An addiction is a habit that a person abuses (Inside: Altogether Elsewhere, March 20). To abuse something is to misuse it. To misuse is to use something other than its proper purpose. What these three definitions fail to tell you is that a person misuses something with the purpose of abusing it. Say he has an addiction; the addiction is actually covering up feelings that have led him to believe he needed something other than what he was getting. A person's only addiction that he may ever have to face is just that, that he can't face his inner demons that have been mislabeled as addictions. Until that person can confront whatever or whoever made them feel inadequate, he will continue to use "addictions" as a means to enter treatment facilities for problems that don't even exist.

[continues 257 words]