"clearly causing interference . . . " In my little shopping scenario what the husband sees as "clearly interfering" the wife doesn't see it that way at all. Who is right and who decides?
In Al-Anon we learn that, while we can say we are bothered by someone else's drinking, only an alcoholic can label him/herself an "alcoholic".
I read an interesting book called Addiction & Grace by Gerald G. May, M.D. Early in the book he said:
It was in working with some of the most tragically addicted people--those enslaved to narcotics and alcohol--that I began wondering about addiction and grace. It was there that I began to recognize my own addictedness. Most importantly, it was in the course of that work that I reclaimed my own spiritual hunger, a desire for God and for love that for many years I had tried to repress... I was searching for something that I could use to develop mastery over my life, something that would help me go it alone.
Then he went on to say:
Addiction exists wherever persons are internally compelled to give energy to things that are not their true desires. To define it directly, addiction is a state of compulsion, obsession, or preoccupation that enslaves a person's will and desire. Addiction sidetracks and eclipses the energy of our deepest, truest desire for love and goodness. We succumb because the energy of our desire becomes attached nailed, to specific behaviors, objects, or people. Attachment, then, is the process that enslaves desire and creates the state of addiction.
And later:
Remember then, that true addictions are compulsive habitual behaviors that eclipse our concern for God and compromise our freedom, and that they must be characterized by tolerance, withdrawal symptoms, loss of willpower, and distortion of attention.
Some of these addictions are tragic, others are humorous, and some may seem completely absurd. But they are all real for someone, and, taken together, they provide a spectrum within which, I suspect, you can find something that applies to yourself.
Just another perspective.
