What is addiction?
Charlene: Addiction is described as a pathological relationship with a mood altering experience. Basically what that means is for the alcoholic, the first time they get drunk, that experience of ease and comfort that they feel. Or for the gambler, the first time that they win, the high that they get. It’s really more about the experience then the actual substance. The goal is really to escape reality. Normal human beings want to go through life with the least amount of pain possible but with addicts they take that to the extreme and want to go through life with no amount of pain. Then they do whatever they can to escape the pain and reality.