Addictions Originate in Unhappiness—and Compassion Could Be the Cure

What kind of despair could lead someone to value short-term pain relief over life itself? The first question—always—is not “Why the addiction?” but “Why the pain?”

The early 19th-century literary figure Thomas de Quincey was an opium user. “The subtle powers lodged in this mighty drug,” he enthused, “tranquilize all irritations of the nervous system … stimulate the capacities of enjoyment … sustain through twenty-four hours the else drooping animal energies … O just, subtle and all-conquering opium … Thou only givest these gifts to man; and thou hast the keys of Paradise.” A patient of mine in Vancouver’s infamous Downtown Eastside said it more plainly: “The reason I do drugs is so that I don’t feel the f***ing feelings I feel when I don’t do drugs.” All drug addicts, even (or perhaps especially) the abject and marginalized street user, seek in their habit the same paradise de Quincey rhapsodized: a sense of comfort, vitality, and freedom from pain. It’s a doomed search that puts in peril their health, societal position, dignity, and freedom. “I’m not afraid of death,” another patient told me. “I’m more afraid of life.” What kind of despair could lead someone to value short-term pain relief over life itself? And what might be the source of such despair?

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