avoiding drugs, debauchery, and excess and causes young people with developing minds to feel badly for pursuing what makes them feel good.

Consider a person who enjoys playing video games. In some unfortunate cases, this person could alienate his friends, disregard his academics, eat too much and exercise too little from obsessing over a time-consuming game.

It reached the point at which the game became more damaging to his life than enriching, but he continued playing to avoid facing new things like friendships and homework, which do not have the guarantee of pleasure.

Simply playing the game too much did not cause this damage. His discomfort and fear of the world outside the video game is the problem, and addressing that unhealthy psychology can lead him to put down the video game because he wants to.

While moderating things like video game play may seem harmless, consider this denial of oneself in more irreplaceable parts of life, such as love.

Suppose a person finds a happier mental state with a new boyfriend or girlfriend. Psychological dependence arises when this person refuses to face negative emotions in the absence of his partner and accepts the idea that he cannot feel OK without that partner. The boyfriend or girlfriend ceases to be a purely pleasant supplement to his life and becomes a way to avoid insecurity and anxiety. He is no longer fully happy with his life and relationship but needs the partner to avoid feeling badly.

Now, what would help avoid this dependent relationship?

Moderation of the romantic relationship certainly would, but so would avoiding close relationships altogether. Both of these options deny full actualization of love. Removing potential objects of dependence does not suitably solve the issue, for dependence exists in one's mind, and the objects tend to be things that make people feel better.

Clearly people should not limit their exposure to loving relationships, nor should they moderate any pleasures out of the empty fear of too much indulgence.

One sees this inappropriate response to dependence in the "war against drugs." Children are taught to "just say no to drugs," as if the vastly differing physical dependencies associated with vastly different drugs are indistinguishable, and as if psychological dependencies are inherent in the drugs themselves.

Many drugs, such as cannabis and many hallucinogens, have no physical dependence and varying trends of psychological dependence.

Others, such as heroin and alcohol, have differing manners and degrees of physical dependence that should be communicated separately and specifically. Anti-drug campaigns ignore the distinctions between the risks different drugs carry and empower psychological addictions as unavoidable qualities of drugs themselves, not the unhealthy trends of thought they really are.

"Authorities" would do much better to honestly communicate the real, unexaggerated risks of different drugs, so any moderation of drug use arises from independent judgement and control instead of following external authority and fear of oneself.

Psychological dependence should be approached rationally as an unhealthy manner of thinking instead of promoting moderation of all the beautiful things to which people can become dependent. We could address the attitudes that cause addictive behaviors, or we could punish the category of harmless indulgences (typically good ones) that associate with addictive behaviors.

Dishonestly inspiring fear of overindulgence creates insecurity and suppression of spontaneous thought.

The suppression of individual desires from an external authority that inspires fear of oneself can obviously never be reconciled with full actualization of the self.

I feel that moving toward complete freedom of the self should always remain a paramount aim of humankind.