If having an addiction is a sign of pain then it is broadcasting that pain from something exists. Amatuer psychologists, like myself, might then focus on curing that pain in order to boost their own ego.

I agree with the whole rest of your thought but think many fixate on the "does the person resolve to cut back but finds themself unable to stick with that decision?" I often wonder if I could stop weed. For one I don't want to but I have none of the other classic 12-step check boxes. That makes me think I'm simply enjoying it and don't really need to stop.

@rainmanjr thanks for that clarification. It makes sense to me now. And YES YES YES! Great point. Desire to cut back or quit is often ambivalent, perhaps motivated by outside pressures and expectations and worry about negative judgment from others rather than genuine belief that life is better without the activity.

A caveat to that is that addicts will often lie to themselves to excuse a behavior that they would be terrified to give up. So it is tricky. But that does not mean a behavior is unhealthy just because some people judge it as immoral or irresponsible.

Porn and weed use are both great examples. I am a licenced psychotherapist, and I have met quite a number of patients who indulge in either of these. In many cases you would be hard pressed to "prove" any actual damage to their lives. You might as well be talking about people's love of coffee or certain video games. But for others, they have such an obsession that other important things in their lives get shoved out. Sometimes their problem is not the activity per se but lack of balance in the person's life.

Even trickier to parse is the nature of a "problem" when the single biggest negative consequence involves impact on an important interpersonal relationship. If a life partner strongly disapproves of a behavior, but the person continues, it can lead to deepening relationship tensions and resentments, especially involving porn/masturbation. Often the person engaging in that feels even more preoccupied with that sexual behaviors as they feel condemned and judged by their partner, and both partners can feel increasingly rejected and resentful. Porn is a kind of "easy cheap date" that is totally one-sided. The person does not have to please the porn nor feel judged by it. Yet there are many couples that openly accept porn use by each other without feeling any threat or competition from it. So is the problem the porn or a self-fulfilling prophecy born out of the people's beliefs and convictions about it.

I can tell you as a mental health professional, that researchers hotly debate whether even to consider problems associated with porn use,as well as emotional overeating, to be proper addictions. I am firmly in the camp that believes they are not. Both sex and food are matters of biological functions for which we have been wired to have an appetite. There are certainly more and less healthy ways we might express and satisfy those, but to consider them "addictions" suggest that abstinence is the logical treatment. That makes no sense to me for something we have an instinctual biological drive for.

@MikeInBatonRouge Couldn't agree more. People watch all manner of death and mayhem but closing one's eyes and seeing the lingering image of a couple fucking is somehow perverse. I think we have a few things wrong.