Does my caffeine addiction count? If I stop drinking coffee, I anticipate mild withdrawl symptoms. I periodically do this when I find myself drinking lots of coffee; a few days without increases the effectiveness of the caffeine later.
I take prescription adderall, and am decidedly less functional without it. I sometimes skip a day on the weekends. I anticipate no withdrawl symptoms, but would be far less willing to stop taking it than the caffeine.
One evening a number of years ago, I smoked a couple cigarettes at a party. For almost two weeks afterwards, I reacted to seeing or smelling cigarettes by wanting one. I didn’t have any more, and those thoughts went away.
Which of those would you count as addictions? I can imagine plenty of obvious cases either way, but the boundary seems awkward to define, and very common in the case of things like caffeine and sucrose. (I answered yes in the poll, because of the caffeine.)
For what it’s worth, what I was interested in was getting deep enough into the obvious life-wreckers that it was urgent to stop using them. Even that’s vague, of course. Alcohol has short term emotional/cognitive effects which cause much more damage faster than cigarettes can.
Does my caffeine addiction count? If I stop drinking coffee, I anticipate mild withdrawl symptoms. I periodically do this when I find myself drinking lots of coffee; a few days without increases the effectiveness of the caffeine later.
I take prescription adderall, and am decidedly less functional without it. I sometimes skip a day on the weekends. I anticipate no withdrawl symptoms, but would be far less willing to stop taking it than the caffeine.
One evening a number of years ago, I smoked a couple cigarettes at a party. For almost two weeks afterwards, I reacted to seeing or smelling cigarettes by wanting one. I didn’t have any more, and those thoughts went away.
Which of those would you count as addictions? I can imagine plenty of obvious cases either way, but the boundary seems awkward to define, and very common in the case of things like caffeine and sucrose. (I answered yes in the poll, because of the caffeine.)
For what it’s worth, what I was interested in was getting deep enough into the obvious life-wreckers that it was urgent to stop using them. Even that’s vague, of course. Alcohol has short term emotional/cognitive effects which cause much more damage faster than cigarettes can.