|
Kana -> RE: ADDICTS (12/11/2013 1:01:19 PM)
|
quote:
Addiction's are really OCD and addictive personality in general.
Standard recovery dogma is that addiction is a threefold illness.
It has a spiritual component which manifests itself in extreme self-centeredness, what NA would call the triangle of self obsession.
It has a mental aspect in that the addict has what AA terms a"peculiar mental blind spot" when it comes to a drink or drug the addict is unable to recall with sufficient force the pain and the humiliation of prior bad experiences.More precisely, this manifests itself as an obsession of the type whereas the idea overrides any and all other ideas to the contrary.In laymans terms,once the idea of using enters the addicts mind, the train has jumped the tracks and it's gonna happen. This is the mental obsession.
If progressed far enough, it develops into the physical addiction, where the addict cannot function w/o the substance. In the case of alkies and junkies, withdrawal/going without can be fatal. Hard core junkies have a great term for this, after a while they don't talk about getting high, they call using getting well.
The general perception is that people sicken in that order,spiritually, mentally and then physically. They get well in obverse order. First they kick,then they put on some weight,maybe stop shaking all the time. After a while, they start to think straight from time to time. Then, they start to heal spiritually.
Personally,I think its a mental illness rooted in spiritual deficiencies.
I've never met an addict who wasn't ashamed.
Not guilty.
Ashamed
(There's a huge and critical difference between the two. Guilt is how one feels about their actions.Shame is how one feels about themselves as a being).
Never met one who didn't have a voice in his belly saying they were less than.
Never met one who in their heart of hearts didn't feel inadequate.
That's the root of addiction.
That leads to separation, fear, isolation, alienation, all those wonderful emotions that form the tree of addiction.
In turn, these turn into massive internal conflict, essentially a person engaging in World War Me, always at odds between their values/morals/beliefs/self-image/what they think they should be and how they should behave and their actions. This causes duality and that causes friction. This is where you get the old saying that an alcohol is just a drunk with a conscience.
For these people, mind and mood altering chemicals have a different effect than the way they hit normal people. For the addict, the drug shuts that conflict up.
Best way I ever heard it described is, "If you knew how I felt when I'm not using, you'd understand why I use."
Now where this comes from I dunno. Might be genetic. Might be psychological. Might be environmental (What? Grow up in an alcoholic house you grew up with secrets, fear, shame, hiding, whatever. People learn lots of stuff they never suspect they are in taking...but they do.Magnolia has a wonderful line in it,goes "We might be done with the past but the past isn't done with us."Grow up in an addictive household and it will certainly impact, mold and help form the personality)
Course, there's another potential cause.
Consider this.In modern America,something like 10% of the country is alcoholic. Another 10% are drug addicts,though I suspect those numbers contain some crossover (Pure 100 proofers are rare rare things these days. Most everybody in a meeting is an "and a")30-40% of the country uses some form of medication either as a mood stabilizer,sleep aid,mild tranquilizer or accelerant (think ritalin for ADHD)-meaning somewhere between 50-60% of our country needs to be fucked upon a regular basis to cohesively function within said society.
At what % do we stop blaming the individuals and start looking at the society?
|
|
|
|
