According to mentalhealth.net, Addiction is the repeated involvement with a substance or activity, despite the substantial harm it now causes, because that involvement was (and may continue to be) pleasurable and/or valuable.
Most people associate addiction with the repetitive abuse of drugs or drinks. This is substance addiction. Addiction can also occur when an individual has a compulsive need to perform an activity all the time. This could be gambling, shopping or even checking out one’s social media feed.
Here is a poem by Dami Ajayi depicting the little steps that lead to addiction;
Finding addiction
At nine, he spat his first sip of lager
on the face of a mother
who laughed.
He swallowed his second sip six years later,
with some difficulty. He didn’t want his friends
to laugh at him.
The third ship was from a second bottle,
poured with trembling hands
that fumbled for a handkerchief.
He couldn’t remember his fourth, fifth or sixth.
They happened so fast
in an intensely pleasurable gulp
& once he put the bottle to his mouth,
that was where it stayed,
shaping things around him.
Leave a Reply