No matter how hard I try, I have found out that I may never fully defeat my addiction-prone tendencies. And I’ve also learned that this is all right. Triumph and defeat: these are still metaphors of war. If, as the research shows, addictions arise near our emotional core, to defeat them we would have to wage a war against ourselves. And a war against parts of the self—even against nonadaptive, dysfunctional parts, can lead only to inner discord and more distress.
