Addictions: Purposeful Decisions

But the disease doesn’t fit as well as we might think. The cravings and desires at the core of the addictive experience are not quite the same as an invading virus. If you catch a virus, you have no choice. You don’t want it, and you would be glad to be rid of it. Heaving drinking, however, doesn’t just happen to us. Instead, the drinker feels there are pay off—however temporary—to drunkenness. (There are for any sin.) In other words, addicts make choices to pursue their addiction…Even with the associated misery, people drink because on some level drinking does something for them. Their drinking is purposeful.

[Welch, Edward T., Addictions: A Banquet in the Grave (Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 2001), pg. 26]