Drug addictions are psychically determined, artificially induced illnesses. All types are varieties of one single disease. Certain drugs happen to be 'elatants' which either generate pleasure or prevent pain and afford the way out of a psychic situation which is characteristic of addiction. This is the 'tense depression' which is a special type of emotional alteration resulting from frustration. The drug then causes an elevation of mood and a sharp rise in self-esteem which causes a recrudescence of primitive narcissism. Interest in reality gradually vanishes. A cyclic course is the usual sequence. The transitoriness of the elation determines the return of the depression, the latter the renewed craving for the elation. The ego