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American culture currently exhibits an ever deepening interest in the “cunning, baffling” nature of addiction, and has begun to speak about this malady in something other than shaming, moralistic terms. Americans are now more aware of how the addict's often subtle pathology enacts the logic of Derrida's pharmakon, the charming, perfidious substance that both heals and infects, both sedates and attacks, both entraps and induces a wonderful catharsis (Derrida). This dastardly, ambivalent nature of the pharmakon, the “poisoned present” whose magic is lethal, only adds to its mystique, and addiction's pharmacotic structure ensures that its ravaging impact goes hand in hand with an array of euphoric, empowering pleasures. Indeed, the many outgrowths of Alcoholics Anonymous witnessed in such twelve-step programs as Al-Anon, Narc-Anon, Smokers Anonymous, and Overeaters Anonymous have changed the tenor of our discussion surrounding the profound malaise made manifest in addiction.
In keeping with the cunning logic of this malady, those relationships that deteriorate into a tragic dependency often begin much like a love affair, bringing with them a magnificent sense of personal exaltation, a feeling of freedom and ease that helps assuage a battery of underlying insecurities. Many recovering addicts recount that the initial stages of a tawdry dependency often feel like falling in love, for they involve a newfound attachment that brings with it a joyful, brimming sensation, a euphoric release from life's harsher realities. In his biography of Bill Wilson, a cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous, for instance, Robert Thompson describes the rapturous sense that Wilson first had when he discovered the pleasures of inebriation: alcohol had more than befriended him, it had become a lover who met his emotional and physical needs on the deepest level. It had become an intimate companion whom he could count on to make him feel good.
It was a miracle. There was no other word. A miracle that w