"Addiction" has been utilized to explain many phenomena. In fact, the term is so overused that the meaning has been sucked out of it. Anything that a person likes too much, in present parlance, he is likely to be considered "addicted" to it. There is the "chocoholic" or person who is addicted to chocolate. There is the 'jogaholic" who is addicted to jogging. The "bibliomaniac" is addicted to reading. A person who pursues sex unrelentingly is a "sexaholic." An individual who regularly views pornography is regarded as "addicted" to it. There is a book on "approval addiction," a reference to people who will do anything to gain the approval to others. In the Fall 2006 issue of a University of Michigan publication, an article is titled "Caffeine Confessions." The writer asks, "Is there an addiction problem on campus?" The Yale Alumni Magazine of July/August, 2011 contains the statement, "For about 3.5 percent of teens, shopping had become a problem with many of the hall marks of addiction". (The term "shopaholic" is in vogue, indicating addiction.) And so on.
Is an "addict" as helpless as the media suggests? There are people who "kick the habit" on their own even to substances such as heroin and cocaine. If the supply runs low, if obtaining the substance is too risky, if use of the substance interferes with something they want badly enough, "addicts" cease using it, go "cold turkey" or whatever other terminology one may apply.
Some people do need help to overcome dependence on certain substances.The dependence ("addiction") is more psychological than it is physiological in most cases. A man who had not used a mind-altering substance in two years (he was incarcerated) returned to cocaine. He gave as his reason, "I like it too much." It was not simply the drug he desired; the attraction was to the people, the places, the risks, the "thrill of the deal" all of which preceded even putting the drug that he "craved" into his body. When he asked me as his counselor, "What do you have that compares with cocaine?" he was asking how could responsible living possibly compare with the high voltage excitement of the world of cocaine. He eventually answered his own question, deciding that going to work, saving money, paying bills, and living within the restraints of responsible living could not compare with cocaine and all that it involves. He made a series of choices to return to his "addiction."
I suggest that we become more sparing and precise in using the word "addiction." And, when using the term, we should not omit the role of choice in developing and maintaining an "addiction".