An addiction that hits members of highly active kayak and canoe clubs. Strong social ties combine with adrenaline and endorphins, released of the physical activity, to create an addiction-like state. The paddler will lose interest in other activities such as work, house-cleaning and sometimes even non-paddling friends and family members. Seriously diseased paddlers will often make excuses for even more aggressively dysfunctional members of their circle, especially leaders, rather than risk being cast out or walking away, and losing paddle buddies.

When you eat dirt for the first time and leave your family to build a shack in the woods