Coffee and Heroin

Today I met a young man... 21 years young... who's life is in a downward spiral. He started using drugs at 12 years old and progressed from experimenting with marijuana to today being a full blown heroin addict. Honestly though, his addiction to heroin is no different than mine to coffee...

Which got me to thinking... why? Why is one addiction OK, and another one not? Me being addicted to coffee is socially acceptable, heck... it's commercially propelled! Now, I'm comparing coffee and crank I realize, but let's be honest. I get the shakes and cranky and headaches when I don't have coffee. I realize at different times my addiction and desire to break the bond of coffee to me, and will go through weeks of detox where I endure the horrible side-effects of not drinking coffee. Different than detoxing from Heroin? Yes. Similar? Yes.

But addictions are more than coffee and heroin. There are people addicted to porn, alcohol, sex, work, sleep, shopping, eating... you name it! What's the difference? Is there a difference? Maybe culturally there is, but overall... I don't think so.