There was a time when addiction arrived loudly. It came with whispered warnings, police blotters, and the uneasy sense that something had gone wrong somewhere else before it reached us. It had a smell, a look, a price. You could point to it. Today, the most addictive drug in America doesn’t arrive that way. It’s legal. It’s cheap. It fits neatly into a daily routine. And it’s often handed to our children alongside a meal and a small plastic toy, through drive-through windows we pass without a second thought.
Somewhere along the way, convenience replaced caution, and we stopped asking what constant access was quietly doing to us.
At the local ball fields, we used to ask the concession stand to mix all the sodas together—cola, lemon-lime, whatever was on tap. We called it “a suicide.” No one thought much of the name. It was just sugar, ice, and a hot afternoon. Looking back, the word feels less like a joke and more like a preview.
Today, as adults, we grab the jug-sized soda proudly, calling it “the better deal per ounce.” We frame it as value. As restraint. As responsible adulting.
You can find a soda today the way we once found a pay phone—almost anywhere, always within reach. Cell phones replaced coin-operated booths, and we barely noticed the trade. It makes you wonder what conveniences will feel just as normal tomorrow.
What once required effort, intention, or waiting now asks almost nothing of us at all.
On an average afternoon in Linton, nothing about it feels excessive. A stop for gas. A quick run through the drive-through. A youth practice wrapping up at the ball fields. Cups in hand, lids snapped tight, refills assumed rather than requested. No one’s making a choice so much as moving through a rhythm that’s already been set.
Boredom once filled the gaps between things. Long afternoons. Waiting rooms. Time before practice started or after work ended. It pushed people to wander, to talk, to sit with their thoughts longer than was comfortable. Now those spaces rarely stay empty for long. We’ve gotten very good at filling them.
What happens to a person, or a town, that never has to wait anymore?
None of this arrives with sirens. It shows up in cups with lids, in habits that feel sensible, in choices we barely register as choices at all. The most addictive things rarely ask for permission. They settle in, become familiar, and wait for us to stop noticing them. And by the time we do, they no longer look like indulgence—just the way the day gets filled.