Am I addicted?

I have asked myself this question countless times in my life. With regard to many substances and activities. And one of the things that has always discouraged me from answering yes has been the status of an "addict" in our society.

Although medicine has tried to improve the image of addiction by classifying it as a mental illness, it has not succeeded. Even within the current scientific concept of addiction, which includes not only drugs but also activities, terms such as immaturity or weakness are used to describe the characteristics of addicts. And I never wanted to be immature and weak. So I always answered myself no, I am not addicted.

Over time, I stopped asking myself this question. Simply because the concept of addiction that I had arrived at after many years of searching made it meaningless. We are all addicted. Of course, everyone is addicted differently. But is there any point in comparing ourselves to others?

Comparing, judging and evaluating seems inevitable, perhaps it is our nature. It seems as if addiction cannot be viewed neutrally. Even if I write or say that we are all addicted, it will arouse distrustful looks. And if I then add, for example, "on water and air", then a wave of the hand follows: "well, that's good".

But we really are all addicted. And it is the same addiction that we can observe, for example, in "the most visible of addicts", in homeless people. It's just that their addiction has a different appearance, takes on a different form, different dimensions, takes place in a different context. To use a slightly morbid metaphor: we are all hanging on a rope, but everyone's rope is different in strength, length, color and its placement.

New leaf

A few days ago I watched a Czech TV show on the topic of homelessness filmed on the occasion of the evaluation of the New Leaf project, in which randomly selected people without stable housing received 100,000 CZK and it is observed how their life situation changes after a certain period of time. It is not my intention to evaluate the project here, but it was interesting to see how the topic of homelessness was mixed with the topic of addiction.

One of the invitees was the head of the New Leaf Czech Republic research, Melanie Zajacová, who is also the head of the Department of Social Work at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, where I am going on Friday to start teaching a new course "Drug Use and Addiction in the Theory and Practice of Social Work".

The second invitee was Senator Jiří Čunek, "who is dedicated to the topic of homelessness", as the moderator Martin Řezníček evaluated.

He said something very interesting. He said that 100,000 CZK can harm homeless people, because there are a large number of addicts among them, and according to him, this means that their decision-making is "no longer so independent and free". Later he added that these are people "in a state of addiction, they are people who do not want any change".

Of course, he did not say this as an expert, but as a public representative of the people. And this is important, because he represents a stable version of the view of addiction and, moreover, shows how it can easily be used as a tool to divide society into those who require and those who do not require control.

The classification of addiction as an illness, which occurred more than a century ago, did not prevent this division, but rather facilitated it. The removal of the ability to make free decisions can now be supported by a medical diagnosis and a stamp.

Becoming an "addict" is therefore a great risk. It is not only humiliating, but also harmful in the most material sense of the word. Because someone may simply evaluate you as a person who should not receive money because your decisions are no longer independent and free.

So I will continue to be very careful in answering the question of whether I am addicted. However, the question is interesting and I admit I am a bit addicted to exploring it.