Green’s Dictionary of Slang

-aholic sfx

also -oholic
[on pattern of SE alcoholic]

(orig. US) a widely used sfx indicating one who indulges excessively; thus chocoholic, one who cannot stop consuming chocolate; bookoholic, an obsessive reader etc.

[UK]P. Wyden Overweight Society vi. 106: I was a sugarholic...Mom kept saying, ‘You eat your spinach and I’ll give you a piece of candy.’ [OED].
W.E. Oates in Pastoral Psychology Oct. 16: [heading] On being a ‘workaholic’.
Southern Living May 29: Goldstein, you see, is a ‘golfaholic’.
[US]Newsweek 30 May 53: Kim admits to being a ‘sweetaholic’ who dieted resolutely before winning the beauty pageant in Charleston, S.C., then ‘pigged out’ on pecan pie.
[UK]Times 11 Oct. 39: Davies the ‘playaholic’ falls foul of the invisible injury.
[UK]K. Lette Mad Cows 143: When it came to life’s experiences Maddy was a shop-aholic.
[UK]Guardian G2 9 July 17: Bradford’s reputation is of a nitpicking workaholic.
[UK]J.J. Connolly Layer Cake 88: The whole outing is sending the shopaholic, trust-funded girlies wild.
[UK]Guardian Rev. 8 Jan. 7: But what did we call that addiction to work – that obsessive attachment to long hours and briefcase voluntarily stuffed with homework – before Wayne Oates, in a burst of linguistic innovation in 1968, titled an article in a parish magazine, On Being a ‘Workaholic’? [...] Those bitter-sweet-toothed souls who cannot do without a chocolate fix: chocoholic.
[US](con. 1964–8) J. Ellroy Cold Six Thousand 242: ‘Dick Contino?’ ‘Muff-diver and gamble-o-holic. In hock to the Chicago Cartel.’.
[US]J. Stahl Pain Killers 133: Now that she was nonpukaholic, all the unstuffed feelings splashed everywhere.
[US]J. Stahl Bad Sex on Speed 19: A total crankaholic whose aorta was going to pop.