Now addiction carries all sorts of horrid associations. With addiction, you know you're in grim territory. Bowery bums in trench coats. Coke fiends with mad stares. Our President and Monica Lewinsky.
Addiction is the land of compulsive urges that are repeated, and repeated.
Even for people who are addicted to ideas, or people, or fantasy, they are not wholly involved. As a former bulimic and recovering alcoholic, I know about that mystifying urge to repeat again and again the action that will only lead to despair. I used to think that addictions tear us from our best selves, but it now seems that we have no selves at all when we are addicted. Addictions tear us from ourselves. Addiction is a loss of individuality, the inability to live real life, to have our own life.