The New Fixes By Damian Thompson l The Fix

We live in a world of addiction. Junk food, painkillers, alcohol, and technology are all habits that consume our lives, but they can quickly become obsessions that move beyond our control. How do you know whether they become an unhealthy necessity?

In THE FIX by Damian Thompson, he writes about how modern society is producing a dizzying range of substances, ranging from slickly marketed iPads and computer games to illegally manufactured painkillers that are supplementing the traditional addictions such as alcohol and nicotine. Thompson, who has himself struggled with addiction, argues that human desire is in the process of being reshaped. Shunning the widely accepted model of addiction as a disease, he shows how manufacturers are actively encouraging our unhealthy appetites for iPhones, shopping, painkillers and gaming, to name just a few. The acceleration of scientific development is producing more and more substances, objects and experiences that we learn to like too much for our own good.

Below is a breakdown of society’s newest addictions.

Damian Thompson is Editor of Telegraph Blogs and a columnist for the Daily Telegraph. His book THE FIX: How addiction is taking over your world will be published in paperback by HarperCollins on April 23, 2013. He is also on Twitter as HolySmoke.

Sugar

The perfect symbol of society’s growing addiction to sugar isn’t a candy bar or a can of soda. It’s the cupcake: a little ‘treat’ groaning with more sugar than our grandparents would have eaten in a whole month. Middle-class women like to think of sugar addiction as a blue-collar problem, confined to fast food. But they can’t resist biting into a ‘naughty’ cupcake – and they think that, since these cakes have retro charm, it’s fine to feed them to their kids. Sugar addiction is dangerously close to drug addiction: sugar and cocaine excite similar areas of the brain. We read about the problem, but that doesn’t stop us rewarding ourselves with little bursts of sweetness during the day. Until diabetes strikes, that is.

iPhones

In a recent survey of Stanford students, 44 per cent said they were very or completely addicted to their smartphones. But how can you get addicted to a phone? The answer is that manufacturers, and especially Apple, practically force their customers to perform repetitive rituals of the sort associated with obsessive-compulsive disorder – and there’s a trace of OCD lurking within most of us. Increasingly we allow the iPhone to structure our day: it organises us rather than the other way round, and the short battery life only serves to increase our obsession. Apple knows this: it’s worked out that the key to addictive loyalty lies in the replacement of the people in your life by things. You think you have relationships with the friends and business contacts in your virtual address book. But, really, you have a relationship with the phone that acts as a gateway to – or a substitute for – your social life.

Pornography

At least 12 per cent of all websites contain porn. That’s a worrying statistic – but even worse is the way online pornography pulls its consumers towards graphic and violent images that were once the preserve of isolated hardcore users. The addictive pattern is unmistakable. The internet bombards people with so many images that their deepest kinks and obsessions are stimulated. Many porn addicts become as turned on by the searching for and collecting of videos as they do by any physical sexual gratification. And, with the arrival of computer tablets, an internet porn habit is easier than ever to hide. That’s a deadly problem for society – and especially for children and young adults who are exposed to darkly addictive porn at precisely the moment when their sexual self-esteem is most fragile.

Prescription Drugs

Most parents probably don’t know that the attention-deficit medication prescribed for children can deliver an amazingly addictive high. But lots of kids know about it, which is why drugs such as Adderall and Ritalin are so often traded in high schools and colleges. The old distinction between legal and illegal drugs is breaking down as countless millions of young people explore the recreational kick they can get out of the pills they find in the bathroom cabinet – or order off the internet. Clubbers who use illegal ‘uppers’ such as Ecstasy to get high on the dance floor will use legal ‘downers’ such as Valium or Zimovane to smooth away withdrawal effects. And that’s before we even consider the thriving black market in painkillers. Thanks to the hit series House, it’s common knowledge that the opiate-based painkiller Vicodin delivers a gentle euphoria. The Obama administration is desperately trying to clamp down on this sort of recreational abuse – but is it already too late? Thanks to the internet, an opiate hit is often only a click away. All you need is a working credit card.