Addiction Isn’t a Sin, It’s an Adaptation
I always thought of myself as a relatively healthy person — but cigarettes revealed the cracks within myself
Healthy people aren’t addicted.
The thought appeared like a headlight on a dark road: irritating, blinding, and painfully illuminating. I was having a smoke break outside a friend’s home when, like a sharp laugh from the back of my brain bubbling up through my consciousness, I found myself thinking, Healthy people aren’t addicted.
I hadn’t thought of myself as much of an addict. I thought of myself as a smoker. I thought of myself as a pretty emotionally healthy person, on the whole, what with my stable, loving parents, my self-awareness, my authentic communication and relationships, and my active practice of dissolving the worst of my socialization. I’m not lost in spiraling addiction meant to soothe the pain of unhealed childhood trauma. I just smoke cigarettes. Compulsively. Almost a pack a day. Even when I’m sick. No matter what.
And yet the thought has kept nagging me: Healthy people aren’t addicted.
Try as I might to talk myself out of the seriousness of my dependence on nicotine, it is a legitimate and harmful addiction. Try as I might to normalize my behavior, the ubiquity of smoking…
