The authors suggest that addicts' use of opiates represents a unique and characteristic way of dealing with ordinary human problems and the real world around them. Through five case reports they illustrate how addicts resort to drugs because they have failed to develop symptomatic, characterologic, or other adaptive solutions to stress. In addition, they describe how the pseudoculture of the addict also plays a part infilling his social vacuum and providing an alternative to the establishment of meaningful attachments to other people. The implications for treatment are considered.Abstract Teaser