Alcoholics Autonomous: Addiction and Sobriety Beyond Recovery

Addiction grows from a world that has emptied itself of meaning. It is the truth of a condition that requires we be addicted in order to endure it. Rather than becoming invested in medicalized identities that offer only new names for a familiar powerlessless, this text argues that dependency should be framed as a problem of collective strategy. Overcoming addiction implies a combat against the miserable society that produces it, which can only be undertaken collectively.

Once we are understood as a category, we become easy to exploit. We have addictions, but we are not ‘addicts’. Likewise, we reject the use of this label as some sort of handicap or disability in need of pity or consideration as a defect. Addiction is a part of everyone’s lives. We make no claim for safe spaces for those struggling with addiction, there is nowhere safe in this world, just as there is nowhere free from addiction. What bonds us is a commitment to fight the power structures that exacerbate and cause so many addictions, we share no identity category – we share only a common struggle.