Addiction is everywhere, it seems, as is the devastation wrought by this disease. But does it even make sense to call it that? Modern medicine thinks it does. What used to be considered a moral deficiency is now called a biological condition, and every twelve-step program from Alcoholics Anonymous to Overeaters Anonymous is predicated on this principle. But in different cultures diseases look different and, more importantly, mean different things. I believe that in digging into the metaphoric landscape of addiction and disease in the American soil we can get at the grit of where we are in our public perception and how we got here. What follows is both an intellectual and personal unpacking of the following question: what does it mean to be an addict in America?
Let me preface this by saying that I write as someone who has struggled with these issues both as an...
