Is the addiction doctor the voodoo priest of western man ?

FRANÇAIS :
Dans cet essai sur le concept daddiction, je ne vais pas essayer dexpliquer le comportement de l addict
. Mon intérêt ici est de retracer lévolution de la logique sociale, ainsi que lhistoire, du concept daddiction et de minterroger sur la persistance de sa fonctionnalité aujourdhui. Je voudrais approcher le concept daddiction dune manière un peu différente de celle de John Davies, qui parle de laddiction comme dun mythe
. Davies explique la création de ce mythe par la théorie de lattribution. Je partage sa conviction, mais doù vient le besoin de créer ce mythe ? Je me pencherai dabord sur quelques unes des origines conceptuelles et sociales de la notion de l' individu
en qui laddiction est supposée résider. Ensuite, je tenterai de montrer que le concept daddiction est un produit dérivé nécessaire du concept dindividu.
ENGLISH :
In this essay on the concept of addiction, my efforts will not be directed at trying to explain the behaviour of the "addict". Rather, I am interested in tracing the evolution of the social logic and history of the addiction concept, and its continuing functionality today. I want to approach the concept of addiction in a slightly different way than John Davies who speaks about addiction as a "myth". Davies explains the creation of this myth through attribution theory. I share with him the conviction that "myth" is the right concept to use here. But my purpose is to try to understand where the need to create this "myth" comes from, and why the construct of addiction is so extraordinarily charged in our culture. I will first look at some conceptual and social origins of the concept of the "individual" in whom addiction is assumed to reside. Then I will argue that the concept of addiction is a necessary by-product of the concept of the individual. (Extract of the publication)