The Truth About Addiction (Nobody Talks About This)

What people don't understand about addiction, it's very frustrating because no matter how many times I've explained this, the majority of the time, even after I'm done, it's like doesn't click for most people. Is that real addiction doesn't have anything to do with physical dependency. Physical dependency is a totally separate thing. Okay? You're talking about like where a person builds what we call tolerance to a drug and then if they don't get it, they go through what we call withdrawal. Okay? So that's not addiction. Addiction is when the person already detoxified, they have clean time, maybe even years of clean time, and then inexplicably, for seemingly no reason at all, they start up again. So there was no physical dependency whatsoever. They were finally free from the physical dependency. And then this insanity set in of, oh, I'll just do one and then it's never just one and it's back to the races. So the addiction isn't the physical dependency. Physical dependency is fairly simply addressed through detoxification. I mean, it's not fun. Sometimes you have to have doctor's supervision for it because it could be dangerous, but it's straightforward. Addiction is that twist of thinking, that self-rationalization that I can use my drug of choice like a gentleman, like a normal person. I once heard an addict say, "If I could use like a regular person, I would do it all the time, right? Internal contradiction there. If I could use like a regular person, you know, recreationally, once, you know, once on a weekend, every other month." But no, you know, it's not going to be that way. I know it's not going to be that way. So then you have to ask yourself like, okay, so then why are there people who are going to use as much as they possibly can? And the answer is because they're treating something and they're actually doing a pretty good job treating it. Um, they're treating an underlying discomfort. And the drug of choice is the the the anesthetic, the numbing agent. that allows the person freedom from the constant angst, the constant constant discomfort. Uh that's why I say you know like if a person goes to work and then afterwards after work they want to have a beer. I don't know if that's an alcoholic but if someone has a beer in order to afterwards go to work that may be an alcoholic. What I mean is this. People who drink or drug for fun, they do it for fun. And when it stops being fun, meaning when there are too many consequences, they stop. People who take the drink or the drug in order to function like a normal person, like in order to go to work, in order to attend the family uh party, in order to um socialize with other people, in order to whatever, in order to watch a baseball game. people who have to drink or drug in order to do the normal things that normal people do all the time. That's the addiction. In other words, it's the underlying discomfort with reality itself, which the distraction or the numbing of the drink or the drug removes long enough so that I can sort of pretend to be one of you, pretend to be a normal person, right? Which is why, by the way, when you take away the drink or the drug from the real addict or alcoholic, they don't get better, they get worse. Because you're taking away their only co coping mechanism. You're taking away their only tool for living. So they don't get better, they get worse. Which then begs the question like, is there any solution? And the solution is yes. It's by giving them a way to rid themselves of the discomfort, of the existential angst. And then you have to be ready to hear the deep spiritual explanation of where that existential angst is coming from. And then you have to be ready to get spiritual. And in a nutshell, I'm not going to talk about it at length. I'll say it very quickly. You're talking about the discomfort or the pain of of separation from God. That nagging feeling of terminal uniqueness sometimes we call it or lonely in a crowded room or always wanting to be a part of and instead feeling apart from that at bottom is the ego's pain of being an entity separate from the oneness from the all. And until that is resolved of course the person is going to be in a constant state of discomfort. And it's not discomfort that's based on a situation or conditions that change. It's not like, oh, I'm uncomfortable because of a particular, you know, because of particular source of stress in my life. I mean, the source of an extra stress in your life could be an exacerbating or aggravating factor. But this is no existence itself is painful. Existence itself being an entity separate from the oneness is itself an untenable proposition. And therefore, if I find something that's anti-me medication, the drink or the drug that numbs my sense of conscious ego until even self-obliteration, why wouldn't I do that? Of course, I'm going to do that. Well, then the consequences become too much or call it the side effects of the drug become too much. Like any drug has a side effect except here the side effect is you lose your family, you lose you lose your job, you lose your your reputation. Um so then you're caught in this double bind. Okay. But how do I exist when existence itself is so deeply uncomfortable? And the answer is spiritual awakening, God consciousness, self-trcendence instead of self-obliteration. Self-trcendence. Yeah. It's about it's not about destroying the the the ego. It's about rising above the ego. And and you know to put it in I know this sounds very lofty you know talking about God consciousness but in very simple actionable terms what we mean by that is practical humility like admitting your wrongs um you know doing a moral inventory on a regular basis helping others you know seeing where you can be of service um when you enter a room instead of figuring out what you can get out of it just looking around being sensitive to what you could contribute. ute just being a a spiritually fit person who's looking to be of service. And the amazing thing is that that subdues the ego because it's an an act of surrendering the ego. And then it aligns you with with the one with the capital O. And then the whole underlying issue of the the pain of of separation from the one is taken care of. And then what do you know? You don't have to to self-medicate because reality is not that inhospitable of a place to show up in when you show up in a humble, surrendered, egoless, serviceoriented way. So that's that's what people don't understand about addiction. And as long as they uh conflate that with physical dependency, so we're going to have a lot of medical approaches to try to physically fix something that's ultimately a spiritual problem. And we don't have a material or physical solution to a to a spiritual problem. We need a spiritual solution to a spiritual