In most threads about the one ring, the discussion often hinges on the observation that the ring’s influence is like drugs and addiction:
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The analogy with a drug is a good one, since it can almost have a hallucinatory effect on its bearer's mind.
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Drug abuse is a form of escapism. Most drugs either lessen consciousness (thus delineating inhibition and self knowledge) or heighten pleasure. Addiction occurs either when the person requires the narcotic for basic physiological functions, or when the person mentally can no longer deal with life with out the affects of the narcotic. Granting that the ring, if like a drug, affects others in the same way that drugs mentally lead to addiction (rather than physiological addiction), then we can draw some conclusions about how the ring “corrupts the soul.”
If Gollum, for example, is mentally addicted to the ring, how does the ring function for Gollum? If it is like a drug it either lessens consciousness or heightens pleasure. From the narrative it is clear that the ring heightens pleasure, by presenting to the individual an “hallucinatory effect” of self-aggrandizement and power.
I’m often struck by the temptation of Galadriel in relation to this question. Is the vision that she receives of herself as a great and terrible queen an hallucination? If the ring is simply likened to a drug that heightens pleasure, then we would have to concede that the vision is simply an hallucination, or deception.
But I’m not convinced that her vision is a total deception. There is no doubt in my mind that if Galadriel did seize the ring she would indeed become a very power person, great, terrible and no doubt evil, and eventually through her power she would become another, albeit rather grand, servant of the ring’s true master, Sauron. In short, there has to be more to this than the drug/addiction model. The ring is not a passive tool, but contains a will and power, granted dependant upon Sauron, but a will and power that is far more active than a mere narcotic that heightens pleasure.
Gollum is twisted and corrupted by the ring, but the ring does heighten certain sense and physical attributes. Gollum’s body in many ways is an improvement on the original, especially if we consider the fact that his physical attributes were especially helpful for a life at the roots of the mountains surrounded by orcs (who would naturally be drawn to the call of the ring in the same way that orcs were naturally called to the ring at Gladden Fields). If I was to live the life of a murderer, sneak and thief, I would cherish many of Gollum’s physical abilities. 500 years with no generation makes natural adaptation an impossible theory to explain Gollum’s physical transformation, so it had to be the ring. An undeniable fact from the narrative is that the ring unnaturally prolongs the bearer’s life. Drugs have a tendency to do the exact opposite.
Despite the ring’s obvious ability to deceive, the ring can not be limited to the drug/addiction model only. The ring has active operation; it can change the physical and mental attributes of the bearer. The changes are all at root evil, but they are real, and they correspond to the desires and natural inclinations of the bearers. Thus, Gollum’s doom is not a matter of being able to overcome addiction (though this might be a relatively small part of it), but a struggle to overcome the councils of a real being that has both physically transformed Gollum into a rather sleek machine of mischief and provided him a long life with plenty of delicious raw fish and goblin meat.
I do think that Hilde’s original distinction between the power of the ring, and the temptation or desire to possess the ring is a valid one. The ring has the power to transform the bearer. It also has the power to allure others… but only according to its active desire to return to its master. We should not confuse one operation with the other.