Ok , does it bother anyone else that the game music here was shovel knight since it was their shovel knight playthrough and yet the tv shows Pokemon at the beginning ? That being said , I do like this bit a lot and am glad it got the GG animated treatment <| sep |> What major expenses are outside of food , rent and transport ? Medical insurance , visa andor work permit expenses , trips home to visit family , nonThai food , imported beerswines , domestic appliances , computers and phonestablets , westernsized clothes and shoes for those larger expats , dental bills , I could go on . Most all ? can be cheaper or unnecessary in e . g . the UK than they are here . <| sep |> Doctor here . Not claiming to be smarter than anyone , but as an individual who has been on both sides of the addiction diagnosis , I hope to answer your query on what I observe to be a logical error . Your core argument is that addiction is not a disease . You said , If you take that definition of addiction and remove the causes problems qualifier in its second half . then . addiction . is not a disease . As uNecoia said You can ' t just remove that part , it ' s the most important part . If it ' s not a problem , it ' s not an addiction . So , the primary flaw in your argument is how you are arbitrarily redefining the word addiction . What you are describing as addiction would be characterized by scientistspsychologists as increased reward dependence or high engagement or even flow state . Of course this would not be considered a disease . You also argue that using timeenergy is inherently a problem but that is unsupportedthere are plenty of times when timeenergy are used in a way that one would not consider problematic , e . g . breathing , sleeping , playing with one ' s children all take timeenergy . Inherent in the standard definition addiction being problematic or causing harm is that it can affect one or more realms of one ' s lifephysicalemotional health , social relationships , workfinances . Often , work is the last area of functioning to go as you said above , addicts need money to fund our addictions . For further reading if you haven ' t already come across them , check out recent articles by Nora Volkow head of NIDA for the centrist view or any book by Gabor Mate for a more eclectic perspective . They present cogent arguments on how addiction is a brain disease , or a spiritual disease , respectively . All best to you in your journey .