Dear Readers,
Let’s talk about addiction? Or is it “dependence”?
There’s a lot of debate about the nomenclature we use to describe habitual engagement with substances or behaviors, though I’m partial to the following distinction between “dependence” and “addiction”: Dependence is when you’re so fond of regularly engaging in a particular activity that you’d have a hard time stopping, but there’s no really good reason to stop because the activity isn’t causing any significant harm in your life.
Addiction is when an activity is causing you significant harm, and you’re aware of it, yet you don’t stop. Whether you’re incapable of stopping, or just unwilling, is a bit of a philosophical question that we’ll leave aside for the moment.
I’ve long been dependent on caffeine. I’ve been drinking some form of caffeinated beverage—usually coffee—in the mornings since my teens. Over the years it’s become a critical adjunct to my research and writing process. If I sit down to write without a hot, caffeinated beverage, I definitely feel the absence. So it would be hard to quit. Most of the time, the morning caffeine isn’t having a negative impact on my life, so who cares?
That’s the essence of dependence.
But sometimes dependence can begin to produce negative consequences, and if you don’t change your habits, you can wind up showing signs of addiction. When it comes to caffeine, I’ve found this to be increasingly true as I’ve gotten older.
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