Some substances, either by design or coincidence, can cause an individual to become addicted. Some characters may begin game with an addiction. Other people may acquire an addiction over the course of the game.
If you have an addiction, you have a desire to consume “Drugs”. There are item cards in the game that will have “Drugs” listed in their description. If you do not consume at least one unit of “Drugs” during a game period, then you will suffer a withdrawal penalty during your next game period. When you are suffering from withdrawal, you must increase your Mettle and Body by +1 each. (Remember that for stats, low scores are good and high scores are bad.)
Characters with an addiction will begin game on Friday as if they have had drugs earlier. No stat alterations are needed on Friday.
For example, say that Bob has an Addiction. On Friday night (game period 1) he looks around for Drugs but can’t manage to obtain any. Starting Saturday morning, Bob is at +1 to all three of his stats. If Bob manages to find and consume some drugs at 10:30 Saturday morning (during game period 2), then he can role play getting his “fix” and feeling better. But he will still have the penalties until the end of the game period. When game period 3 starts on Saturday afternoon, Bob will remove his penalty. But he’d better start looking for his next fix, or that penalty will be back for Saturday night.
Note: Generally, the game doesn’t draw any distinction between different kinds of Drugs. It’s all lumped into a single type of item. If you’re addicted to one drug, you can satisfy your addiction with a different one. You are welcome to role play this differently, or trade drugs with your friends, but there is no game mechanic difference. If you become addicted to some special, rare substance then that will be indicated at the point you gain the addiction.