I agree with Gayle, when it interferes with any area of your life. Having to have something to make us feel better about ourselves, help us to socialize or just to use to deal with feelings of depression, anxiety, fear and so on. If you feel you are not an addict, try and commit to one year of not using. No one can tell you you are an addict, you must make that decision for yourself, but people can usually see a change in our behavior when we use. We can appear perfectly functional but are we really?? If you are an addict you can do nothing about it until you admit it to yourself.