Addiction and the Question of Choice: What Are We Trying to Escape?
Addiction is often described as a loss of control; a failure of will. But psychoanalysis offers a different perspective: what looks like a loss of control may be an attempt at control, taken to its extreme.
Every addiction, whether to alcohol, work, sex, screens, or even success, holds a logic. It’s a way of managing something unbearable. The substance or act becomes both punishment and relief.
In psychoanalytic terms, addiction isn’t about pleasure but about a-diction. Against diction. The person doesn’t chase enjoyment, they chase the disappearance of tension. The moment of relief confirms that the system works, but it quickly returns them to the beginning.
That loop, use, relief, guilt, promise, mirrors the structure of the symptom itself. A short-circuiting of desire, and disconnection from others. But paradoxically, an attempt at connection with others.
Therapy approaches addiction not as a moral failure but as speech in disguise. It asks: what is being escaped? and what is being expressed through this cycle? When that logic becomes speakable, the hold begins to loosen.
Freedom, in this sense, isn’t necessarily abstinence. It’s the ability to want something different, and to connect.
More on Addiction Therapy Book an AppointmentRecommended Reading:
- Rik Loose: The Subject of Addiction
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