Writing Characters with Addictions

I thought I’d take a turn for the serious and discuss addictions that shape our characters. There are all types of addictions but I chose opium since my characters work in the opium trade. During the 19th century, the British were flooding the ports in China with Opium grown in Africa and India.

I’ll start with the Marquess of Rothburn from HIDDEN BEAUTY who managed to overcome his addiction to opium, alcohol and other degenerate forms of [half] living.

When I first wrote Rothburn on the page I knew only a couple of things about his personality: he had tumbled down a path of self-destruction ten years earlier when denied the one thing he unequivocally wanted, my heroine; and, he was in love with my heroine—deeply and to the point of having her to himself becomes his one obsession and reason for navigating away from everything that destroyed him in the past.

While Jinan/Elena is not the sole reason for his downward spiral into dissipation, losing her to another man was simply his final straw in life. Another factor was his autocratic uncle forcing Rothburn into a mould that didn’t fit his personality in the least. It was easy for Rothburn to become dependant on alcohol, whoring, gambling. It helped him forget what he was running from. And as the years grew bleaker it was easy to fall into the clutches and temptation his trade in opium offered.

With the help of his friend Asbury (UNTAMED BEAUTY), he slowly manages to pull himself together before he meets my heroine again. But that doesn’t mean he’s completely cured of his old habits. His substance abuse allowed him to ignore any feelings of helplessness consuming him, most especially where my heroine is concerned. So the desire still exists to sink into that dark oblivion when things don't always go the way he wants them to.

Rothburn is arrogant, selfish, obsessive, determined. You wonder where the good in those traits is. He’s not an easy man to love but his devotion to the heroine is very real.

I don’t shy away from the fact that Rothburn could easily fall back onto his old ways. He’s often sloshing around a glass of amber liquid ready for the first moment of weakness to appear and drag him under the water again. It’s a constant struggle that he has to learn to triumph over and the major character flaw that shapes his thoughts and actions on the pages of Hidden Beauty.

I’ve revisited addiction with a minor/villainous character in my current book, Untamed Beauty. The Earl of Waverly I’m writing now prefers to live in a state of opium drunkenness. I’ve done the opposite with him. He will not be cured by the madness he’s sunk into with his addiction. His mind is ruined to the point that he constantly displays his instability and paranoia to those around him. He behaves irrationally and inhumanely to those he once cared for before succumbing to his weakness.

Even though Asbury, his business partner, tried to pull him out of the life that has destroyed his sound mind, as he’d done with Rothburn, it’s an effort in futility. Waverly does not want to be helped. Waverly was a man, who, like Rothburn, could have been on top of the world. He had wealth, a respectable title and lands but was of a weaker constitution and could not fight his character flaw of addiction.

I've taken one addiction and gone to two extremes.

I don’t know what future books might sprout in the form of addiction, but I will say, it’s a tough character flaw to balance when considering the character arc.

What do you think of various addictions that appear in books? Have you ever considered writing a character that needs to overcome some sort of destructive self-indulgence?