Does your obsession feel a lot like an addiction?

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Why do I have this need to try to change conversation towards my interest/obsession? It seems that my interests feel a lot like an addiction. It's as if it takes a lot of discipline not to spit out stuff that very few people are interested and if someone happens to be interested in my interest, I go so overboard and excited that they probably get turned off the topic. I've been addicted to drugs before (clonazepam and narcotics) and I think it feels very similar.

I have had addictions and my passions (as I call them...some will say I am obsessed, I say I am passionate...) feel completely different. When I had addictions (ie alcohol) it was highly destructive and didn't really bring me any joy, it created misery more than anything.

Now my passions I adore and would actually choose my passions over socialising with other people anyway. If I can find someone who is interested in them though, great. In all fairness I may bore them with my interest in various things but they bore me with their small talk. So its pretty even really lol.

I have actually tested this.

I smoke. Ask any smoker, and they'll tell you that going for three days without smoking can cause just about the same symptoms one would expect for a heroin withdrawal. It's a very real, very nervewracking state.

One week on vacation, I decided to see which is more painful: not smoking, or not engaging in my interest at the time. First, I tried to see how long I could go without a cigarette.

I lasted about two days before breaking down and inhaling most of a cigarette in a few drags.

Then I tried the same with my interest (programming). I turned off my computer, blocked off my shelves of programming books, and tried to engage myself in other ways.

I lasted maybe ten hours before it was unbearable.

I used to consider both my obsessions, and my stimming, as addictions, because I could not stop them. But I no longer think that's the right way to describe them in my life. Trying to evade your own neurology will always feel really uncomfortable and eventually impossible, that doesn't make it equivalent to "withdrawal".

I'm very addicted to the music from the 60s and the 80s.

The 80's is by far one of the best era's for music!

Do more people experience obsessions as something that have control over them? Is Aspergers syndrome actually something of an addictive personality disorder aimed at interests,- not a determining tendency showng itself as decisions of one's own free will leading to what he get great enjoyment out of? Is addiction a good thing in this picture? Is there a line between these things?

Some people turn into amorphous blobs sitting on a couch playing video games, all at the expense of any other development. It appears some can tune it to a productive career. I'm not quite sure though, if what we are looking at is simply a manifestation of executive dysfunction - with only varying degrees here. My spidey sense thinks so.

I definitely can become obsessed with my interests, although I'm able to manage it now to the point where I don't think you could consider them "addictions" except in extreme cases where I get overwhelmed.

Only when they take over or if it's something I am doing all the time.

I'm addicted to ornamental plants and shrubs.

If I don't at least stop at garden centers weekly to know what's new out there, I get increasingly more angry and anxious. If I can't find something I want, get something on sale, or find nurseries that charge double what others do, I get angry.

This year has also been exceptionally hard because of the droughts wreaking havoc on my 5000 sq.ft. of garden beds. I have to go outside and water for hours as I cannot stand to lose anything. When I see deer or rabbits I often find myself running at them full speed unloading anything from rocks to a few clips of BB's. I also go through about 10-12 gallons of Liquid Fence each year.

Ultimately, although I cherish living things, I feel that I'm at war with garden pest mammals since they do a lot more damage to my property than most of my neighbors', who do have their share of plants and shrubs to eat.

I totally agree on evading your own neurology being uncomfortable and possibly impossible. I have had migraines bad for years and I'm finding the more I use my neurology the way it's actually designed to be used, the less likely I am to have a migraine triggered in circumstances that would trigger it otherwise. So yeah it's an addiction because I'll drop dang near anything for it (and was a little ashamed when I realized just how bad that was) but it's also really helpful.
I don't think I have withdrawals from it though, as long as I have something else interesting to keep me busy. I know I do get anxious when I don't have certain things to do for a number of days in a row.
I do not like when I end up thinking about complex puzzles a lot more often than I want to...kind of obsessively, but they get solved best when I can spend and extended amount of time really concentrated on one after spending many little hours with info here and there.
It is definitely a blessing, but it's got it's negative side.

My obsession has become an addiction too. I'm obsessed with bus-drivers in a certain bus company, and I am so addicted to getting my bus that I despise getting other buses that aren't in this particular company. It's then affecting the way I live my life; I don't want to have a job where I've got to travel on a different bus to get to (ie, First Group). At the same time, I like being obsessed with these bus-drivers, they are friendly to me, and in a way it helps with my self-confidence.

I've always thought of my obsessions as addictions. And people certainly tell me that I'm addicted. I feel totally miserable when I'm stuck somewhere (maybe a social gathering, or a meeting) and have no access to my current obsession.