5) Triangulation: the integrative picture — an expanded essay
What each lens adds—and why none is sufficient alone. How the pieces interlock in practice Equity and evaluation (so we know it’s working) Illustrative policy menu (with mechanism notes) Alcohol (legal) Heroin (illegal) Cross-cutting Literature & Links (APA) Publishable version of the prompt “Please enrich the section ‘5) Triangulation: the integrative picture’. Synthesize what microeconomics […]
4) Game theory: markets, policing, and the self — an expanded essay
Back to main article Why this lens helps. Game theory asks what happens when payoffs depend on others’ moves—including police, sellers, buyers, and even my future self. It clarifies why crackdowns displace markets, why some neighborhoods get “quiet” equilibria while others get turf wars, why reputation can substitute for law, and why commitments (self-exclusion, deposits, […]
3) Principal–Agent (PA) theory in drug markets — an expanded essay
Back to main article Core idea. Principal–agent problems arise when a principal (regulator, owner, customer) cannot perfectly observe an agent’s effort or quality choice (bartender, retailer, street seller). Hidden action creates moral hazard; hidden information creates adverse selection. Incentive contracts, monitoring, and reputation are the classic tools—yet they work very differently in licit versus prohibited […]
2) Pure rational choice (Braun; Coleman) — an expanded essay
Local rationality under constraints. I start with Norman Braun’s insistence that people optimize given their information and opportunity set—even when the longer-run outcome harms them. If cheap relief is available now, while therapy slots, transport, or safe spaces are scarce or slow, then a “binge” can be locally rational: it maximizes utility on the feasible […]
1) Microeconomics (with Robert H. Frank’s behavioral edge) — an expanded essay
Back to main article Baseline. In textbook terms, I start with choices under constraints: prices, income, time, and risk. Demand slopes downward; raise price and—other things equal—quantity falls. With addictive capital, though, today’s use raises tomorrow’s propensity to use by changing both tolerance and the cue-response machinery—a dynamic Becker and Murphy formalized to show why […]
Sociology of Addiction — Microeconomics, Rational Choice, Principal–Agent, and Game Theory (triangulated)
[Main article with sub-articles] Teaser Why do people keep using—even when costs mount? What distinguishes alcohol’s legal market from heroin’s illegal market? And how do incentives, norms, and strategic interaction shape both use and policy outcomes? In this essay I braid together (1) Robert H. Frank’s microeconomics-and-behavior lens, (2) pure rational choice in the spirit […]
Addiction, Inclusion & Exclusion — With Foucault and Goffman as Guides, Parsons and Luhmann as Companions
Teaser I take today’s essay to a difficult intersection: addiction as a test of social inclusion and exclusion. Guided by Michel Foucault and Erving Goffman, with Talcott Parsons and Niklas Luhmann alongside, I ask how societies like Germany can celebrate the Rausch (intoxication) in everyday life and yet expel people once the label “addicted” sticks. […]
Reactance and the Addictive Phenomenon of (Doom) Scrolling
Teaser When even our phone tells us to “take a break,” why do we so often keep scrolling? This essay connects psychological reactance—the backlash we feel when our freedom seems constrained—to the design logic of infinite feeds and the special case of doomscrolling (compulsively consuming negative news). I sketch what the science says and what […]
Addiction, Craving, and the Social Psychology of Cognitive Dissonance
Teaser Alcohol, gambling, social media, and other drugs promise relief—but they also collide with our values, identities, and plans. This essay uses cognitive dissonance as a bridge between craving and conduct, weaving together social psychology with leading models of addiction and practical implications for care and policy. 1) A short primer: dissonance meets desire Cognitive […]
Sociology of Addiction — Addicted to Sociology: Why I Do This Blog
Teaser I’m starting this project because I can’t stop asking a simple question with complicated answers: what does society have to do with addiction? This blog is my public lab—where I think aloud, test ideas, and build a book—drawing on classical sociology, contemporary theory, psychology, medicine, and economics. And of course: Reflect my own experiences […]
A Glass of Bordeaux with Bourdieu — Alcohol, Addiction, and the Social Space of Habits
Teaser I raise a metaphorical glass to Pierre Bourdieu and ask: What would he tell us about alcohol and other forms of addiction? I read addiction through Bourdieu’s core concepts—habitus, field, capital, doxa, illusio, symbolic violence—to show how tastes, coping routines, and harms are patterned across social space rather than lodged inside isolated individuals (Bourdieu […]
Foucault on Addiction as a Social Phenomenon — Government, Confession, Biopolitics
Teaser Before diving into fieldwork, I’m taking stock of Michel Foucault and the governmentality tradition to ask how “addiction” gets constituted as a problem, managed as a risk, and lived as a practice of the self. This reading pays special attention to Histoire de la folie, Discipline and Punish, and The History of Sexuality, and […]
Alcohol as Depressant, Used as Antidepressant: Why This Teufelskreis Persists
Teaser Alcohol is pharmacologically a central nervous system depressant—yet millions reach for it as if it were an antidepressant. This essay unpacks that paradox across neurobiology, psychology, sociology, and economics, and it honors the rational-choice lens that I learned from Norman Braun, whose teaching on drug use continues to shape my thinking. Framing the Paradox […]
Introduction: Thinking Sociologically About Addiction
Addiction is often framed as an individual pathology — a matter of brain chemistry, trauma, or personal weakness. Yet when I look closer, addiction reveals itself as a profoundly social phenomenon. It emerges in relationships, routines, and institutions; it reflects norms of pleasure, control, and productivity; and it evolves alongside economic, technological, and cultural change. […]