Are you absorbed in anything? If the answer is "Yes", are you almost addicted to it? Everyone has the possibility of being addicted to something. "Addicted" is defined as "liking to do or have something so much you do not want to stop" according to the Longman Dictionary of contemporary English. If you are too preoccupied with something, it means it is the first step toward addiction. I would think that "Addiction" is also defined as "many types of inadequate custom that has come to threaten our healthy life". We have a lot of types of addictions: drugs dependence, gambling addiction, alcoholism, smoking addiction, binge eating, anorexia, workaholic, shopping addiction, sexual addiction, loving addiction, and internet addiction. Nowadays, each of them is such a serious problem of our society and can be classified as the following three tendencies to study how to recover these problems: substance dependence, process dependence, and codependence.

The first category, substance dependence, has the items which are related to take the substance such as food, alcohol, cigarette, and so on. Drugs dependence, alcoholism, smoking addiction, binge eating, and anorexia are classified under this category. Once we get into these kinds of habits, it is very hard to quit them. And almost all patients are not aware of their condition; it is very dangerous and easy to become an addict.

The second category, process dependence, has the items which are related to act such gambling, sexual perversion, excessive immersion in a work, and shopping. Gambling addiction, workaholic, shopping addiction, sexual addiction, and internet addiction are classified under this category. Almost all these addictions are caused by stress. In general, people dabble in these activities in order to relieve their stresses; as a result, they cannot get out of the toxic state. It is also dangerous, because the patients wind up sinking a lot of money into these activities.

The last category, codependence, suggests a rigid interrelationship between the person who gets some fulfillment with controlling another dependent person and the person who controls with continuing to cause anxiety to another person. Loving addiction and something related to codependence are classified under this category. These addictions are closely related with human relations and are caused by disharmony of human relations which do include not only couples but also between parents and children. These addictions might be the hardest to find.

Classifying types of addictions by using the three elements would make the study of the remedy easier and more helpful. Practically, there are so many addictions in our society that we would need to classify in further detail. In all cases, it is a positive fact that the patients need a great deal of help from their family or the people who are closest to them. But, by classifying these addictions, we could understand more clearly who should do what for the patients. For instance, it is necessary for the patients of "substance dependence" to bear their own desires, to be taken care by the medical specialists, and their family. It is also necessary for the patients of "process dependence" to bear their impulse to do something and to be restricted their conduct from their family. For the patients of "codependence" the cooperation of the people who are related to the patients' dependence is indispensable. Thus, the tendencies would be given a sign of the characteristics of the remedy or the rehabilitations. I hope this kind of study will grow more and more, because nobody knows when our preoccupation becomes an addiction.

Reference Longman Group UK Limited (1987). Addiction: Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. Harlow: Kirihara Publishing.