Why Are Addictions Unacceptable?

Hi, my name is Steve and I’m an addict. 

Of course, we are all addicted to something.  Sleep or chocolate or coffee or something.  Addiction isn’t always the mine field we need to walk through, but often addictions are the archipelagos on which life is contained.  What is the difference between a drunk and a person who eats a candy bar every day?

Perhaps the difference is between what harms ourselves and what doesn’t.  Certainly too much alcohol and too many cigarettes are harmful, and so they are a bad addiction, while having a sweet tooth, especially if we exercise enough and have good dental hygiene, isn’t so bad.  Of course, anything in excess will kill us, and we don’t consider the items themselves to be problematic.  Why is addiction to meth—which destroys oneself completely— unacceptable and illegal, but addiction to Big Macs aren’t?  Why don’t the all you can eat pizza bar managers go around telling people, “I think you’ve had enough” like a bartender? 

Perhaps an unacceptable addiction is due to the harm that it causes others?  Alcohol addiction destroys families but an addiction to porn rarely harms anyone (at least physically.  Socially it may be a problem).  Yet we seem to judge addictions according to type, not to harm done.  If a person has meth on their person, they are arrested not because they have done harm to others, but simply because they have the drug. 

The other issue is that especially in the West, we almost all have addictions that causes harm to others.  Chocolate is often picked by slaves, that’s why it is so cheap.  Our addiction to cheap gas has killed hundreds of thousands of people around the world.  Yet few people (or nations) go to 12 step groups about their dependence on oil.  There are some kind of addictions that are completely acceptable not because the harm to others isn’t known, but because the harm is an acceptable price for the addiction.  While other addictions it is not.

Perhaps some addictions are acceptable because of the level of dependence.  A person who is addicted to drugs is consumed by it, where their life revolves around it.  They eat, drink and sleep their addiction and nothing is done without reference to that addiction.  Like a young mother about her children, or an older person about a bowel movement.  Or like a cancer patient about their disease.  Actually, we recognize that there are some obsessions that are important.

Then perhaps what society doesn’t accept is the cost to society at large.  Alcohol-related diseases take a huge toll on lives and the health industry.  But not as much as lack of exercise.   And the United States’ addiction to meddling in other nation’s affairs is far more expensive than any other addiction on the planet.   No, there are certain costs society is willing to pay, even if they are unhealthy.

Perhaps the real issue is the lack of productivity.  A serious addict is a person whose addiction causes them to be fruitless, listless, lazy.  So the addict is compared to the chronically ill, or the mentally ill, who have little capacity to be productive in society.  But the addict is anathema, because they “chose” to be addicts, while the ill have no choice.  Although personal choice certainly has an aspect in the disability of the addict, that could also be said for some chronically ill or mentally ill.  And the route out of addiction isn’t as simple as “making a choice”—rather, it is a long, complicated road that often requires a will and self-examination that few have.   And the reason we all have some addictions is because some are forced to deal with their addictions, while others are not.  We have all made compromises and allow harm to come to ourselves and others because of the addictions we have because we find them to be acceptable.  Not because they are right.

Perhaps some addictions are acceptable and others aren’t because we are hypocrites?