Now that is an interesting question Jon… Trust you to be the one to ask it!

So if we go on the basis that the usual medical dictionary definition of abreaction is something along the lines of “an emotional release following a recall of a painful experience” – you could certainly draw some parallels.

But the experience of addiction is not always seen as painful, perhaps quite the contrary, it is seen as thoroughly pleasurable by some in some contexts and maybe not all of the ‘reliving’ of the past experience is deemed negative or painful.

So I would say, it would be fair to call it that, and I’d understand where people were coming from by doing so… I would not call it that though and think the link too tenuous and the two things too dissimilar.

🙂