Edgerunners: Journey Into Addiction

[Spoiler free]

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners offers a haunting glimpse into the role of trauma and grief in addiction. Like a nightmare, it can feel like a dream until you realize something is very wrong. And by that point, it can feel like there’s no way out.

My brother had been begging me to watch Edgerunners for months leading up to the winter holidays. I’ve always had reservations about anime. Growing up on a steady diet of epic, big-screen movies like Troy, Star Wars, and Gladiator gave me a specific palate. Anime was never on my radar.

It was only when my brother flew over for Christmas and basically forced me, A Clockwork Orange-style, that I finally watched Edgerunners. This piece is spoiler-free, but anyone who has seen the show will understand what I mean when calling it a titanic sledgehammer of an emotional experience.

The vicarious trauma I felt after Edgerunners rivalled the baby scenes in Trainspotting. Imagine my surprise at my ignorance—I had expected Edgerunners to be a cartoon, like Pokémon. But no. Edgerunners gave me open brain surgery and replaced my frontal lobes with cybernetic implants without anesthesia.

What is Addiction, Anyway?

Before diving into the Cyberpunk universe, let’s take stock of the state of our world.

We’re thrill seekers. It’s how we’re programmed. We are surrounded by stimuli. We’re bombarded with messages, ideas, and opportunities. We live in an era of marketing and unlimited content. Pushing boundaries, exploring new things, and testing our limits is our way of life. But there is a dark abyss under the tightrope of our thrill-seeking. There is a tipping point where we can fall and feel like we lose ourselves.

I’m a prisoner to my addiction

I’m addicted to a life that’s so empty and so cold

I’m a prisoner to my decisions

— “Prisoner” by The Weeknd & Lana Del Rey

Sadly, psychiatry is a slow-moving, slightly musty, “old boy” of medicine. Dressed in prickly woollen suits and tweed, the old boy hasn’t caught up with our increasingly virtual world of smartphones, social media, online dating, photoshop, and video gaming. Nevertheless, we all know the dopamine-murdering infinite scrolls of TikTok and Instagram. How many hours did you lose to the YouTube rabbit hole in 2022?

It may come as a surprise, but the psychiatric world does not have a specific diagnosis for addiction. Instead, the Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition (DSM-5) (American Psychiatric Association, 2013), focuses on substance abuse. A review by Grant and Chamberlain (2016) highlighted the exclusion of many non-substance addictions from the DSM-5. Similarly, the International Classification of Diseases, 11th edition (ICD-11) (World Health Organization, 2018) briefly touches upon “addictive behaviours” but is limited by insufficient study and information on this complex area.

While the old boys play catch-up, let’s try and piece together a framework for addiction without becoming lost in the woods. Let’s use the definition:

Addiction = Excessive self-sacrifice in pursuing a substance, experience, or feeling.

This is reductionist, but it gives us enough to cling onto as we step into Edgerunners. Buckle up.

Cyberpsychosis = Addiction

In the Cyberpunk universe, humans have integrated with technology (“chrome”) to become cyborgs. Money and inhibition are the only barriers to installing any new cyber hardware or software you desire. Edgerunners shares common themes and elements with Altered Carbon and The Matrix, and this cybernetically augmented future sits squarely in where our world is headed with concepts like Elon Musk’s Neuralink.

Need a new arm? We got you.

Want to be faster? Have some new robotic legs.

Want to be smarter? Let’s implant this chip into your brain.

So what’s the catch? Well, the more chrome you install, the more likely you’ll go “cyberpsycho.” Without getting bogged down by the show’s plot, chrome disrupts your personality and psyche. Chrome pieces have their own AI “voices,” which muddies our mind—which thought is ours and which is the chrome’s AI? People experiencing cyberpsychosis experience memory gaps, reckless and aggressive behaviour, and a need to “upgrade.”

In the show, Edgerunners are guns-for-hire for criminal organizations and corporate espionage. Assassinations, hacking, theft of prototypes, that’s an Edgrunner’s bread-and-butter. “Edgerunner” alludes to these mercenaries relying on chrome and living on the edge of cyberpsychosis.

Despite being familiar with the risks of “chroming up” and cyberpsychosis, edgerunners seem predisposed to risky behaviour. Edgerunners’ childhood trauma, abuse, isolation, and grief create a recipe for addiction.

How Should We Treat Addiction?

If you haven’t seen Edgerunners, you must be wondering what the big deal is. What sets Edgerunners apart is how immediately visceral it is and how quickly you’re transported to the darkest depths of the underbelly of Night City. There is absolutely no warning or hand-holding as the show takes you from “Ah, that’s pretty cool” to being emotionally assaulted by how quickly the lead characters lose themselves to addiction.

It’s like Cocomelon suddenly showing an amputation from Saw.

After steadily recovering from watching Edgerunners for a few days, I marvelled at its vivid portrayal of addiction. What’s most harrowing is witnessing characters trying to save each other from cyberpsychosis. And this is where Edgerunners really hits home—by forcing us to confront how we handle addiction.

In Edgerunners, characters have no choice but to helplessly watch their loved ones lose themselves to cyberpsychosis. In the show, medication for cyberpsychosis is a symptomatic treatment and only delays the inevitable. It’s difficult to discuss further without spoiling the show, but the cure for cyberpsychosis is unclear. If medication doesn’t cure it, loved ones can’t prevent it, and the prognosis is unavoidable—how do you find the exit?

I touch the shoulder of the man walking in front of me. I say: ‘I want the way out.’

But he points to the placards and his hand is made of steel. I walk along with my head bent, very ashamed, thinking:

‘Just like me – always wanting to be different from other people.’

The steel finger points along a long stone passage. This Way – This Way – This Way to the Exhibition…

— Good Morning, Midnight by Jean Rhys

Edgerunners shows that addiction is not some far away, foreign beast—it lies dormant in us all, waiting. Yet, despite its universality, society shows us no reliable way to help with addiction. How should we help someone dealing with addiction? It seems the general approach is to see addicts as “abnormal” and demand their immediate return to normality. How much does this attitude fuel addiction and isolation further? Pushing those desperately in need further to the edge.

In case you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend the short TED talk on addiction by Johann Hari. We’ve grown to demonize addiction and addicts. Addicts fill prisons and are excluded from society. But it’s clearly not working. Maybe the answer instead is kindness, care, and support.

Are We Helpless Against Addiction?

I was traumatized by Edgerunners. And yet, I find my mind repeatedly drifting to the universe with a sense of wonder and admiration. Something about the Cyberpunk universe has a surreal and gritty allure. It invokes the memory of being in a fish-eyed myopic bender, stumbling on the street outside a bar—a mist of smoke, liquor, and beer perfuming the air. A world of sex, drugs, and synth.

But where most of us wake up with a hangover and perhaps some healthy regret, Edgerunners shows what happens to those who fall over the edge and into a cycle of addiction. Although we may not realize it, addiction is something we all observe and can experience.

Take a long, hard look at your smartphone. The device that has revolutionized our world. The device I’m writing this on and you’re likely reading from. This is our first cyber augmentation. We’re chromed up already. We all know how easily our phones can consume our minds for hours.

Doctors are lagging behind, society is enamoured with its new toys and gadgets, authorities view it as a revolving door of nuisance behaviour and pharmaceutical profiteering, and God seems AWOL/MIA/KIA.

It seems nothing is stopping us from entering Cyberpunk and going cyberpsycho. And that’s what makes Edgerunners so terrifying— are we gazing into a chrome ball of the future?

I believe that addiction is not inevitable or hopeless. I have hope that there is a way through it. I have hope that we can live lives of fulfilment, joy, and passion—no matter where our lives and the “powers that be” land us. I believe struggle and suffering are signs that we’ve got a chance to find freedom and life. The strength to get through this comes partly from within, but also with the support of people who care.

If you need help or want to talk about addiction, substance abuse, or any related concern—you don’t have to navigate this journey alone. Please reach out, and we’d be happy to help find a way to the support and resources you need to find control and freedom.

December 31, 2022