The present work has a main aim to propose a difference between dependence and addiction, which are frequently understood as the same phenomena when we understand them from a very different perspective. Following some of Fairbairn's ideas together with the thoughts of Winnicott, Kohut and more recently of MacDougal, the authors propose the existence of a dependence spectrum on which the human being lives from the cradle to the grave. In the process of becoming a person, one has to connect oneself to another human being to achieve one's own humanity. The first steps in live will be very important for the attunement established between the infant and his caretakers. Failures in this process may lead to severe pathologies among which addiction takes a place of profound relevance. Addiction would be a toxic and malignant version of the necessary connection between human beings. Addiction operates outside the dependence spectrum and has a great chance to lead a person to death. In the addiction process there will usually be an unfulfilled promise of satisfaction and painful disappointment at the end.