According to the basic text of Narcotics Anonymous, a person is an addict when their life is controlled by drugs: “Our whole life and thinking was centered in drugs in one form or another—the getting and using and finding ways and means to get more. We lived to use and used to live. We are people in the grip of a continuing and progressive illness whose ends are always the same: jails, institutions, and death”. In the paragraph cited, the scientific-medical status of Narcotic