Addiction is a desire to be complete, whole, and happy. Likewise addiction is an aversion to that which engenders incompleteness, separateness, and unhappiness. Addiction is a coping mechanism to relieve suffering. But as we know addiction only temporarily relieves the suffering of the individual. Suffering always returns ten-fold.
Addiction takes the form of any thing that appears to bring happiness. I can remember being enslaved to the addiction to drugs. I didn’t care what drug it was, I just wanted something anything, that could make me feel better for a few moments. If no hard drugs were available I would resort to large amounts of caffeine and nicotine. If those weren’t available I would turn to food, alcohol, television, sexual relationships…anything. I wanted to forget I was suffering.
Addiction successfully avoids the real issue facing us. It all rests in desire. A desire to have reality conform to a certain standard of happiness. On a much deeper level lies an anxiety that because things are not as I’d have them, I have no control. If I’m not running the show, who am I. To have any validity as a being i must have the ability to impact my life. If not do I have any power at all? Who’s pulling the strings?
The fact is, no one is pulling the strings. If I feel like I am making choices, picking desirous things in life I have validity. I am! If not is there anyone here in my head? It’s anxiety over existence. Not feeling in control, not being able to make myself happy, brings me suffering. Through addiction I can temporarily hide this anxiety, I can forget I’m suffering.
The fact is we all engage in this addictive behavior to some extent. Some are just not drug addicts. But the delusive nature is the same none the less. It all amounts to desire to relieve suffering, to make this life seem permanent, concrete, whole, and happy.
The only way out of this trap is to see that desire is futile. You have to see the transience of this world. Time passes, things change, happiness goes, sadness comes. We have to turn inward and recognize that which never changes. There is within you an eye that watches this whole melodrama you call life pass by as a mosaic.
This eye or I is the witness to your anxiety, depression, desire, and addiction. It watches you with compassion and love. it’s not going to step in and rip you away from your love for the illusory world, but it’s always there awaiting your return. The return is possible in every moment. if you can turn inward, look away from your pet desire for one second…notice the silence inside. Focus on that for a split second. There is peace there, there is liberation in that calm space.
At first it is terrifying. But try to rest there. Recognize what it is! It is beyond the passing nature of this world, your life, and your addictions. In that place there is not just happiness, there is bliss. Here there is not just love, there is agape. This is where you rest as your true nature. Addiction, if you will investigate it has always been a desire to return to this place. It’s so close to you that you don’t see it. It’s what you already are.
From the place where love manifest I call to you, recognize what you already are, look inward and see the place where you and I have always dwelt. Here is your peace, your happiness, your rest. I’m waiting for you.
Remember addiction is part of the illusion, it to only lasts for a time. It is doomed to die. But what you are will still be HERE and NOW. It’s waiting to welcome you home.
In Love,
HD
