There was this question I asked myself regarding the exchange rate between pleasure and life: would I swallow a pill that would make me feel good permanently, but has a 10% chance of killing me outright? In terms of odds, I'd say it looks like a pretty good deal. 100% chance of a significant benefit, vs 10% chance of total wipeout. On that evaluation alone, I'd say yeah of course! But then again, things are never that simple when evaluating a deal. My marginal utility of the option is quite low, considering that I wouldn't really be feeling all that much better since I'm not all that messed up in general.
This hypothetical situation is an abstraction of how addictions happen. In general, addictions will have some sort of wipeout-style drawback. Gambling addiction may result in financial ruin. Drug addictions may wind up with a fatal OD sometime. Yet, the good feelings gained from the addictions are what make them addictive (in addition to their own inherent addictiveness like in the case of drugs). If one is truly feeling mighty messed up, the exchange rate between pleasure and life becomes pretty low. It is a lot easier to shoot up some good feelings today and fuck tomorrow, than it is to endure another "safe" but otherwise awful day. Simply put, their marginal benefit from the experience is way higher than my own.
That is not to say that I do not have my own addictions. It simply is that mine are, while possibly harmful, generally not expected to have some truly lethal wipeout scenario. The black swan will show up when it does, but I can reasonably expect to survive that experience when it does.
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