Addictions

Richard, who goes to the same German conversation class as me, plans to put his German to the test by sitting the AS exams this year. So we're going to focus our discussion each week on one of the exam subject themes. Next week we'll talk about addictions - alcohol, smoking, drugs, dieting and eating disorders.

The issue is very topical - ganz aktuell. American actress Lindsay Lohan, who narrowly avoided an untimely death because of  her drug and alcohol addiction, has just given an interview in London. She said that her heavy misuse had not helped with any of her problems. To read about this in German see Lindsay Lohan bereut ihre Sucht öffentlich in kreiszeitung.de

I need to revise some vocabulary if we're to talk sensibly next week, so I've looked back at my old notes to find some words we might want to use.

addicted to	süchtig nach
compulsive	zwanghaft
self-destructive	selbstzerstörerisch
the yearning for	die Gier nach
to consume (put away)	einverleiben
compulsive behaviour	das Zwangsverhalten
to become a slave to	sich versklaven lassen von
to go to pieces/ruin	zu Grunde gehen

My notes had the last as zugrunde gehen but that changed with the new Rechtschreibung. If you want to say "go to ruin by means of" then you would have to add an. Which leads on nicely to what preposition to use following an adjective, noun or verb when talking about addictions.

dependent on	abhängig von
to lead to	führen zu
to resort to	greifen zu
to get free of	loskommen von
addicted to	süchtig nach
necessary to	nötig für
access to	der Zugang zu
a surplus of	ein Überangebot an
to have a tendency to	neigen zu
the sale and possession of	Der Verkauf und Besitz von

Perhaps you could add your opinion as a comment, preferably in German. Was kann man für Süchtige tun, um ihnen zu helfen? Hilft Aufklärung und Warnung? Sollen die "weichen" Drogen legalisiert werden? Ist der Konsum von Alkohol ist ein größeres Problem als der Konsum von Drogen?