Addict Nation Read Free

them. The fifties was one long love affair with smoking. By the nineties, cigarettes were considered gross, inspiring attitudes like “I could never date someone who smokes!” The disco seventies, where hot pants and platform shoes were the rage, looked askance on obesity. Today, there’s an ill-advised fat acceptance movement. Our culture has lost its tolerance for drunks and smokers, but we still rationalize obesity as a lifestyle choice. Being morbidly overweight is an addiction to food, just like smoking is an addiction to cigarettes and getting drunk is an addiction to alcohol. To accept obesity unquestioningly is really to be an enabler of the problem.
    Whether it’s the neighbors’ annual Oscar party, or Karaoke Wednesdays, human beings are pack animals. We move in groups from one behavioral landscape to another. We’re always adjusting to the shifting sands of cultural attitudes. Simply put, America lurches from addiction to addiction, stamping out one bad habit only to see others take its place.
    When Enough People Are Hooked,
It Crosses the Line into a Social Contagion
    Our entire nation is addicted to a slew of self-destructive, compulsive actions. You may be thinking, Well, that’s why we have the government, the media, and—yes—even big business. They help us fight these terrible social plagues. FUHGEDDABOUDIT! The media, the government, and business are often the enablers . . . even the pushers! The media relays and popularizes the bad habit, the government subsidizes it, and big business squeezes a buck out of it.
    When somebody’s absolutely got to have something, that’s called demand. Addiction creates enormous demand, and there are massive profits in supplying what we crave.
    The More Widespread an Addiction
Gets, the More It Seems Normal
    An extreme example of a dysfunction that has become accepted as normal in one part of the world is the burka women are forced to wear in some parts of the Middle East. I once had to try on a burka as part of a news story I was doing on the oppression of women. The second I put it on I felt like I was drowning. I couldn’t see to the left or right of me. God help me if I had tried to cross the street. I probably would have been sideswiped by a bus. It was torture. I kept it on for three or four minutes, and then I just couldn’t take it anymore. I ripped that freakin’ burka off, threw it on the floor, and thanked heaven that I was born in America and not in the hills of Afghanistan. The burka is beyond oppressive. It’s lunacy! But for the Taliban, it is their “normal.”
    Similarly, in America, self-destructive compulsions, like violent crime, war, overconsumption, overpopulation, prescription drug abuse, food addiction, Internet porn, and obsessive use of antibacterials are so widespread as to seem “normal.” So we accept the behavior and cease to put it through our normal screening process. The bad habit gets a pass because “everybody’s doing it!”
    On Issues, I bring attention to the horrors of cultural addictions like overconsumption. However, I am often left disillusioned. Some of the smartest people I encounter don’t seem at all bothered by America’s pathological wastefulness. They react like there’s something a little strange about me that I’m so concerned. Why? As we know, addiction can afflict anyone regardless of their income, education, or intelligence. America’s best and brightest, despite their brains and positions of privilege, are also addicts, hooked on the very same social addictions as the rest of us! And, because they’re smart, they can whip up the best excuses to justify our worst lifestyle choices.
    If I go out to a fancy restaurant with a successful New York executive, the chances are that a good percentage of the food that comes to our table will be discarded. It’s fashionable to order food and not eat much of it. Successful people do this all the time. Many women, especially, are brought up to never finish