ABSTRACT
The alarming spread of alcohol and drug addiction in the late modern era has provoked a vast amount of moralistic and medical analysis. However, neither the moralistic nor the medical paradigm has generated interventions that have curtailed the continuing spread of addiction. Dislocation theory leads to a radical proposition for controlling addiction through large-scale social change. The dislocation theory stands outside the box of most current addiction thinking in at least three ways: First, dislocation theory does not focus initially on addicted individuals, as do both the moralistic and the medical paradigms. Second, dislocation theory does not privilege drug and alcohol addiction. Third, dislocation theory is drawn as much from historical, anthropological, sociological, economic, biographical, and clinical analysis as from quantitative medical research. Addiction helps many people adapt to the stress of chronic dislocation, and fuels the economic engines of the global economy, but there is still another reason for its high prevalence in modern society.
