Nice article. According to me, a person can never be without any addiction is what I feel. Choosing the right addiction is what we will have to do. People with serious addictions to drugs, alcohol or cigarettes can divert their mind to a different type of addiction that is healthy for them. Some good addictions are music, running, books etc.
I would like to share something that came to my mind after reading the article. One if my office colleague had a serious addiction to cigarettes and non vegetarian food. Consuming non vegetarian food may not look like addiction but he had it in different level where he reached a state where he started to think that he can never survive without meat. Every meal that he had, had meat in it. The mental stress that he had because of this made him think that he was addicted to meat. Same with smoking as well. He smoked a LOT of cigarettes per day. His body was also becoming bulky.
I don't know what happened to him but suddenly he turned his lifestyle completely. All he did was running. He decided to reduce his weight, regulate eating, quit smoking, no non-veg food, etc. Every day morning he will wake up by 5 am and start running. Around 20 kms for more than 2 hours. Nothing in mind but fully focused. If he is not comfortable and stressed out he will again start running in the evening. He skipped his dinner and chose to take only healthy food. All he did was running running running.
We saw him transforming and within a months time he became lean like a 20 year old boy. All his tummy gone. It's been more than a year now. He is still following the same strategy. It was absolutely possible for him to get out of all his addictions. He even turned out to be a pure positive person. He also gives good advice to people about his persistency.
From then on, for all addiction related problems I always remember the above incident and keep myself positive always.
Thanks for the article @abigail-dantes. It helped me think about some minute aspects related to addiction.