> an addict will chose behavior that negatively impacts their life
I think that "addict will choose" is a problematic way to say what you are saying. There is a lot of very gray area about the concept of choice when the organ that chooses is the thing that is being injured.
It's not clear at all that "choice" - in the moralistic, Protestant ethic US society is based on sense - is actually something that can be usefully ascribed to most human behavior.
Usually it's defined in a self-normalizing way, though. Addiction is when the addict themselves believes that the behaviors are detrimental to their own life, but cannot bring themselves to stop engaging in them.
I'm not questioning that the behavior happens, or that it is detrimental and the addict knows that to some extent.
I'm objecting to using the word "choose", which has moralistic implications in addition to being of questionable utility in a functional sense of describing the behavior.
I think that "addict will choose" is a problematic way to say what you are saying. There is a lot of very gray area about the concept of choice when the organ that chooses is the thing that is being injured.
It's not clear at all that "choice" - in the moralistic, Protestant ethic US society is based on sense - is actually something that can be usefully ascribed to most human behavior.