Addicts and Alcoholics

What separates addicts and alcoholics from the rest of society is their need to constantly adjust the thermostat on their consciousness in order to cope with their own vagaries.  They are alcoholics and addicts because they have effectively lost control over their intake, called "unmanagability" in AA parlance. This naturally throws off balance their ability to make the thermostatic adjustments to their congnitive interactions with people, places, and things associated with this incremental life on planet earth.  Probably has something to do with what's called, "affect." Who knows?