The question behind every vice
When does relief become control?
VICE pulls addiction out of the courtroom of public judgment and places it inside the machinery that actually shapes it: chemistry, trauma, loneliness, availability, advertising, policy, profit, and the search for a few minutes of relief.
This is not an excuse for every choice. It is a demand that we understand how choice is narrowed before pretending punishment will widen it again. The book follows the path from wanting, to needing, to losing control - and asks what it truly takes to get control back.
What if the vice is solving a pain no one else can see?
Who profits after wanting becomes needing?
Can a choice still be free when an industry learned how to engineer it?