Addiction - All in it Together

Why are we addicted to something? Everyone is searching for feelings that we know are our birthright: happiness, love, peace and safety. Yet, too often we experience anxiety, emptiness, loneliness and meaningless instead. An addiction starts because some artificial mean can provide us a temporary substitute, a short-lived bliss experience, an escape from our dreaded negative emotions.

Our mind cannot remain still - it is always running after something. While it is occupied, the mind feels good about whatever it is working on, but deep down inside we know that something is missing. Everything our mind clings to doesn't give us happiness, love or peace. So instinctively we want to put our mind to sleep. Alcohol can do this job just fine. As we drink, we suddenly feel very relaxed and enjoy the temporary relief of a quiet mind; but alas, once the impact fades, our crazy mind starts acting up again. A pattern will develop and we will reach for the bottle again and again until this habit will eventually run our life and we will feel like we are controlled by an external force. Once sober we feel even worse than before because the voice we wanted to shut up in the first place now beats us up over our digression instead. The cloud of emptiness gets bigger and we need larger and larger shots to get the same feeling of peace and bliss until one day we can't break free from that negative energy pattern any longer without help from others.

We all have the tendency to run away from our negative emotions or try repressing them by some external means. Facing them is hard: the anxiety, the fear, the lack of love or the emptiness. Addiction is just the end of the spectrum when you you have tried to bottle up all the demons inside only to find that they come back to haunt you with a vengeance. If you are addicted you will be more desperate than the rest of us, but the problem statement remains the same for everyone. Our mental crutches look more elegant, but everyone escapes something at some time; only few have the guts to face all the turmoils that are brewing deep inside.

We are all the same. We seek help from the external world to get what we think we need. For some this pattern is more constructive than drinking: people go hiking, exercising, hanging out with friends, working hard for success to quieten their fears, accumulating money to 'buy' safety for the future. Most of us are multi-faceted and most of the times we manage to heal our lives, with the occasional blind spot for our darkest fears or the occasional misstep when we project our fears and anger onto others. But then there are these occasions when people like you and I hit a wall; the problems become just too overwhelming to face them and our usual escape mechanisms break down. Addicted or not, a fork in the road is reached at these turning points and they are deeply spiritual in nature. You have not only the chance to turn your life around and become 'normal' again, but actually the potential to transcend to a much higher spiritual level. The downside though, you have to be willing to face your darkest fears at this holy moment.

So if you are addicted, understand that you have received a wake-up call that you delivered to yourself. You are not a loser, you are just a step away from a spiritual journey from which there is no turning back. Once you have faced your darkest fears you will in fact be a step ahead of many of the so-called normal folks. Sleighing the first monster is hard, but soon you realize that none of these monsters really exist. It doesn't matter which destructive pattern you might run after, alcohol, drugs, sex, gambling, medicine, video games - it is all the same. Perhaps you even need external help to climb out of the hole that you dug for yourself. That is ok, just remember that you are in fact a step ahead of many when you tackle your addictions now if afterwards you keep climbing along your self-discovery journey.

Becoming 'normal' again may sound appealing to you right now, but use your opportunity to aim higher than that. You are just one step away from becoming a spiritual traveler like us. We are not any different from you - all that we have figured out is that if you always like a heroine face the demon that comes your way, the lack of love, the restlessness, the emptiness will soon pass like dark rainclouds swept away by the bright sun. Life rewards you amply for sleighing our demons for the very reason that they don't exist. Look right past them and see for yourself that there is only love, peace and joy wherever you look.

Most of us start our journey when we come across something difficult to handle. We have discovered that no matter what, addiction, distractions, false desires, mind racing, etc., are all part of the same movie plot; the choice between the journey home or into nowhere; the choice between love and your ego. You are not a loser, you have set yourself up for this hard journey because deep down inside you know that you can tackle this wake-up call. Congratulations, your life is going to change soon in a way far beyond your comprehension. Truth of the matter is there are no 'ordinary' people; there are only people who choose love sometimes and those who choose love always. You can safely put your stimulants away; in the presence of love, peace, joy and safety, they will feel like stale idols indeed.

By Christian and Su-Zhen