Recently some friends and relatives (you know who you are) revealed that they are "addicted" to Blistex or other lip balms.Help is available. Lip Balm Anonymous is an organization set up to help addicts overcome their problem. Their website contains a ton of useful information about the necessity of lip balm. Many normal people need it to get through the day because otherwise they'll surely die of dry lips. Lip balm is even more important for those who can't lick their lips if their tongue is firmly planted in their cheek—like the people who created the website!
If you're still not convinced, here are Ten Signs You're Addicted to Lip Balm. Hard core addicts should take the Lip Balm Addict Quiz to see if there's any hope.
Addiction to lip balm is an urban legend. You may really, really like the taste and feel of Blistex but that's not a physical addiction. It's all in your mind. Here are some debunking sites that cover most of the myths. [Snopes, Are Lip Balms Addictive?]
There are ways of telling whether a rumor is true or not. One way is to assume that it's true and imagine the consequences. For example, let's assume that Blistix, or whatever, is physiologically addictive. If that were true, don't you think the manufacturers would have been sued by now? Wouldn't you expect to see warning labels on your tubes? In fact, wouldn't lip balms have disappeared off the shelves by now?
None of those things have happened, so you can conclude that your assumption is wrong. Either that, or there's a massive cover-up under way. But if you believe that then you've already passed beyond the stage where rationality is going to make a difference, right?
Excellent points. I think Chaptastic illustrates that there's also a difference between obsession and addiction.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with all of this is that it presumes that the lip balm addicts want to shake their addiction. All the Blistex users that I know (and there are a lot of them) are perfectly happy with their dependancies. :)
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