Addiciton is a Cult

Addiction is a Cult

When you go to rehab, they tell you that you were destined to end up there — preconditioned, predestined, primed. You sit in a circle with ten to fifteen other souls who look a lot like you, and they tell you you’re here to unlearn everything that got you into that chair. You’re here to reckon with your “predispositions,” to become self-aware, and to claw your way into becoming the elusive “one in ten.”

“One of you will make it,” they say. “One of you will find and maintain sobriety. Some of you will be back here. Some of you will land in jail — if you’re lucky. The rest… won’t make it.”

We all sat there in that fluorescent-lit room, exchanging looks full of concern, some with hope, some with pity. Each of us silently thought: Not me. And each of us knew damn well that none of us stood a snowball’s chance in hell.

Telling people you’re an addict is one of the most humiliating introductions you’ll ever make — even in a room full of addicts. The shame clings to you. Judgment radiates off the walls as the words leave your lips: “I’m an addict.” Society makes damn sure that shame doesn’t miss us, no matter where we are. It coats us like tar, thick and slow and impossible to shake.

We’re taught to be ashamed of our chains — even if we never forged them ourselves. The world says: It’s your fault. Your fault for having bad genetics. Your fault for having abusive parents, or babysitters who crossed the line. Your fault that kids made fun of you, that your self-worth shattered early and often. You should have known better. You should have been stronger. You took the first hit — and that’s all anyone needs to know. It’s all your fault.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t take responsibility. We must. Personal responsibility is the only way out. But blaming people for their ignorance — when no one ever gave them the information they needed — is beyond absurd. They never taught us about addiction. They just said: “Don’t do drugs.” That’s it. The information gap is a canyon.

And that’s how society treats the addicted: trapped in an endless loop of stigma, shame, and regret — even years after the last time you touched a substance.

We learn to manipulate because we have to. We adapt to survive. But even after we get sober, those patterns linger. In the rooms, they throw around the term “dry drunk” — people who have stopped using, but haven’t changed their behaviors. “There’s nothing worse than a dry drunk,” they say. But nobody stops to ask: Why haven’t they changed? What are they still missing? What haven’t they been taught?

People aren’t born broken. They’re broken by something. And those people still need help.

But the empathy in recovery communities is often in short supply.

Here’s how it usually goes: someone is genetically or environmentally primed for addiction. They get hooked. They spiral. And eventually, they hit one of the Big Three: jail, hospitalization, or overdose. Maybe all three. If they survive, they’re funneled into treatment.

And then they’re told they have to buy their way out of hell.

Recovery becomes its own system. With rules. With rituals. With coded language, layered expectations, internal hierarchies. You recite mantras. You confess your sins in circles. You’re told to reframe your entire worldview to fit the model, or risk being exiled — back to the streets, back to the needle, back to death.

Tell me that doesn’t sound familiar.

We call it a disease, but we treat it like a cult. The way in is deceptively easy. The way out demands complete surrender. And if you don’t assimilate? If you question the program, the process, the system? You’re not ready. You’re not working your program. You’re not serious about your recovery.

You are, once again, the problem.

Nobody talks about the fact that the world of recovery — especially the for-profit kind — mimics the very thing it claims to save us from. Isolation. Control. Shame. Hierarchy. Power.

Addiction is a cult. And the line between escape and indoctrination is razor thin.