Addiction is a disposition relative to a category of objects in which those objects are overvalued, and this relative disposition has duration, like a habit. As long as a person has this addiction, or is disposed relative to this category of objects, the addiction necessarily generates an impulse toward such an object, given any suitable stimulus, real or imagined.
In both medicine and the mental health industry, an addiction is defined instead in terms of negative consequences. One is regarded as an addict when the addiction has negative consequences such as negatively affecting one’s physiology, life, or someone else. But here, the condition is an enduring ...