Why do people develop addictions?

We get addicted to such things as nicotine, caffeine, and whiskey through the reward-seeking chemical of dopamine. Addictive substances stimulate the release of dopamine in a key area of your brain that makes you feel higher than a mountain top. The way you can tell whether you're prone to addiction is by assessing your first-time use of alcohol/nicotine/nudie magazines. If that first-time use took you to a rapturous place (rapturous, as in it feels better than your best orgasm ever), then it's likely you have the genetics to get hooked on something. But you can get hooked even without the genetics.
Once you get addicted to something, your dependence on that behavior or substance can either be physiological or psychological - the psychological element being the continued need for that rapture, and the physiological element being the experience and painful withdrawal symptoms when you stop the addictive substance or behavior. Interestingly, in people with nicotine addictions, everyone experiences the physiological dependence, but only about a third of people have a true genetic addiction, in which a puff of smoke sends them to rapture.

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