A complete fallacy.
A word created by weak willed
people for weak willed
people to use as a way of avoiding responsibility for the things they do that they'
re not proud of, but continue to do regardless of the damage it causes.
Most likely created by psychiatrists who wanted a word they could use as a scapegoat, to hide their own shortcomings.
One of my pals, whom I've known since school, didn't have the
balls to say, "No!" to my other
idiot friends when they offered him
drugs for the first time and even though his teeth are now brown/falling out, his breath stinks and he has no real friends anymore, he will continue doing drugs and when people ask why he's such a
dumbass, he'll just say, "It's not my fault, I'm an addict!" and people will accept that at face value because they have been taught/fed that "Addiction" is a real phenomenon and they cannot tell the difference between a chemical dependency, habitual obsession or self-medicating.