It's been a long day, and you would like something to look forward to. It's there, waiting for you, easy to get when you're tired, feeling down, or merely bored, and though you sometimes worry that it may be a larger part of your life than it ought to be, you are assured that it is entirely normal, commonplace even, if not so common as to lose all appeal. Everyone's doing it, or at least everyone having fun, or the ones who are just like you. Besides, even if it's not so public, and even a little, shall we say, frowned upon, no one needs to know. And as long as you don't, you know, really overdo it, it's basically inexpensive. And anyway, who's to say if it's actually a problem? Some people who do it all the time seem just fine, and isn't the whole idea of being free and modern that there don't really have to be rules? Make your own way. You sort of miss rules, but also you don't. You sort of hate yourself, but also you don't. Or do you? It's not even a big deal. You just gotta get your morning started, or get to sleep, or through this slump. It's just a few pills, one more drink. You know?
“Accessibility, affordability, advertising, anonymity, and anomie, the five cylinders of the engine of mass addiction,” writes David T. Courtwright in his new, one might say compulsively readable book about bad habits becoming big business, The Age of Addiction. We are, all of us, doing things to regulate our moods and get a little hit of dopamine, to cope, all the time. Sometimes we call those things addictions. Often, of course, we don't. That second cup of coffee; the music that's always on, whether in your car or your house or your headphones; the ice cream or third helping; replying on Twitter and posting on Instagram: these aren't for the vice squad but they do make us feel good, or if not good at least normal. What happens when you just have to press a button to feel really good? Why shouldn't you just press and press until you die of pleasure, waste away in ecstasy? Some people do—brain chemistry overwhelmed and dopamine pathways carved out like canyons—but, of course, we know we shouldn't. But why shouldn't we?
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