This chapter pursues two goals: on the one hand, it outlines fundamental developments and arguments within debates on ‘medicalisation’, ongoing since the 1960s, as also central to current and future sociological engagement with the concept of ‘addiction’. On the other hand, the chapter aims to highlight the specific connections between ongoing discussions on ‘the medicalisation of society’ with the more focused debates on the pathologisation and ‘addictification’ of society. Although social scientific perspectives on medicalisation and addiction have become more complex and fluid over the last few decades, there remains no approach which draws together and consolidates the differing positions in a synthesised form. Thus, the ‘triangle of medicalisation’ strives to offer such an approach and also to suggest ways in which theoretical and empirical research can advance in the coming years.