Then I realized just how many people I know are long-time addicts to one thing or another. The young, attractive, highly educated architect who built part of my house is, by all accounts, bent on drinking himself to death. And I tried to get another old acquaintance into rehab this winter. Memorable line: "I always go to rehab in my black Jag."

During the last week alone, Donatella Versace committed herself for coke addiction, and Mary-Kate Olsen was photographed draped over the white leather seat in her Gulfstream IV, finally leaving her anorexia rehab. The same week, Courtney Love was sentenced to 28 days in rehab, after some light criminal behaviour.

One could be forgiven for losing patience. Too many addicts are famous, well-born, gifted by nature with good looks, brains and access to whatever part of the candy store they like best. The English aristocracy is littered with young poseurs, consciously choosing self-destruction, and squandering lives that were once positioned to make a real contribution. Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations is the front-and-centre warning in all old moneyed families. Privilege, it seems, has always been a fast track to wilful self-destruction. Increasingly, as the middle and upper- middle classes grow, more and more young men and women are self- identifying as sick.

My ex-stepdaughter came to visit me this week and dropped the news that her mother, 45, had just gotten home from rehab in Pennsylvania. For pot. "Broke out two weeks early," said her father, and we all laughed.

But I wondered. What is it like to be 21 and have your mother, presumably an adult, not only go to rehab repeatedly, but break out of rehab?

Then I realized just how many people I know are long-time addicts to one thing or another. The young, attractive, highly educated architect who built part of my house is, by all accounts, bent on drinking himself to death. And I tried to get another old acquaintance into rehab this winter. Memorable line: "I always go to rehab in my black Jag."

He broke out of his five-star prison in three days.

The whole subject is so chic that a friend just received a big cheque to develop a television series set in a posh rehab. Breaking out is even chic-er, because then you get to go back in, after another year or so bemoaning your failure and treating it with the bad candy of your choice.

During the last week alone, Donatella Versace committed herself for coke addiction, and Mary-Kate Olsen was photographed draped over the white leather seat in her Gulfstream IV, finally leaving her anorexia rehab. The same week, Courtney Love was sentenced to 28 days in rehab, after some light criminal behaviour.

Do we really think that Love will make it this time? There are few statistics published on recovery rates, but only 20% ever really get better. And this statistic is even less reported: Just as many people stop drinking or taking drugs on their own.

One could be forgiven for losing patience. Too many addicts are famous, well-born, gifted by nature with good looks, brains and access to whatever part of the candy store they like best. The English aristocracy is littered with young poseurs, consciously choosing self-destruction, and squandering lives that were once positioned to make a real contribution. Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations is the front-and-centre warning in all old moneyed families. Privilege, it seems, has always been a fast track to wilful self-destruction. Increasingly, as the middle and upper- middle classes grow, more and more young men and women are self- identifying as sick.

The psychiatric profession agrees. "Almost one in 10 Americans has addiction disorder" claims a new survey from the U.S. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, published this week.

The survey went on to report that a further 19.4 million Americans have independent mood disorders, such as major depression or manic disorder. And a further 23 million adults meet the criteria for independent anxiety disorders.

It begs the question: Just how did early North Americans settle the wilderness, and build Canada and the United States, two impressive modern countries, when fully half of them couldn't get up off the couch? How did they fight the Second World War? How did they survive the Great Depression? Could this diseasing of America be seen as a profession looking to expand?

The rehab business is huge. Go online, I challenge you, and look for a detox centre. There are thousands of them. Last time I checked, Hazelden, the great-granddaddy of them all, charged US$10,000 per week and its publishing arm is vastly profitable. During the required four weeks, you get the full attention of nurses, psychologists, addiction counsellors and hours and hours of therapy -- in total, the adult version of breast feeding.

Me me me me me, all the darn time, it's just so incredibly lovely. In a final fillip, recovery lasts your whole life, relapses are common. Ka-ching!

The juncture at which the 12-step program, founded on a volunteer basis and free, meets the marketplace, which then meets state- supported, court-ordered 12-stepping is truly fiendish. Twelve-step programs are widely recognized for re-igniting spiritual life in the West. In the United States alone, at this moment, 15 million people participate in 12-step programs. The first thing you learn is powerlessness. The second thing you learn is to turn yourself over to a "Higher Power." A Catholic nun and 20-year alcoholic, Sister Molly Monahan says: "I can literally see and hear the effects of faith in a roomful of people whose trust in a Higher Power has restored them to health of body, mind and soul."

Yet what if you don't believe? There are a few outlaw thinkers who say that accepting powerlessness is tantamount to giving up your self-determination, the very thing that will heal you.

Moreover, far too often that power is then given over to the therapeutic community. Dr. Jeffry Schaler, author of Addiction is a Choice, says that "every single person who ever stopped only stopped by making a choice to stop." The state and the courts forcing a religious program on an addict is simply reinforcing the addict's sense of his own weakness, prolonging his addiction.

If drugs are ever to be decriminalized, we are all going to have to recognize that prosperity demands just as much strength and self- determination from the human soul as economic collapse and war.