I have another rational theory of addiction.

Addiction is a rational response to early, but false, indications of efficacy.

An addict is someone who finds a source for something that seems to be low cost, low risk. Unfortunately, the satisfaction is illusory and the need for that same something increases. So does consumption. Soon the source of authentic satisfaction is out of reach and the addiction appears to be the only route to fill the need. Thus, crisis.

Take computer games - they fill the need for success, for meaningful accomplishment. What could be more meaningful than saving the world? They are a lower cost, easier access approach. Only on the computer could I be the world champion athlete without years of training - years I haven't put in, years I don't want to put in. Only in the computer can I be the most important king in the world.

But this success and accomplishment is illusory, and the more effort I expend on it, the lower my productivity slides. People who have had moderately successful careers can see it all washed away in computer game addiction.

Same with addictions to online communities, where respect and friends seem to be - but real friends and real respect ebb away, forcing the user to the addictive environment more and more.

Addictions to pornography or prostitution substitute for real affections and satisfaction of sexual desire. Needless to say, the cheap and easy route ends up precluding, more and more, the authentic experience.

Caffeine is a cheap substitute for sleep, but as mere awakeness leads to lower productivity, more and more sleep is lost and productivity continues to slide but deadlines loom ever more frequently and unreachably.

Other drugs substitute for spiritual awakening, happiness, joy. The effort is not necessary, the fulfillment illusory, and the need continues to grow as the authentic item is further out of reach.

This is a thoroughly rational theory of addiction that posits incomplete knowledge - the initial and ongoing experiences are effectively deceptive. The user is confused, finding that the hunger grows with increased consumption of that which seems to sate it. This is why the best treatments seem to be those which expose the user to ongoing reminders of the truth about the addictive product.

It seems particularly tenuous to equate an online gamer's need for online games with the very real physical and mental effects felt by a heroin addict withdrawing.

These are two distinct concepts of addiction. True, in a sense they are both addictions and respond in similar ways, however unlike an actual addictive substance, normal activities like looking at too much porn, going online all the time, or even the author's pathetic comparision to dating his girlfriend are trivial in comparision. I think comparing or equating the two ignores reality - like a lot of the author's articles. Perhaps it is a matter of degrees, as was suggested in the article, but I don't believe that.

The extremely painful and often fatal effects of withdrawing from a heavy addiction to heroin is often sufficient to keep them from attempting it. Also the underlying problems which led them to form a habit in the first place most likely haven't gone anywhere and indeed their addictions have spawned a whole army of additional problems waiting for them when they come clean - and they are well aware of that fact.

Mind you, we're discussing addiction here, not simply drug use - less someone from the peanut gallery attempts to accuse me of saying that pot smoking is addictive.

Well, I agree, the girlfriend is unlikely to be an addiction, in either sense. Something that is difficult to stop is not an addiction. Breathing is not an addiction.

An addiction needs to spiral out of control. Physical addictions do this primarily because the body compensates, become accustomed to a routine dose. Then it requires more to achieve the same unhealthy experience of euphoria that is being sought.

I used to separate by a bright line physical and mental addictions, but now I see that they are really the same in an underlying way - the question may be the source of dopamine, etc, but the problem is the same. If you can get the feeling of great taste and fullness without anything containing nutrients, you will likely end up malnourished. If this malnourishment leads you to crave more fake food, then it would be an addiction. This can be emotional or physical, the result will be the same, roughly. Collapse.

I don't disagree that mental addictions can be just as traumatizing as an actual physical addiction. But I don't equate the two on any level. Indeed, it is often the knowledge of the physical symptoms of a substance withdrawal that prevents a user from withdrawing.

But, your point is taken.

A good discussion, you two, but why would you separate mental and physical constituents of addiction at all?

Social psychologist, Howard Becker, asked us to imagine a diabolical criminal secreting heroin in our food. Six months later he stops supplying the heroin and we all feel terribly uncomfortable.

Are we addicted to heroin? Decidedly not. You won't go out looking for heroin, you don't have a craving for heroin. If you go to see the doctor, she is not going to diagnose you with a case of heroin addiction. She'll say you have the flu, drink fluids, rest. And sure enough, eventually we will all get better.

Addiction requires a social object that has to be interpreted. Unless you know that the heroin is the object that will provide you with relief -- no heroin addiction.

Yes, very interesting. the idea that it is the association between means and end that actually creates an addiction.

Of course, if you collapse with a killer headache and either commit suicide in the wake of overwhelming emotional swings or because the brain stem has shut down with an overload of pain, it could be diagnosed as extreme opiate withdrawal, the result of steady conditioning as dosages increased and the brain compensated by altering its own chemistry... but it wouldn't, I guess, really be a typical addiction, even with physiological compensation/decompensation.

I'm not sure I want to go here, but both your suggestions would indicate that addiction is a deliberate action, not an accidental consequence.

In essence the posit that addiction in normal society needs a recognizable substance rings true. If someone was slipping us something in the water, say morphine, and suddenly his operation was stopped - we'd all jonesing pretty hard but without any idea why. We wouldn't go out and then buy heroin because we wouldn't understand it to be what we need.

But if I go to a party and get introduced to heroin, and then take a few more hits, then some more, and pretty soon I'm hooked. That was a deliberate action. I'm a drug user, I'm well aware that heroin is highly addictive, in fact I'm well aware that all recreational drugs are addictive to some degree - even pot. So getting hooked on it had to be a conscious action on my part.

I wouldn't say that - addiction can be an unexpected consequence of an action, or it can be forewarned. We have all been warned that winning in gambling makes people feel successful, and it is apparently easy, so that people become addicted to it - even when they hit big losing streaks, they continue to chase the faint hope of winning.

Similarly, we've been warned about heroin, etc. But there may be many addictive things we haven't been warned about, and in the past many things weren't thought or known to be addictive that are now. The people who pursued them didn't know they were courting addiction - they didn't think about it.