'It addicted me, with one taste.' Can 'addict' be used transitively?

Solution 1:

In Early Modern English the verb addict in the sense of ‘give over (to)’ could be used reflexively and transitively:

but if an ecclesiasticall persone whych by hys ordre and profession hath addicted himselfe to the seruice of god in especiall shall do homage to his lord he shall not say: i become your man bycause he hath professed himselfe to be the onely man of god: — Richard Taverner, The Principal Lawes, Customes, and Estatutes of England, 1540. EEBO

Theyr chiefe ruler (whom owre men supposed to bee a preeste) led them vp to the toppe of the towre, where they erected a banner and addicted the ilande to the dominion of the kynge of castyle, namynge it sancta crux, cozumella named sancta crux … Pietro Martire d’Anghiera, Richard Eden, trans., The Decades of the Newe Worlde or West India, 1555. EEBO

The reflexive sense survived into the 19th c.:

…indeed, it seems hardly possible that the great amount of business she transacted, and the indulgences of pomp and pleasure to which she addicted herself, could allow of the leisure necessary for literary pursuits. Mary Bowley, Universal History on Scriptural Principles, 1842.

The adjective, however, had the passive sense moderns now ascribe to the past participle:

…they are all togyther so addict to the vaine pleasurs of this world: — Thomas Becon, The Iewel of Ioye, 1550.

he a man most gentle of nature, and most addict to please her [the Queen] in all things not repugnant to god… John Konx, David Buchanan, The historie of the reformation of the Church of Scotland, 1644.

None of these usages, of course, are current.

It seems to me that in modern usage, addicted is as much an adjective as addict was in the 16th and 17th centuries. It hasn’t gone completely the way of the past participle afraid because addicted still looks and tastes like a participle. You might try to revive something like:

his strokes were so mortall that they affrayed not only the most feble of his enemyes but alle the most strengest and also the asseured meduse: William Caxton, trans., Raoul Lefévre, Historyes of Troye, 1474. EEBO

but I doubt you’d have much success.

On strictly grammatical grounds, however, a modern transitive construction doesn’t appear to work. The main difference is that in the obsolete meanings the to carries dative force: Cozumel was addicted to the king’s dominion; a priest addicted himself to God’s service.

Today, the desired stimulus of addiction is that to which one is addicted; it is not, strictly speaking, the agent. Opioids don’t addict you to themselves.And being addicted no longer carries the sense of ‘given over to’ but rather ‘habitually physically or psychologically dependent upon’.

Human agents, however, may force or persuade others to become addicted, literally or metaphorically, to something:

They addicted him to heroin then left him near dead in a ditch. His assistant, Raphael, never gave up searching for him. — Carolyn Spindler Kahn, The Fidelity Test, 2014, 237.

I think I addicted him to craps for life, however. Ah, well, a few losing rounds should cure him of that. — Amy Vernon.net blog post.

Since even in jest addict s.o. to s. t. implies no act of will on the part of the patient/direct object, one won’t find a construction such as *he addicted himself to opioids but only got/became addicted or he forced himself to become an addict or some such.