Addictio Addiction In Today's Society

In today’s society addiction is prevailing, but sometimes its hidden from the public eye. Addiction itself is not invisible, but the individual within its grasp is. There’s a man in a business suit walking down the street and one may think nothing of him, but he just cleaned out his checking account the night before, his card was declined at the gas station, and his wife is leaving him because his gambling addiction went to far. What is it exactly we see when we see an addict? What is it that we expect to see? A man begging for money on the street, a dirty man drinking cheep liquor from a brown paper bag, or maybe even someone in prison. Most addictions don’t fit these stereotypes so the addict can often fool themselves into believing they don 't have a problem. We’re often mislead on the actual definition of addiction because of these stereotypes, and tend to limit the factors of addiction to drugs and alcohol because of how typical they are in todays world.

Normally the addicts one would see on the news are drug and alcohol abusers. The word addiction is commonly misused. Today the shopaholics are only moms who love to shop, and a sex addict is just someone who likes to have fun. With being overused and people mistaking the meaning of addiction, it makes it harder for addicts to recognize that they have a problem. There are gamblers, sex addicts, video game addicts, food addicts and more. What determines an addiction to something today, and when must one cross that line to becoming an