addiction is a medical/psychiatric disorder, it results from voluntary norm-violating behaviors and thus is subject to moral judgment regardless of the term used. Whereas an addict may have lost some control over his behavior, becoming slave to a habit, this slavery is viewed as voluntarily self-inflicted and thus reprehensible. Appropriately, addictus was a term applied in ancient Rome to a person in a legal slave-like condition (for delinquent debt, which, if left unpaid by an addictus in 30 days, would result in slavery and possibly death) (Smith, 1898).
