In this article the author examines the place of the object and the treatment of object-loss in addictive problems based on clinical work with former heroin addicts. More specifically, drawing on the notion of depressivity, a metapsychological proposition, ‘anti-nostalgia’, is put forward as a process of compensation for identificatory deficiencies and substitution by idealization. The author goes on to develop the idea that the object relationship at work in addictive problems is paroxysmal of a certain type of object relationship (ideal object relationship versus ideal relationship to the object). The latter is characterized by the failure to process loss, thereby maintaining the object and the excitation that goes with it, without providing sufficient narcissistic satisfaction.