[graypegg]

I’m glad I’m not the only one that feels off about that. I feel like heroin as the standard measure of “really bad addiction” is at least an unhelpful choice.

I don’t think people walk away from an article like this thinking opiate addiction is any less horrible than they originally thought, but the usual refrain of “[porn|sugar|social media] is like heroin!” usually presented with a fMRI capture with circles on it, gives me pause. At best, it’s not communicating the actual effect of addiction on someone’s life, at worst it does trivialize it.

To be fair to the author, this article doesn’t follow that usual refrain.