> I'm a caffeine addict and my life is a lot better for it, as far as I can tell.
False equivalency is a massive problem in online drug discourse. It's not helpful to lump all substances into a single "drugs" category and then draw conclusions by cherry-picking specific substances like caffeine. We have plenty of evidence that caffeine is safe to consume regularly over the long term. Trying to consume MDMA at a similar frequency would provided disastrous long-term effects. It's disingenuous to try to equate the two substances.
> There's a continuous gradient between "medicine", "habit", "functional addiction", and "rock bottom addiction". It's hard to draw defining lines on other peoples' spectra.
It's not really as arbitrary as you make it sound.
The bigger problem is that addicts almost always fail to categorize their own usage, especially in the early phases. It's frighteningly common to hear addicts rationalize their escalating addictions as self-medication, or for alcoholics to convince themselves that they are functional alcoholics as their lives slowly fall apart.
I chose caffeine as an uncontroversial example, to demonstrate the breadth of the spectrum. I am not equating them; indeed it was chosen for maximum contrast.
Everyone on this planet does things to alter their mental state and status, from running, to masturbation, to coffee, to meditation, to SSRIs from the pharmacy, to drink, to cigarettes, to recreational illicit stimulants like cocaine, to intravenous heroin from the streetcorner. I could plot a continuous curve between the extremes, and it isn't any of our place to say where "therapy" ends and "addiction" starts for any other person, because of the wide range of procedures, practices, frequencies, dosages, and effects, both positive and negative.
False equivalency is a massive problem in online drug discourse. It's not helpful to lump all substances into a single "drugs" category and then draw conclusions by cherry-picking specific substances like caffeine. We have plenty of evidence that caffeine is safe to consume regularly over the long term. Trying to consume MDMA at a similar frequency would provided disastrous long-term effects. It's disingenuous to try to equate the two substances.
> There's a continuous gradient between "medicine", "habit", "functional addiction", and "rock bottom addiction". It's hard to draw defining lines on other peoples' spectra.
It's not really as arbitrary as you make it sound.
The bigger problem is that addicts almost always fail to categorize their own usage, especially in the early phases. It's frighteningly common to hear addicts rationalize their escalating addictions as self-medication, or for alcoholics to convince themselves that they are functional alcoholics as their lives slowly fall apart.