Many people smoke tobacco and aren’t all that dysfunctional (nicotine stains and bad breath apart). You might not want to get in their way if they haven’t had a fag for awhile (when the addiction really shows), but generally, cigarette smokers aren’t that bad a bunch.

I’ve also met heroin addicts who manage to hold down responsible jobs. They don’t steal to fund their habits, they earn a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work, they are discreet about using and their usage level is not spiralling out of control. Whatever the government propaganda may say, it is possible! They aren’t “clean” but they’re certainly the next best thing, in that they have managed to live with their habit.

The most dysfunctional addicts are always the ones who are in denial about their addiction.

I don’t think the problem is that theists are addicted to worshipping imaginary gods, nor that monotheists are addicted to the idea of just one god. Rather, it is that they are in denial of the reality that there is no god.

(But if my neighbour INSISTS that the only “true god” is the one he/she follows and that we all must follow it; will pockets remain unpicked and legs unbroken?)

Legs may not be broken — but we can depend on arms being twisted! And our wallets wrung dry! It has been ever thus…

Sarge…RE “I wonder if you ever can actually be quit of an addiction.”
In my rather long overview of that subject; I think the subconcious “tape” (or now, maybe ‘digital’) recording which was imbedded early on in the theoretical unconscious; is never really erased. It’s been said that one can only kind of ‘overdub’ a correction…sorta like a software update?…which has, so to speak, the newer, ‘reality’ or maybe ‘problem recognition/solution’ data necessary to override the compulsion. In other words…the mind (brain) still has the original bullshit buried in the ‘archives’; which, given the correct trigger mechanism, may return to one’s dream (alpha?) or even concious (Beta?) mind.
It’s just that…especially over a long period of time…the update takes precedence.
Does that make any sense to you?
Like you, I once in a great while have a dream in which I seem to be drinking, VERY rarely smoking (I never had as much fun with that!), and only remember vaguely the relevant situation. In my New Age days, before I really quit drinking booze entirely…I occasionaly kept an intermittent dream journal; and seemed to have more addiction oriented dreams. I was always enrolled in some college courses that I had forgotten to attend classes for; and worried that I had a failure grade on my record. Could I still drop the course, and make it up? And, I seemed older than everyone else; and always had another year to go…Yada, yada.
Curiously, when I seriously stopped the drinking in 1986…I had a later dream that I finally had ‘graduated’! It had nothing to do, of course, with my ‘real’ college education…I had graduated with a BA in 1963. It was symbolic to me, that I had corrected something important in my behavior.
‘Nough said…on that very interesting subject matter…DREAMS!
What’s that, Eve?

Yeah, Sarge…
MY musical experience, as a professional, was ALMOST totally secular.
Starting, more like, in the 1970s, my only ‘gigs’ involving religion were a few singing chores at Jewish weddings (usually in Hotels & Banquet halls); also associated with playing in the reception’s dance orchestra, afterwards.

One time, I actually had to sing “Ave Maria” at a Catholic Church wedding. I REALLY felt weird, after not having been in a Catholic church since my falling away, some 20+ years previous to that. It also was strange, because my dad had been a ligit trained professional, who ended up, by default, becoming a sort of “jobbing”, mostly Catholic church singer and choir director. Of course, his niche was really in the days of the Latin language masses, with all the great composer type ’shtick’! [Yeah...Before the 'Guitar Masses'!]
To me, HE was a REAL singer…I was just a Sinatra/Bennett type, improvising, jazz singer/MUSICIAN. If you get my drift?
Involving anything religious…I was a fish…completely out of water!
Maybe, a ala “A Fish called Wanda”…
I was…”A Fish called What-the___?”
[Gasping fish 'smiley' here?]

Sorry for babbling on…
I’m enjoying everybody’s comments, by the way, on this very relevant topic.

RE: ” when it is turned outward, instead of being a private matter.”

I agree. In the words of Thomas Jefferson

“But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” –
-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782

(But if my neighbour INSISTS that the only “true god” is the one he/she follows and that we all must follow it; will pockets remain unpicked and legs unbroken? )