We are living in a system of addiction. Addiction is an adaptation, a mode of response to dislocation/disregulation.

Addiction is not a new phenomenon resultant of the current cultural context—Dr. Carl Erik Fisher traces back the earliest depictions of it to the Rig Veda (roughly 3,000+ years ago), and addiction, viewed through the learning model, is not a disease but adaption—humans are wired for it, and it’s always been there as both a potential and an expression. However, our current cultural context and economic system—end-stage American capitalism—is a system of addiction, an unprecedented schema no human body, nervous system, brain, and dopaminergic pathway has historically encountered, which feeds off and exploits that inherent wiring we’ve always had, demolishing the naturally occurring elements that keep us feeling whole as an individual and inherently belonging to a larger community and purpose, replacing them with an increasing supply of artificial and addictive compensations that are often for sale or at least profiting someone. Capitalism as a system of addiction is also known as the dislocation theory of addiction (proposed by Bruce Alexander in Globalization of Addiction). (View Highlight)