What all addictions have in common is pain. Of the many ways to deal with pain, addiction is increasingly popular. In the moment of indulgence, pain appears to stop.
People can be addicted to substances as well as activities. You know the menu: Drugs, alcohol, marijuana, tobacco, food, sex, gambling, computer games, TV, cosmetic surgery, over-work, over-exercise, over-sleeping.
The causes are said to be in the genes, social environment, childhood trauma, early use of drugs and mental illness. This makes every person a potential addict.
Addiction is a multi-layered, complex and arduous life pattern. A person may make efforts for decades to free him- or herself from an addiction. There are no easy solutions. Perhaps there will be an insight in this little article that helps someone take another step on the path to freedom.
If It Feels Good, Do It
Americans have pioneered many labor-saving, lifestyle-enhancing inventions. As a society we like to feel good. We may think pain is something we can and should overcome. The place of pain in personal development has been consigned to religious traditions, whose memberships are shrinking.
If you watch television to see what people think about pain, you may notice that almost all commercials can be reduced to one of two promises: This product or service will diminish some kind of pain … or … This product or service will increase your safety and make you more comfortable.
Buddha's First Noble Truth states that suffering exists. Pain is part of every single human life, but public school has not been a place to learn skillful means for dealing with it. Only a few of us sit down and meditate when we feel a craving, grief, sorrow, helplessness, rage or fear. We admire those who live balanced lives, dealing with pain in ways that do not extend or magnify it.
If It Doesn't Feel Good, Do It Again
The consequences of acting out an addiction are most unpleasant. Chief among them are shame, guilt and fear of discovery. The damage to our potential, our bodies, relationships, jobs and self-respect makes us repeat the pain-silencing activity to get relief. Addiction can escalate to the point where people have only two choices. If they choose their addiction, they lose everything else – money, home, family, health and job.
It is a profound paradox that the outcome of using a substance or behavior is pain, when the motive is to escape pain. Addiction is the purest definition of a vicious cycle.
Full intellectual understanding of the negative consequences of addiction is not sufficient to make us stop. Relapse is more likely than walking the razor's edge.
Handful of Keys to the Mystery Of Addiction
H. H. Dalai Lama said his religion is "kindness." Addicts generally are not truly kind to themselves about their addiction. They, and perhaps everyone they know, judge against their addictive behavior. Society has monumental judgments against all kinds of addiction, while functioning on principles that guarantee it. Can you say war on drugs? And how's that going, by the way?
Addiction may be a childish or unevolved response to traumas and problems, but it doesn't go away through judgment. When addicts judge themselves they prolong the very addiction they want to end.
Here are a few ideas that can inspire self-inquiry and perhaps give support to addicts and their friends.
Courage
If we are addicted to gambling, contemplate courage. The core of our quest may be to be valiant. We may be in great conflict about taking risks, even afraid to take them. We may secretly hope to take a real risk, slay the dragon and emerge triumphant. Taking big or little gambling risks are meaningless even when we win. Eventually, we lose.
Taking a real risk and doing our level best, knowing what we've put on the line, will we succeed? How will we deal with the pain of failure, if that's what happens? This kind of inquiry may make us feel like hopping in the car, going to the liquor store and buying $50 worth of tickets.
Vitality and Self-Nurturing
If we are addicted to smoking, we probably don't like to breathe. It's hard for us to breathe, either because we forget to or because it is an effort. Breathing means living (in-breath) and dying (out-breath) and we may be in conflict with both. Smoking allows us to remember to breathe, at the same time it dampens feelings.
Smoking is a kind of bullet vest for the heart.
If we decide to really breathe, to really be alive starting now, we may want to reach for a smoke many times a day. It's much harder to breathe fresh air than it is to take in fragrant, deadening smoke--for smokers! Smoking is a way to take care of ourselves, hold ourselves, comfort ourselves. If our mothers did not teach us by holding and comforting us, we may be nervously puffing away trying to do it now.
Relaxation
The discussion of marijuana has nothing to do with medical uses. If we are addicted to marijuana, we may not know how to relax and be ourselves. We may not realize we deserve to fully relax on a regular basis, from the muscles in our face to the thoughts in our mind. Marijuana, like other substitute teats, silences the anxious, worried mind. At least as long as we're stoned. As the smoke dissipates, anxiety and self-consciousness return in force. Isn't that nice?
If we decide to replace anxiety with relaxation, we'll probably still want to smoke marijuana. If we decide to gently let ourselves be and stop trying to live up to an image, we may smoke more marijuana for awhile.
It takes courage to drop pretenses and masks, and just be.
Loneliness
If we are addicted to sex, we probably want to love and be loved. Our culture equates sex and love, which is only part of the truth. We may long for real intimacy. If we were to examine ourselves deeply, we might discover that we don't feel loved or lovable, which is a pretty painful belief. Sex would be a satisfactory substitute for love if we could ever get enough of it. Would we be willing to act lovingly toward another person without putting our needs or wants on them, regard them with affection and not try to get something from them? Sex is a kind of food, so read on, please.
Emptiness
Food addict? We probably feel empty, which is a correct perception. As Buddha put it, "Form is emptiness, emptiness is form." Many excellent life teachers say emptiness is half of reality (the other half being the fullness or wholeness we try to get from food). There's nothing wrong with being empty. We're not wrong to feel empty. Can we tolerate feeling empty? Are we willing to experience emptiness? When we start to allow the feeling, we'll probably feel like running to the refrigerator.
Boredom
Life is filled with habitual activities. We become accustomed to patterns of eating, sleeping, working, bathing, etc. Habits can be sweet pathways upward or deep ruts downward.
People who wake up at 5:00 a.m. to meditate have a habit. People who come home from work and watch TV for a few hours have a habit.
Living through habits can dull our senses. We are not thrilled to see the same potted plant or the color of our partner's eyes or the taste of peanut butter on toast.
We get bored. We want to feel something. Enter food, alcohol, drugs, gambling, sex, etc.
Strength
Painkillers? This one is too obvious. We don't want to feel pain. We may even think we're wrong or bad for feeling pain. We may have been shamed for being in pain. It may also be that our soul most earnestly wants to learn strength. What if we sat down and let ourselves just feel the pain?
If you haven't experimented with this, it's quite a revelation. Just feeling pain and noticing resistance, noticing wanting to get up and do something, and still just staying with it -- something changes.
People who develop the muscle for feeling pain when it's there tend to be stronger people than those of us who handle pain with painkillers.
Contact With Our Soul
Alcoholic? That's a big one. Three in ten Americans drink too much, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Alcohol is also called spirits, and there we have the key. If we're addicted to alcohol, we may be trying to live without the support of our soul. We may not realize we have a soul and that it can help us live. Alcohol is a substitute because it can silence thoughts. Being in touch with our soul can also silence thoughts. Unfortunately, we might have to silence thoughts before our soul can touch us.
Because addiction is a complex and multi-layered issue, the reader's experience may be that smoking relates to relaxation, marijuana to emptiness, food with courage, gambling with strength, alcohol to loneliness.
Addiction is a half-answer to a meaningful life challenge.
Source"Get the Facts" at http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/Drug_Usage#Lifetime
Causes of addiction referencing NIAAA and National Institute on Drug Abuse
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Alcohol Research and Health.
Barbara S F Davis - Please take a look at Links to Articles, press releases, short stories and newsletters by Barbara. Articles I've had the joy to publish ...
Join the Conversation