always gets to me that his name is basically "afficionado/addict"

The "tiryaki" nickname is said to originate from his addiction to coffee.

In modern turkish we still use this with that effect, "O sigarnın tiryakisidir" > "his addiction is cigarettes"

EDIT : Just to be clear, you wouldn't use tiryaki in the context of general negative addiction, there has to be some ongoing appreciation of the activity(not just substance), so you wouldn't say someone is/has a "Heroin Tiryakisi", but you could say someone has a "maket tiryakisi" (kit building habit)