What is drug dependency and addiction?

Drug addiction is when a person feels the compulsion to consume a substance to numb deep emotional pain. Example, Samantha needed a drink of vodka every morning just to get out of bed; the emotional pain of being raped was unbearable without a liter a day. Addicts are usually also dependent on a certain substance.

Drug dependency is when a person's body develops a physical need for a substance to function properly, without which the person's biochemistry malfunctions, often causing withdrawal symptoms. Example, the person dependent on sleeping pills will have insomnia without them, due to lack of GABA receptor agonists. Not all people who develop dependence are addicts. Can you say the person who "needs their morning coffee" is an addict? No. They are merely dependent.

The following may not quite answer the what as much as the WHY.

Drug addicts live in a strange grey area of being both criminal and victim. I was in that purgatory for some years.

Were my actions immoral? I stole. I lied. I abused my God given health. I left those who'd looked up to me as mentor....to the side. Were my actions not undoubtedly, extraordinarily immoral? Perhaps. For when the well tempered stranglehold of withdrawal began to wield his gnarly grip, I felt as though I'd SURELY die, lest I'd gasp the poison air of chemical bliss...just...one...more...time. AHHHHHH! I have but a thought: "How nice it is to breathe."Alas, as surely as the tides go out, the cycles would come full about.

So, were my actions immoral? Of course! Was I in control at the time? No. Still, there were countless times of clarity where I could've "manned up" and "gotten some help" but I did, in seven years, only once. Two years ago, I swallowed an extra Xanax and called my addiction psychiatrist. Turns out I had PTSD from 9/11. I was just medicating away the pain of that day. Was that immoral? No. It was pitiable. It was in fact not the drug abuse that bore the weight of the acts of immorality. No. IT WAS MY PRIDE!