We think of addicts as this separate, bad group but we are all addicts to something.

We still largely mistake addiction to be something that destroys the lives of a select few with faulty wiring who succumb to a certain set of (compulsive, eventually addictive) behaviors, and narrow the “real” addictions to a handful of mostly social deviant behaviors (according to the puritanical ethos which still underpins our current social context), like gambling, drinking, smoking tobacco, using drugs, and fucking. An addict is a person that went too far with a substance or behavior they either were not supposed to partake in at all or were supposed to partake in moderation/socially accepted norms. In other words: we’re all addicts. It’s just we think the real, fucked up people are over there shooting tranq and fentanyl and dying on the street, not over here snorting skincare routines or TikTok to fill an unfillable void. This is a mistake (View Highlight)