Columnist Samantha Brett of the Sydney Morning Herald asks for advice this week about dating someone with an addiction. With over two hundred and counting replies and comments obviously this is a topic of great interest with many speaking up about personal experiences. The responses range from logical to the ludicrous although it's not their veracity I challenge, but instead the question itself.
As almost anyone can tell you that has watched their spouse or child fall prey to an addiction, once hooked, their loved one ceased to exist. So asking advice about dating someone with an addiction is about the equivalent of practicing pick up lines for mermaids- neither really exists. A better way to address this issue would be to ask, “are you prepared to date an addiction?”
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Alcoholism and drug addiction are persistent conditions that in most cases start during developmental years. A chronic toxicity of not only the substance abuser, usually family and loved ones are also poisoned by long term exposure to the condition. Not in the sense that it is contagious, although since it runs in families addiction often develops from using drugs and alcohol as coping mechanisms- but by issues of codependency such as stress, fear, guilt and remorse. 
