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.