Physical and psychological addictions are very alike and very different at

the same time. Addiction means that the person addicted thrives on the substance or

action. Physical addictions like alcoholism and heroin are sometimes very noticeable yet,

psychological addictions like gambling are very hard to diagnose. A similarity between the

two types of addictions are the stages that lead up to a full blown addiction. Addictions go

through many stages before reaching the pinnacle of an addiction. For example, a gambler

will first start off betting a dollar, then two, then ten, then a hundred until finally the

gambler is broke. An example for a physical addiction would be the stages that lead to

becoming a true alcoholic. It will all start with one beer, , then Jell-O shooters, then a

margarita, then just drinking liquor straight up out of the bottle, then who knows what the

drinker will turn to next. After going through all of these stages the term used for the

addiction is usually disease because the addiction is going to slowly kill the person

addicted. Though the term addiction is usually thought of as someone on drugs or

drinking, many normal everyday people are addicted to the one thing everyone has a little

of everyday, caffeine. Caffeine is one of North America’s leading addictions prevalent

amongst teenagers. Caffeine is found in chocolate, soda, coffee, and tea.

In conclusion, this shows that many things can become addictive. No

matter what the addiction it is not good. If more people would realize this there would be

less of an addiction crisis than there is today.

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