Basic Trope: Someone replaces a bad addiction with something else, usually something healthier.
- Straight: Bob is The Alcoholic, but starts replacing his addiction to alcohol with soda instead.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob replaces his alcohol addiction with an addiction to heroin instead.
- Bob is addicted to nearly everything and replaces many of his addictions as a result.
- Downplayed: Bob fears he's going to be an alcoholic, and decides to start replacing some of his drinks with soda instead.
- Justified:
- Bob doesn't want to quit alcohol cold turkey, so he replaces his habit with something less harmful.
- Alternatively, Bob wants to quit smoking, but has a major Oral Fixation that compels him to find a cigarette. When he uses lollipops or similar kinds of food or candy that lasts a decent while in his mouth, it satisfies the need to have something in his mouth while avoiding the harmful effects of smoking and helping him steadily wean off of them.
- Inverted: Bob already drinks too much soda and becomes an alcoholic.
- Subverted: The "soda" in question is hard seltzer. When asked to quit drinking whiskey, Bob merely switched to a different type of alcohol and pretended it was non-alcoholic.
- Double Subverted: The hard seltzers have less alcohol than the whiskey Bob used to drink, and he gradually starts buying seltzers with less and less alcohol to wean himself off, until he's drinking fully non-alcoholic seltzer.
- Parodied: Bob has an addiction to chocolate. He starts replacing his chocolate addiction with fruits and vegetables instead.
- Zig-Zagged: ???
- Averted: Bob doesn't replace any of his addictions.
- Enforced: To add some sort of Drugs Are Bad moral.
- Lampshaded: "I'm doing that thing where you fight an addiction by getting a new addiction."
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: Bob believes that any addiction could spiral out of control, and chooses to simply drink water instead of switching to soda.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Implied: Bob used to drink alcohol frequently, but is now seen drinking soda instead.
- Played for Laughs: Bob decides he doesn't want to be addicted to chocolate anymore, so he starts doing hard drugs and gambling.
- Played for Drama: It doesn't work, and Bob ends up going Off the Wagon, making it worse for him.
Back to Addiction Displacement
