An addiction is a disorder characterized by the compulsive engagement in some activity, or the compulsive consumption of a substance. Most of the time, it is used to refer to people that are reliant on substances like drugs, alcohol and tobacco.
It has become increasingly common to refer to certain types of behaviours as addictive. A common example is gambling. Some benefits of thinking of excessive behaviours as addictive is that people might be more likely to think of them as a disorders and thus seek medical help. They might also try to increase their understanding of addiction in general.
However, the term can also be misused. A behaviour pattern that is constantly repeated is not necessarily an addiction. The confusion is increased by the difficulty in defining mental disorders. More research would be needed before we can come to a complete definition of what addiction is. However, a potential danger of considering these types of excessive behaviours to be addictions is that people might think their situation is unfixable without medical treatment. This could make them feel powerless and it might lead them to not attempt to control the behaviour. It might also make it more difficult to reach a better understanding of substance addiction.
