An addiction is a strong urge or
craving towards a certain habit, behavior, or thinking pattern. With an addiction, one becomes enslaved to a
substance or action that brings about a particular reward, typically – but not
always – a euphoric one. It’s important
to understand addictions are not limited only to drugs, alcohol, food, and sex,
but can also be found in negative thought patterns, views of oneself, ideas
about people, beliefs about life, etc. The
bottom line is most of us have an addiction to something that makes us feel
stuck and often times overwhelmed. This
may make it seem as though you will never be free…
Although it
might seem hopeless it is possible though to work through an addiction of any
severity. By understanding your
addiction, and with the help of meditation, mindfulness, supportive friends,
and perhaps a therapist/rehab, you can free yourself from the shackles that
bind you to your addiction. In my years
of studying my own mind and those of clients/friends with addictions, I have
found there to be two main aspects of an addiction that keeps you locked into
it’s seductive grips: 1) the feelings you don’t want to feel and 2) the
cravings for the feelings you do want to feel.
In most cases, there are certain emotions, thoughts, or feelings that
seem too overwhelming or painful to face.
Some examples are: loneliness, emptiness, depression, anxiety, fear, and
grief. When these feelings enter your
being it may appear as though they will never go away; as if you will have to
experience them for the rest of your life.
This is when the addictive behavior makes sense. “I don’t like how I feel, and it doesn’t seem
like it’s going to just magically go away, so I need to do ___________ to
feel better.” Fill in the blank with
your escape method(s). Although it may
feel that certain feelings will never go away, this is in fact a false
belief. Feelings, thoughts, emotions,
and sensations come and go throughout the day.
Nothing is ever static, and if you begin to pay attention with
mindfulness you will find that everything changes all the time. Please note, this does not mean that certain
feelings or thoughts will not re-occur many times throughout the day, but just
that they will come and go like clouds passing through the vast, open sky.
For an
addict, it’s important to get in touch with these underlying feelings and
cravings running the addiction, and learn to have the courage to stay with the
discomfort, rather than immediately trying to flee. Meditation is a useful tool for this as it
teaches you to stay with whatever may be happening in the moment in an open and
relaxed way. By continuously facing and
allowing these uncomfortable feelings to stay there you are slowly releasing
yourself from their powerful grip. Over
a long period of time the feelings will become more manageable and spacious,
but don’t expect results overnight. I
faced feelings of emptiness, hopelessness, and anxiety for four out of the five
years I have been practicing meditation, until one day it finally decided to
dissipate. I am reminded of The Shawshank Redemption, when Andy
Dufresne, after years of scraping pebbles from his prison wall, finally broke through
the prison and escaped. Every time you
stay with the discomfort you are scraping a few more pebbles from the prison
walls of addiction. Keep facing the
feelings and cravings – feel them fully without acting on them – and you will
eventually escape from your personal prison.
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