ABSTRACT
Addiction theory was one of the grander social mistakes of the 1970s and 1980s. Every conceivable hard-to-shake habit was declared to be an addiction and therefore beyond the control of the newly defined and helplessly passive addict. Womanizers were revealed to be "sex addicts", and gamblers, joggers, daredevils, and deadbeats were all labeled addicts as well. Romance as an alleged addiction sold many thousands of self-help books. Many addictions have quietly been downgraded to habits and choices, and alcoholism may be in the process of being downgraded from disease to addiction. There is no longer any doubt that nicotine is physically addictive. But people do not smoke just for nicotine. They smoke for a great array of non-chemical reasons, from depression and peer pressure to a courting of danger, or a belief that smoking equals liberation. By pruning away all the meanings behind smoking, earnest anti-smoking people leave this field to the tobacco companies.
