The dedication or devotion to a thing, in an immoderate and/or compulsive standard or quantity. What I've just paraphrased, folks, is the Oxford English Dictionary's online definition of the term addiction.
Alcohol, drugs, food, exercise, loud music, reading, sleeping. Can we be
addicted to any of these?
I've never tried drugs but the others, conglomerated together, occur during
parts of my day. On Monday I downloaded Dream Theater's single, The Enemy
Inside, in avid anticipation of their eponymous album. I had my bass
speaker turned up; canorous melodies, thought-provoking lyrics, and a
technique, style and structure to be heard playing over and over and over
and...see my point?
What else have I done this week? Well, I read a lot, for starters; I have
exercised – football, tennis, walking, thinking (my favourite type of exercise
as I can be lay down for this one). I have consumed food. Sausages, potatoes,
mussels, bread, fish, fruit, vegetables. And haven't most of us eaten many of
those things, and exercised and listened to music loudly? I've slept,
unlike...some people. Ah, and yes, I have indulged in the occasional libation. Yet,
have I over-indulged in any?
The aureate aura surrounding the sheer wonder, the marvellous mystery, of a gin
and tonic, of a glass of red wine with oaky overtones or a Chilean, spiced
style. Doesn't matter, I still drink it. (Thank you for that encouragement,
Father.)
In my first year at university, my thing was Gordon's Gin. Most of the
time, I consumed this wondrous mix of juniper and whatever else with Indian
tonic water. Once or twice, a stiff shot was the more necessary course. As a
student, the tonic water - from time to time - wasn't that important, when I
had to fund the gin itself. A lime wedge, three cubes of ice, and I was
set. In that first year, the writing day got going when the slight tang wet my
lips, when the first sip of strong booze broached my senses' awareness.
What followed was a lot of poetry. Oftentimes written whilst listening to The
Smiths, too. Gin: Mother's Ruin, eh?
One day before a football match, a friend asked me if I had consumed alcohol
already. I hadn't (shock) but he didn't believe me. That I played reasonably
well helped my case. After the game, which my team had won, the lads traversed
the town, clubbing, playing drinking games, chasing girls who just might have
been interested. I don't know, I was in my room with a Word document open and a
glass of Gordon's cradled in my hands. Each to their own, my friends.
Was this an addiction - did I feel devoted to this drink? Was I dedicated to
exploring the rich taste, the powerful sting of tactile sagacity being
weakened? Was I addicted to gin?
From research, reading and experiences all around, addiction presents itself as
a problem not considered as egregious as it really should be. "Oh, he's an
alcoholic." Some students in Aberystwyth, and probably everywhere, view an
individual's capacity to consume threatening amounts of alcohol as a symbol of
social triumph. "I could drink you under the table." This is a
challenge that holds beneath its surface of rivalry, beneath establishing
deference and cementing some intangible position in a hierarchy, a whole lot
more. That people view alcohol (a life-weakening drug) as a method of
separating the men from the boys, shows a change in how alcohol has transformed
in its function. Now, alcohol is the weapon
each gladiator chooses on his epic adventure into bars; alcohol is the libation
of courage before the inebriated "misunderstanding" that occurs outside of the bar, too. Perhaps for a
lot of people, alcohol isn't the
addiction - but social supremacy? Perhaps, for some people, everything is a
tool, with a function towards superiority?
Don't get me wrong. Alcoholics, true alcoholics, no doubt do need a drink every day, at certain times, of certain potency.
And this, my friends, is where we must tread the treacherous paths of
distinction between addiction and obsession. Between geas and function.
Addiction forges obsession. To be
obsessed is to see your thoughts and feelings succumb to the desire of an idea,
thing, person, lifestyle. To be addicted is to devote physical energy into the
satiation of this desire. And when, through rehabilitation or a financial
penury, the object of the addiction is revoked, rejected and forced away, there
can be trauma. Severe trauma. Trauma impels us to see a desire as a need.
Desire and necessity. How many times have you heard somebody say "I
need..." when what they usually mean is "I want..." - how many
times?
Water, food, shelter, clothing. These are needs human beings still struggle to
acquire in certain places. They are so basic, and ironically, so crucial to our
subsistence, that they are now taken for granted in the "First
World". Are we all to blame? Has inundation of a resource led to
profligacy? Is being able to splurge away what our ancestors risked their lives
for an act of sheer wastefulness?
Whether or not you see it so, these basic commodities have paved the way for
indulgences to become such commodities, and each to their own. Does a teenager
need to play a video game for 12 hours a day; does a child plied with sweets
need that extra chocolate bar; does the man earning millions of pounds a year
need that annual 5% pay rise? These desires we see as attainable, and so we
promulgate that we need them, because to declare need is to arouse the
attention of those around us. To encourage sympathy from them, to awaken the
"what if roles were reversed?" gambit. And lo! Often, now, in this
decadent world, greed is sated, if only temporarily. For that is the rub with
addiction, is it not?
Social supremacy - the need to be superior amongst a group of friends,
colleagues, whoever. It exists. Oftentimes it can be mistaken for
determination, drive, ambition. Alas, in such instances, these elements of the
human drive have merely been tainted by the solipsist's desire; they have been
made a need through constant application by people who need (or desire?) to be seen as a leader.
But they are not leaders, they are bullies. Seeking to demonstrate superiority.
This addiction is a perfidious path indeed; however, not always a path we choose.
For need born of desire is not the raw, inchoate need to survive, it is a
vengeful sort, filled with envy, jealousy and a refusal to see the goodness in
the world around us. Leading, ultimately, to a railing against goodness;
towards an ingratitude harboured by not possessing something somebody else possesses,
be it materialistic and thus avaricious envy, or something internal, deeper and
therefore, stronger. This creates bullies.
Was I an alcoholic? Not in the slightest. I lived the student life, I knew when
to stop during a time of deep thinking. How do I know I wasn't addicted - there
was no obsession. Never were my thoughts bound by alcohol, never have I needed
a drink, only desired one.
Thus, I cannot comment on what it is to be an alcoholic, but addiction more
generally - why, everybody loves sweets and games when they're young, don't
they?
Credit
and thanks to the Oxford English Dictionary for definitions of
"addiction" and "obsession" which I have paraphrased.
S.C.
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