Enter Jon Hamm as Don Draper.

Joan Harris (Christina Hendricks) adorns his desk, a copper mist of hair tumbling free of its constraints, pearlescent breasts threatening to do the same. She raises a cigarette to pop art red lips and inhales slowly, eyes dropped. Raising her eyelashes to exhale a ribbon of smoke as fragile as her femininity, a verdigris voice exhales, “….”.

This scene, if it weren’t art, would be soft porn. That is the only thing soft about it. But what makes this scene so opulent in its sexuality? It transcends the characters’ staggering personal beauty; their attention demanding masculinity and captivating femininity. There is inescapable appeal in her smoking. This is a pastime with one of the most smoulderingly sexual histories of all. Even the 78% of Britain’s population who do not smoke (discounting the occasional fag bummed from poor, addicted friends) cannot deny the inevitable exposure of the wrist (an attractive feature) and can, perhaps less convincingly, see the sense in its likening to a phallic object. This makes it strikingly provocative. Especially on screen, where it cannot be smelt, and we can be glamoured into disassociation between the virulent on-screen stars and such considerations as cancer and death.

However, no smoker worth chaperoning through January’s cold company will admit that is why they started, or why they’ve never stopped. The satisfaction of an addict’s craving has to be one of the most cataclysmic pleasures we can experience; neatly packaged and accessible multiple times a day in a way only available to the non-addict as the rare gift of exceptionally good sex. Or perhaps psychotic episodes.

Addiction is tricky to diagnose and label. This is clear from the AA’s much mocked first step of recovery, “Hi, my name is (for example) Dylan Thomas, and I’m an alcoholic.” Most diagnoses rely on addiction tethering negative repercussions to the addict’s life; indeed these are the connotations associated with any addiction. And this is subjective. What about people addicted to exercise? This has to become very extreme, doing nothing but improving your health, despite killing your social life with the weight of the label ‘social bore’. But there is not merit in being virtuous in a gym, there is little Society there, and Society is temptation.

Or the more interesting side to that argument. What is your fear? Death? Then addiction probably isn’t for you. But what if it’s lack of premonition? Then most addictions will sate this craving for control. The addict has chosen their path. They choose the emotional control afforded by ten or more sexual partners a day. They choose to float through life’s hallucinogenic dream to death’s dreams of hallucination. I commend this rare acceptance of death as life’s only inevitability. I commend actively choosing Charon to propel your ferry, coin in hand. Chosen as though selecting perfume to fragrance life; after browsing a while the right one simply extends your personality to a new dimension, aromas of frivolity, intrigue and hedonism your life’s most persistent flavour.

Why have so many of Art’s greats been addicted? Perhaps because “Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life.”(Oscar Wilde). And submission to addiction is admission to suggestion of an appealing, fascinating, artistic soul’s curiosity for experience and demand for a Dali-esque world oblivious to the boundaries of our own.

And to return to Mad Men, every Don Draper devotee knows he’s experienced in every facet of life. And that’s what makes him so damn appealing.