The Nature of Addiction

I’ve been fortunate enough to help a lot of people overcome some very serious and long term addictions. To do so it’s necessary to understand both the nature of time and the nature of addiction. In regards to the latter, it’s important to remember that the people who get angry all the time are addicted to anger in exactly the same way that a cocaine addict “needs” cocaine. The difference is, one person thinks some thoughts and that leads them to get in their car and drive to go buy drugs, while the other person scans the world constantly for things that will piss them off and then they think about those things over and over until they’ve dosed themselves with the brain chemistry for their drug.

That’s why when you drive with an angry person they’ll find reasons to be angry all over the place when you couldn’t see any of them. It’s just like finding the drug dealer’s house. You can’t go get the chemistry if you don’t know where to look. So the nature of addiction isn’t that you want the chemical itself, it’s that you’ve gotten into the unconscious habit of looking for it.

Every one of the cocaine addicts I’ve worked with hate doing cocaine. They always say they waste it because the entire time they’re doing it they experience guilt over the fact that they bought it again, including an internal discussion about what else they could be doing with the money; and they think fearful thoughts about how they will feel when they run out. It’s not like the drug use itself is super appealing after a time. It’s that they can’t break the habit of looking for it any more than the angry driver can figure out how to get to work without judging every decision every other driver makes.

The second aspect is time. You don’t quit drugs for life right now. That’s silly. How would you possibly do that? Now is only now. It’s not all-time. So you can’t quit for three weeks now. It’ll take three weeks. You’ll do that quitting then, when that then is Now. (I know, I’m sorry, our language wasn’t built to discuss this idea.) The point is: Now is the only time you can actually take action in. So stop setting dates and saying to yourself, “after this I quit.” Because you can’t quit then, now. Even quitting is the wrong word. It’s not that you quit drugs or quit getting angry. It’s that you do something else instead.

A cocaine addict doesn’t quit drugs on the 15^th and then not want them on the 16^th. On the 16^th the same tilt in their brain will cause them to want to go in that direction. It is then, in that now that the person can make an alternate choice. They can choose to do something other than the drug.

So do you see that you don’t quit anything? You’re always doing something, it’s simply a matter of what. So if you want to quit cocaine or stop getting angry so much, then you have to assume a moment-by-moment awareness over your thought processes. You have to be consciously aware of what you’re thinking and where it will lead. Once you can do that you’ll choose directions more often favourable to you.

Fortunately both anger and the anxiousness of a drug addiction can be quite helpful. Those unpleasant feelings help signal to us that we’ve let our thinking drift into unhelpful territory. Isn’t that handy? That nature created that little warning system? Like a dog with a shock collar, once we step outside of our healthy space we get a signal to remind us to turn our thinking around and change our direction toward only those choices that are productive and/or enjoyable.

Don’t battle your addictions, be they to chemicals you produce, or ones produced by a drug company or criminal cartel. You don’t stop experiences like that in one moment. Life is a moment to moment decision-making process. Once people realise this they will tell you it is surprisingly easy to quit. None of them have any desire to return to those thought patterns now that they’ve changed them. That’s how you know you’ve really changed. There’s no tension. There isn’t a battle. Because when you chose something better than your addiction, you did it because that’s what you really wanted to do.

Quit quitting. Live instead. You’re always doing something. Start being more aware of all of the potential choices you have to fill every single moment. If you do, filling moments the same way will seem strange and illogical. And once you can see your life as a choice like that, you’re free. Not only from your worst addiction, but from all of them.

Have a wonderful day. And do it by choice. Moment by moment.

peace. s

Scott McPherson is an Edmonton-based writer, public speaker, and mindfulness facilitator who works with individuals, companies and non-profit organizations locally and around the world.

Scott McPherson

I help people achieve better mental health by teaching them about reality.