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iQuestions Faculty, Dr. David Eckman 
 
 
Question: 
 
Are we living in an addictive culture? 
 
Answer: 
 
A lot of research has gone into the fact of what makes a culture an 
addictive culture. There are two elements. The first is a high level of 
unaddressed cultural pain.  
 
For the guys, there’s a lot of pain out there, because our culture tries 
to reduce young men and males to simply their sex drive, and that’s a 
profoundly uncomfortable place to be stuck.  
 
For women, it’s a terribly painful culture, because the culture tells 
women “all you are is how you look,” and when a person is reduced to 
their appearance, that person is reduced to pain. 
 
Then you add other sociological factors into it, such as the impact of 
divorce on the family, where you have young people being raised by 
multiple sets of parents. That creates inner pain.  
 
We are having the first part of the equation: pain. The second part of 
the equation that makes for an addictive culture is socially-accepting 
addictive behavior.  
 
Pornography is socially acceptable, because it’s just streaming in on 
the internet, and it is being hosed into our households with the result 
that it obviously has to be socially acceptable. Smoking is socially 
acceptable. Alcohol is socially acceptable. Without these things 
 
 
becoming taboo, they are readily available to address the issue of pain 
in the heart.  
 
You need two parts to have an addictive culture: you need 
unaddressed pain within the culture, and you need a culture that’s 
permissive and just does not address the problems that come with 
addictive behaviors. 
 
We need to protect ourselves from this culture. We need not to be 
naïve, but courageous in addressing our own hearts, our own 
relationships, our own family life, because health is its own reward—
and that’s really the reward for strongly addressing this addictive 
culture. 
 
 
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