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This article is intended to provide a clinical reading of the issue of using psychoactive substances based on a psychodynamic approach and the author’s work in an addiction unit at a hospital. This clinic has the distinction of being at the interface between the somatic perception and the psychic perception. The paper begins by describing the existing literature on addictions. It then provides a functional analysis of addictions in general, and then in detail for each personality structure. Using various theoretical concepts, it then discusses how the use of drugs or alcohol occurs in the case of a failed primary process symbolization. The issue of separation and primary symbolization disorder are at the center of addictive behavior.