ABSTRACT
Toxicomania often leads to an early death. J. Lacan constantly draws attention to the fact that there is a close relationship between desire, death and enjoyment. An exploration of these relationships is of crucial importance for an understanding of toxicomania. The reason is that this clinical condition seems to centre precisely upon the complex entanglement of life, death and jouissance. According to Lacan it is the Freudian dialectic, through its emphasis on the realm of meaning, which has led us to consider human existence as the zone where life and death are conjoined. The conjunction of life and death causes a logical disjunction which is illustrated by certain demands. The junky aesthetic in drug culture is a flirtation with death. The relationship between the subject and his or her symptom is a central clinical problem in psychoanalysis. Compulsive gamblers never appear able to escape an extraordinary sense of guilt, often co-existing with a feeling of depression.
