My healthy addiction is Kayak diving, I'm also the president of a local scuba diving kayak club.
I occasionally get to supplement my protein intake with a little spearfishing and catching lobster when in season.

However in my case there may be a bit of sadomasochism involved as well. Last weekend I traveled across the state of Florida to do Kayak support for a master swimmers relay team in the 24 mile swim held in Tampa bay. I'm proud to say I was able to guide my Team to a win in extremely difficult conditions. It was a grueling 9 hour paddle in three to four foot swells. It was hell for the swimmers and quite a few competitors had to drop out because of sea sickness.

I share your addiction of plants. I prefer the term passions over additions. I think part of the problem here is that we have bred a modern society that has developed this expectation of happiness. If you look at levels of contentment around the planet you can't help but notice that poor people in developing countries often seem the most at peace. This peace seems to come from having no expectations or guarantees about future happiness, but rather an appreciation for each day that they are healthy and have food in their bellies. I don't think our modern society will ever be satiated due to the expectations that we have developed as cultural norms. I think addictions come from a too easy life where there is no longer any real tangible risks or challenges. If you take away the challenges and make life too easy maybe 1 in a 1000 will develop positive addictions like a love of plants. The other 999 will fall into obesity. consumption and negative addictions. This is simply the nature of any random population of humans. America has had such wealth that it was a possibility that a large percentage of the population could have followed creative, intelligent, non parasitic lifestyles. They didn't. Neither will the Chinese or the Europeans or the Africans. We are talking about human nature and the fact that the vast majority of humans when given an easy life will simply default to an easy parasitic position. Sorry but the only solution I see here to increase positive happiness is for us to become collectively much poorer until we are stripped of any expectations of happiness

Until recently, I worked in the advertising industry, thus contributing to the unhealthy American addiction to shopping. This is a sin I will have to atone for. I've started.
Thought this quote from Wendell Barry might be relevant:

People whose governing habit is the relinquishment of power, competence, and responsibility, and whose characteristic suffering is the anxiety of futility, make excellent spenders. They are the ideal consumers. By inducing in them little panics of boredom, powerlessness, sexual failure, mortality, paranoia, they can be made to buy (or vote for) virtually anything that is “attractively packaged.” The advertising industry is founded on this principle.

My healthy-ish addictions:
- Creative writing (my mood is largely dependent on how many good pages I've written lately)
- Running (endorphins, wheee!)
- Human contact (i need to be around, and hive-five, if not downright hug, a bunch of people to feel energized)

My unhealthy-ish addictions:
- Reading the news online (for the most part, this depletes energy, for some reason; produces anxiety, wastes time, delays and diminishes capacity for action; I require increasingly more interesting articles to feel intellectually stimulated ... think there might have been a Campfire on phenomena related to this ... anybody else deal with this?)
- Coffee (environmental impact, i think, tips it over to the unhealthy end; it does improve mental and physical stamina though - but perhaps in a way that is, in the long-term, counterproductive?)
- I'm sure there's more. Drawing a blank. Probably because I don't have something I'm addicted to.

I would quibble with the word 'addiction' in this context. Addiction is characterized by excessive use and ruminative thinking regarding the desired object/activity.

I recently took up mindfulness meditation, specifically with teachings by Andrea Fella and Gil Fronsdal. I find that I can stop, pay particular attention to the sounds/smells/visual setup of a modern store and it's just creepy. There is a substrate of sameness in them - same parquet floor, same fixtures, same choices of music, same BUY NOW!!! colors - they're absolutely soulless.

I quite commonly buy things but I am the devil on value. I pay a lot for Smartwool socks ... because they last forever. Nothing but Asolo hiking boots on my feet, again due to their fairly permanent nature as well as utility. I will pay a lot ... for a lot of value.

Interesting post - I went through a lot of the adjustment described in this during 2007. I was kind of a stunned bunny for about three months after I figured out this whole peak oil thing wasn't a theoretical exercise.

I have yet to see a decent definition of the word "addiction." Yours is by far the loosest I have run across.

A have a few addictions that I think are very healthy. I enjoy mountain biking. Its a great way to explore the countryside. I compete against myself using a GPS to keep track of distance, average speed [GPS also gives greater confidence to explore more out-of-the-way areas]. Another is working out. I enjoy the feeling of good muscle tone and the sense of well-being that comes from a good general level of physical fitness. The third major addiction I have is sex. Its a great way to share awesomely good times with (very) close friends, and get good aerobic exercise to boot. Plus the addictive nature of it reinforces the desire to keep my body in the best shape possible. Looking good (positive body self-image) and feeling good, which both come from being in shape, don't hurt the libido. A virtuous circle of addicitions if ever there was one - much recommended!

I'm not sure I'd go along with the idea of gardening as an addiction, but it is very satisfying in many ways, as well as challenging in many ways.
But yesterday, after some days of despairing that my potatoes would ever come up, I found them pushing up though the straw. It's the first time I've grown potatoes, and it was a thrill to see them.

About those addictions.

Well I thought about it some. Then I thought about my parents and possible addicitive behaviour in them. Then I thought about my grandparents and what I could discern in them.

What I found was that I used to be quite addictive. To alcohol and cigarettes for the most part as to the bad ones.
My other addiction though I don't regard it as bad is the desire to collect and buy many tools. I have not stopped this but now its mostly at yard sales or auctions. Low cost,good tools.

Then I tried to recall what addictions I could remember of my grandparents. For my grandmother I could think of only one. Snuff.
For my grandfather..none.

They lived on the farm. Rarely do I remember them ever leaving the farm. For years and years the most my grandfather did was fish and that was as much for food as anything else.

My belief then is that not too long ago many people pretty much did not do anything that could be considered addictive. Nada. There just wasn't 'stuff' there to get addicted to.

They had to work and do the chores and always something on the farm but it was not forced labor or drudge work. They seemed to just do and go on.

I believe it was only after WWII and many moved off the farms that true addictions to what now was available came about.

So we don't need addictions. So what does it matter about the possible brain activity or other nonsense? Keeping up with the Jones?
Having a car when not needed? And so on.

Here is an addiction. You work hard all day long. You find you enjoy being productive in what immediately benefits you. This I mean is when you do NOT work 'for the man' but for yourself.

Sharpen a knife. Repair your tractor. Plant some mint,a new apple tree and till up hills for three rows of corn.
This is what I did today and actuall a lot more.

So when I came in, drew a drink, pulled my Red Wing boots off and hit my easy chair...some brain chemistry must have said "hey I feel damned good and did some real nice work".....

Those in the city I have no idea of for I left it 30 yrs or so ago.
I will never leave my place here in the country.

Doing for myself has an immense payback. Fix my own things. Carve some wood. Build a bluebird house.

NOTE: Say a bluebird on the wire fence today. Saw two Mockingbirds. Saw a neighbors Purple Martin houses with a full set of martins flying and getting it spiffied up. The house wren over my bed starts at first light making many flight outside and back to build her nest. She doesn't stop til dark, where do she get the energy?.....

Do you think she has an addiction? I am setting out hummingbird vine since I saw one inside my barn and one flew up in my face out the back window as I had it raised looking at my garden.

So the birds are coming back. Not many as yet but still coming. I am pleased and perhaps even a bit 'addicted' to wildlife near me. My dogs for sure.

Airdale

I feel I have two addictions that I'm reminded of daily. Coffee and The Oil Drum.

It probably is useful to have a definition to work from. In my case I look at addiction as 'a deeply ingrained habit that acts as a means for coping with or masking certain feelings, like fear, pain, self-hatred, isolation.' (to name a few)

I used to drink too much soda, and eat too much candy, and I feel these had been used by me in addictive ways. Luckily, I eventually found ways to restrict the times when I allowed myself to buy and consume them, and simply found better substitutes to have handy when I felt drawn to one of them. (I still have Soda.. ONLY at Movies. And I'm not supposed to buy candy when I'm getting a paper, which was when most of them were acquired.)

The TOD addiction has both benefits and problems to it, which I probably don't need to outline to most people reading this. I like to be part of this conversation. As I tell my wife, there are not many people who want to have this conversation in person in my daily life, and in my fear of what a serious energy shortfall brings with it, I feel I NEED to be able to know that this conversation is at least happening SOMEWHERE.. and like a spider with her 'shake-string', I am a little obsessive about keeping a tab on this vibration.. I'm afraid that if I let go, I might 'fall asleep', right as we're cresting over the falls, and when quick choices need to be made. I don't think I would just forget, really.. but it's one of those tingling senses of what keeps me checking in here. But I need to put a renewed effort into creating some new work for myself, as the phone has slowed a lot in the last several months..

I do appreciate the topic, Jason (and Nate).. less for my own habitual behavior, and more for the idea that so much of our consumer economy has become based on creating and manipulating peoples' addictions, from TV/VideoGames and Buying Fads themselves, to the classic standbys like Alchohol, Nicotine, Caffeine, Painkillers, Health Supplements, Sugar, Guns-Defense, Exercise.. etc..

I'm not as worried about the blame or sicknesses that derive from these Many Branded Drugs, but how we can model an economy that is NOT based on the assumption that you have to make people buy things that they don't really need. You don't need 'planned obsolescence' to have a workable sales strategy. I have to believe that is true, but I can't personally make the business case for it.

Anyone want to take a shot? Bueller?

Bob

I wonder where Mardi Gras (the locals experience is far different and often richer than visitors) fits in ?

Happy JazzFest !!

Alan

I don't think I would define your pleasurable activity as "an addiction" if it is healthy. I feel that an addiction is by definition unhealthy. Therefore my alcoholism is an addiction. The pleasure I derive in splitting wood or riding my bike is healthy, therefore it is not an addiction. Congratulations, those of you who say you are addicted to gardening are not in fact addicts. I'm happy for you. Just don't pretend you understand the pain of people who are truly addicted to something by saying that you are "addicted" to gardening.

I think addiction has a negative connotation and is better linked to harmful, big footprint, destructive types of habits. In my life, those things that I'm passionate about and do fairly regularly, though not mindlessly or habitually, are yoga, mindfulness meditation, spending time with my son, friends and family, writing, reading voraciously, working in the garden (my first, all organic, permaculture-ish...woo hoo!). These activities make me stronger, more open, more able...

As for those habits I could probably do without or at least decrease: I'm still working out my habituation to consumption. It's still so easy to pick up something new rather than repair what we have or find it used, although I am getting much better at this. Also, I'm half-Dutch and so it is practically a requirement of the queen that I drink lots of coffee. :-) Okay, maybe not, but it's still a guilty pleasure, those few cups a day while reading a new-to-me book or skimming through TOD. Good stuff.

Great topic and fits in well with my attempts to break with desire and the belief that I "need" something when I really don't. Good preparation for times to come...

Though, I am familiar with yoga, gardening, fitness quest etc, I am not sure if they qualify as addictions. They are interests, and no doubt healthy, I would add music to that list.
Being with family and socializing etc is good, healty wholesome behaviour not an addiction.

I think you left out the compulsiveness(your habituation I guess) that is a requirement for being an addiction, maybe running and gym may have components of that, but not the others.

Meditation and yoga are the anti of an addiction, as an addiction is by its nature a bit mindless, even if it occupies your lower mind completely, your higher mind knows it is bad behaviour waste of time etc. I see it like a dad indulges his kid, the higher mind that knows you are straying from your wholesome self, yet allows the senses to have their way, and sometimes the senses, are unruly and uncontrollable.
So with my definition of addiction, as something that is highly compulsive - My favorite addiction is Chess on the internet, not playing it with all the pressure of a tournament, but for the fun of it. Trying to win ofcourse but not sweating it.
It has all the other good things going fot it, low eco footprint, keeps you mind sharp etc. Utility - well that is what got us into this mess, too much quest for efficiency, utility - there is an article on Forbes Trappist monks 'work' only 4 hours a day, yet have fulfilling lives.

I have to limit my juggling--bounce juggling, toss juggling and contact juggling--to an hour a day, usually from 4 to 5 a.m. each morning. Time slows as skill increases. I'd call it a good addiction, along with bookbinding, repairing the binding of old books. I had to do my copy of The Prize a couple of months ago because the thing was falling apart.

This is a promising start at looking at the multiple facets and consequences of our complex behaviors, but like oldchuck I also take issue with "addiction".

The dopamine pathway and mesolimbic system are only marginally significant with regards to the underlying issues leading to what we would like to call addiction. We can, in fact, continue to call it addiction as long as we understand that this is valid only from a single, unique, peculiar perspective in the multi-scaled system which affects and drives human behavior.

What I mean by multi-scaled is that human behavior is the result of a system which at one scale, the microscopic, involves cellular activity within a neuron. At another scale, it involves interconnected pathways between neurons, with the release and uptake of dopamine, serotonin, and other neurotransmitters. At another scale it involves differentiated and interconnected regions of the brain that process sight, sound, speech, memory, language, disgust, anxiety release and humor, fear, desire, anger, fight, flight, etc., in a complex network.

At another scale it involves autonomic dynamic regulation of the human body and the individual conscious experience of processing the myriad sensory inputs from interacting with the world around you. You specifically, me specifically, writing and reading these words, this individual conscious experience right here.

At another scale it involves being a member of a complex human social network. At another scale it involves being biologically bound as a species to the Earth's complex ecology.

And across different lengths of time, all of these scales interact with each other and contribute to what we analyze, discuss, and debate as human behavior.

I think the concept of addiction is valid only when considering just a few of these scales in a particular way. Addiction considers the scale of physical changes to the brain. It considers a pale understanding of the scale of human cognition. And it considers the scale of human behavior within society, but only in that this "addictive" behavior is recognized as being different from other human behavior. Using the literal definition of discriminate, this behavior is discriminated from the rest of society.

Using the word "addiction", we are ignoring the very significant effects of other scales. At least in the legal system, we are ignoring the biological effects of foreign substances on cognition, perception, indeed all the complex functions of the human brain, and we ignore the effects on what we like to call individual responsibility (another idea which misses the effects of the other scales and systems).

We are ignoring the effects of complex deficiencies in the human social network. Some of these deficiencies are known as being poor, homeless, lacking in education, being subject to prejudice, and being physically, sexually, and emotionally traumatized.

And there is one other significant effect that we ignore, which is what happens when all these scales and forces interact to the benefit of a single entity or group. From Bill Gate's fortune, from our ability above all other species to be able to think, emote, communicate, and imagine in complex ways, to our very existence as living things on this planet. This effect can be called "luck". Or if that term doesn't sit well, we can call it the temporary preferential behavior of a system.

But "luck" is more succinct. It was luck that exposed Bill Gates to computers at a young age. It was luck that our evolutionary ancestors weren't exterminated in any of the previous extinction events. It was luck that the conditions were right for complex life to evolve on this planet.

In a world of unmanageable complexity, it may have to do with luck that most of us aren't more addicted, that most of us aren't habituated to detrimental behaviors, than we already are.

Looking at the dynamics of human behavior, it's easy to slap a label on a given problem, "addiction". It's like "depression" or "irritable bowel syndrome", just because it has a name, doesn't mean we understand what it is. But it is an easy quick fix to name it, because naming it is rewarding, the reward being a feeling of influence and control.

So those easy quick fixes can also be -- dare I say it? -- addictive.

If you believe in addiction, you may suffering from what you believe.

We got our start as a species as hunter/gatherers. The inclination to search for stuff, and to get a thrill out of it when we find something we think we need or want, is hard-wired into us. The marketing people were clever enough to discover and exploit this, whether they explicitly recognized it as such or not.

It is possible to overcome our programming, but it is difficult. Few can actually do it. A more promising approach than supression is redirection.

A personal example:

I have absolutely HAD IT with all the foreign junk in the stores. The USA, as a nation, simply cannot go on relying more and more upon imports. We need to be moving as rapidly as we can to localize our economy anyway, for a whole host of energy and environmental related reasons (which have been extensively discussed at TOD already).

Enough. I'm staging my own one-person rebellion, and - to the extent that I need to buy anything at all (and I am trying to be more frugal, too) - I'm really trying hard to just buy stuff made in the USA if at all possible. The funny thing is, it has quickly turned into something of a game. It is an interesting challenge to search the internet and try to find what might still be out there in remote nooks and crannies. Even where there are no longer any US manufacturers, that does not exhaust the possiblities, for in many cases there USED to be, so then the hunt is on for used or "vintage" US-made products. Where I absolutely strike out, that causes me to think long and hard about whether or not I really need that particular thing, or if there might be alternatives to consider.

This is a way of shopping which is very much attuned to the way we are hard-wired, but it is a very different way of shopping than is the way most people go about it. I'll leave it to you to judge whether my approach is "healthier".

My healthy addictions: a little bit of martial arts, reading and hiking.

Unhealthy: smoking, reading online news feeds (including TheOilDrum).

Smoking is the stupidest addiction ever.
As everybody knows, it destroys your health, it's expensive, etc.
But the worst part is that it doesn´t give you any good sensation like other drugs, only the feeling that you don´t want to smoke more (for less than an hour normally).

And as the destruction of your lungs go so slowly (+10 years smoking to feel permanent effects), you begin to think really seriously to quit smoking only after you are seriously hooked. At the beginning it's pretty easy to stop smoking.

Jason--I don't see any definition of addiction here. Psychology discussion becomes a waste of time if it is allowed to become a sloppy muddle due to indiscriminate use of the very same expressions as are used in everyday life. For better or worse everyone has to be a bit of a "psychologist" whereas few have to be nuclear physicists.

A sensible definition of addiction involves the element that the behaviour is neurotic (is a form of neurosis and associated with the N (neuroticism) personality dimension), i.e. that it is persisted in in defiance of one's conscious better judgement, happiness, and or survival. To be addicted to gardening means you carry on gardening to the extent that you fail to come in for meals or to have a drink or to pay your bills. What you are talking about is being (very) enthusiastic about gardening, which is not a neurosis and not addiction.

Thus by definition there is no such thing as a healthy addiction, just a healthy enthusiasm.

I too have arrived at a particular 'healthy hobby' of growing plants, though my current focus is fruit and nut trees (and shrubs/vines) in an edible landscaping approach (60+ plants as of this year). I've been focusing on learning about, acquiring, and planting those cultivars that are disease-resistant, requiring the least care (and petroleum-based sprays). Vegetable gardening is a distant second (as is small grain plots), and we are only really managing 10 beds these last couple of years, as getting bearing fruit and nuts can take 3-8 years, and these take higher priority as part of my PO mitigation plan.

Hence, my hunter/gatherer instincts have been channeled into easier 'gathering' (just step out in the yard, or into the root cellar) of essential (and healthy) proteins, fats, and carbohydrates.

my healthy addictions include playing music (i play in public much of the time) which provides me with smiles and compliments from strangers and allows me to overcome my shyness.i also love the sound of guitar.

i bicycle ride which allows me to feel good and gives me a shot of adrenaline.

i just bought a small motorcylce which gives me a thrill and makes me happy to get 70 mpg.

i love to read and learn and am trying to work on things with my hands which is always making me feel good when i accomplish stuff.

bad addictions include eating later at night (which i cant get away with anymore) as well as worrying and procrastinating.

I am going to post here the absolute worst and most destructive unhealthy addiction known to modern mad(editted to MAN--Freudian slip there). In fact I think it is more likely the basic cause of our oncoming self-destruction.

I am very intimate with this addiction. I was severely impacted by it and in the process of that addiction I lost perhaps a hundred thousand dollars in what could have been a more productive future.

This is the addiction and we all are very well aware of it yet not a single post so far has indicted it.

Its simple. SHOPPING!!

How am I familiar and adversely affected by it? Very simple.

My wife was and still is heavily addicted to SHOPPING. This is where she gets to show her friends,relatives and herself that she has 'Made It' in this world. That she has 'value' and can prove it by spending more in a single day that the one shopping with her.

How did I lose so much? I owned some very good farmland and lots of farm equipment. When my income as a result of retiring and as well the result of 'income leveling' occurred our lifestlyes needed to change to less spending. My wife decided she couldn't do that so she started to stay with our children in the big suburbs and spent less and less time on the farm in a very rural area.

So to maintain our previous standard of living I started to sell assets. Land first. Then when I got the divorce summons I had to sell far more. All of my farming equipment. I put $21,000 in our joint banking acct to which she had a debit card.

Long story short. She was living with my daughter then and she completely spent most all of that $21,000 in just three months. I managed to grab out a few thousand towards the end for myself.

As part of the upcoming divorce I had to see and divide most all of my belongs and a residence. Realized $52,000 after sales and auctions.
Gave her $26,000....she spent it all in less than 9 months. All of it.

Along with the stress of maintaining her shoppping addiction she had two stents implanted on top of 10 major operations during her life. She coded 'blue' in the emergency room of the hospital. This didn't stop her. She then went into cardiac arrest two years later and had a triple heart bypass operation.

The stresses of having to maintain her image and so that others can see how well she dresses and bullshits them have almost taken her very life and health and almost rendered her husband(me)destitute.

Now she lives near a very big city with my son. She has little funds left. Only what I give her. Give her to keep her away since she decided to drop the divorce and realized that only my ex-employers group insurance could help her remain alive. She cannot obtain insurance on her own for she is now uninsurable.

This is what a serious addiction can do to one's life.

Thanks to the MSM, the advertising scumbuckets and modern culture a very nice young girl who was raised with the idea that 'only money counts and thats all' and whose goal was to always impress others even though 'others' were moslty worthless people. This was a direct result of her upbringing. A child of a disfunctional criminal and his vicious idiot wife and both were child pyschological abusers in the extreme.

I think many households are haunted by this shopping addiction frenzy. Both male,famale and children fall into this abyss.

IMO it has taken us to the edge of that abyss and now we are surely going over the edge.

The trials and tribulations of modern life is due to the communications medium. Cheap energy gave us the means to approach the insanity of conspicuous consumption that has in effect totally 'consumed' our society and lives.

The most unhealthy addiction to face mankind.

Airdale does shop also but for 'tools'. I still have some of my high school clothes in the closet. I wear my shoes til they fall apart. I have had no TV for the last 5 years. I hardly ever go to a shopping mall. If I do I go in , get what I need and leave.

My wife was wont to go on a shopping spree and as her and her favorite aunt were walking across the shopping lot they would say "Why did I buy this?" and throw it in a convenient trash container as they left the mall lot!!!..Well I never saw them actually do this but her aunt had 8 closets full of unworn clothes and my wife had $500 suit dresses she had only worn once and told me to take to Goodwill. Both had enormous quantities of shoes that did not fit them.

Airdale-note that I am not blaming women per se...its just that they tend to be overwhelming the choice target of advertisers and why that is so I don't know....except that they have greater "purchasing power" and while I have spent countless weeks looking at housing,for me and my family and my son as well....its seems to be the female that does the ohhhhhs and ahhhhhhs over the inside while I always went into the crawlspace to check for bad building construction and then the attic for the same but its seems that the interior space was always pitched towards extreme yuppism and 'one upsmanship'.
A good reason why we are where we are, IMO as always....(and who else's opinion is more valuable...mine or those 'lying eyes'?

The debate about what behaviors constitute addiction vs. compulsion vs. habit continues today. When speaking of substance dependence, two criteria determine dependence: 1) increasing tolerance (more substance required to create the same subjective positive state); and 2) withdrawal (specific symptoms such as sweating, vomiting, shaking, etc).

I would call repetitive behaviors outside of conscious control compulsions. Passions or interests are not addictions although the reward may be great. The rewards from addiction are from the chemical reaction which requires very limited effort (swallow a pill, smoke a drug). The rewards from interests and passions come from sustained effort, are enduring, but not nearly as intense as the rewards from addictive behaviors. If someone maintains an interest in activity, the reward grows with greater development of the interest.

With addictions, the reward diminishes (tolerance)with each use. Perhaps this may explain a few of the differences. Because one habituates to the addictive substance, more substance is required to gain the same effect. What is often described as addictive behavior involves increasing effort to obtain more and more substance to prevent one from feeling bad as the reward diminishes with each use. Stealing, lying, cheating, prioritizing the fix over all else are part of the addictive pattern. Gardening does not usually fit this pattern.

Rewarding activities such as chess playing, gardening, tennis are activities which demand attention, challenge participants to develop improving skill and knowledge, and developing skill over time is in and of itself rewarding. The addictive pattern diminishes self-esteem, the rewarding activities enhance self-esteem. Both addictions and hobbies can consume finances, but rarely does the hobbyist bankrupt oneself to get more fertilizer.

The following definitions of some of the terms that are being struggled with here may be helpful. They are from a Consensus Document produced by: The American Academy of Pain Medicine, The American Pain Society and the American Society of Addiction Medicine in 2001
available here:
http://www.painmed.org/pdf/definition.pdf

Addiction:
Addiction is a primary, chronic, neurobiologic disease, with genetic, psychosocial, and environmental factors influencing its development and manifestations. It is characterized by behaviors that include one or more of the following: impaired control over drug use, compulsive use, continued use despite harm, and craving.

Physical Dependence:
Physical dependence is a state of adaptation that often includes tolerance and is manifested by a drug class specific withdrawal syndrome that can be produced by abrupt cessation, rapid dose reduction, decreasing blood level of the drug, and/or administration of an antagonist.

Tolerance:
Tolerance is a state of adaptation in which exposure to a drug induces changes that result in a diminution of one or more of the drug's effects over time.

They go on to note:

[...]Addiction, unlike tolerance and physical dependence, is not a predictable drug effect, but represents an idiosyncratic adverse reaction in biologically and psychosocially vulnerable individuals. Most exposures to drugs that can stimulate the brain’s reward
center do not produce addiction. Addiction is a primary chronic disease and exposure to drugs is only one of the etiologic factors in its development.

And say in conclusion:

Universal agreement on definitions of addiction, physical dependence, and tolerance is critical to the optimization of pain treatment and the management of addictive disorders.

While the definitions offered here do not constitute formal diagnostic criteria, it is hoped that they may serve as a basis for the future development of more specific, universally accepted diagnostic guidelines.

The Buddha taught that the source of unconditional happiness is not just being free of "things", but being free our clinging to things. Our suffering comes from not understanding the true nature of the world; that everything is impermanent.

Your coffee, your kayak, your garden, your opinions, your oil :^), they are all impermanent. And we can never obtain lasting happiness from impermanent things.

There are no healthy addictions. Even habits or addictions that lead in a "positive" direction, if when they are taken away lead to even a bit of suffering, are unhealthy. One could even begin clinging to the idea of having nothing and when they are burdened with a "thing" they suffer greatly! (I have met a few people who were clinging to Gil's books.)

When this functioning of how we cling to things is understood there is no "acting for the environment" because we act naturally, and our natural state is acting in an way that supports the environment. We do not even need to burn the oil needed to turn on an MRI, we just need to contemplate.

I enjoyed the post and am glad that others have given much thought to the relative value of addictions. I've tried to maintain balance in my life between self and family, along with the conflicts of conscience resulting from being married to a wife who does not share my peak oil enthusiasm/anxiety. My good addiction is bicycling, which I have forced upon my kids via a tandem and trail-a-bike. Soccer is another, but is becoming more difficult to justify with fields being far out from my house and lighting issues. Will it last or become just another neighborhood pick-up pursuit? I enjoy coffee and beer, which I suppose can be sustainably produced and consumed - and I do try to get the most local beer available. As many respondents noted, I too, enjoy reading TOD and LATOC, Joe Bageant, Wendell Berry, and other writers and sites that help me organize my thoughts for converting the ignorant masses. I can be distracted by the internet's vast opportunities, can buy too many new camping products, although I have slowed that habit to a crawl in recent years. We have started a garden, but I have trouble giving up bike time to deal with it - it will be my wife's healthy addiction, I hope. Thanks to Jason for this and other posts - I used your cyborg analogy in my high school economics class. I am also at the breaking point on the plastic crap at birthdays, to the point that I mention it as a joke to see the response; which is often agreement.