A Quick Introduction about Addictions

A Quick Introduction about Addictions

Yes I know, this article seems to be quite long for an "introduction", but if I really wanted to write an integral article about the addiction topic, I would be losing readers by the length of it…

So in here, I am not going to define addiction literally, I am more inclined to the emotional side. Just before I move on to the explanatory part, I'll be giving you some examples of addictions:

I – Some examples of addictive behaviors

1. Drugs :

Those are very well known addictions, like hard street drugs, alcohol, tobacco… Or soft ones like coffee, tea or food, yes food is a soft drug too if you're overeating or if you're always eating junk food.

2. Technology :

Always moving around immersed in your phone/smartphone? Can't stay the evening at home without watching TV, or checking your Facebook profile? Hell, even Video Games are addictions, not only console games, but also the tiny games you play on the internet or your smartphone…

3. Emotional :

Most of the things I am going to state here are considered by the general public as positive things, but when these become addictions, they are not positive anymore…

Socialization: Ever seen someone who can't stop talking? Or even worse, gossiping? Ever met somebody who likes to party, party and party every single holiday? You are looking at addicts…

Love & Relationships: As strange as this may be, it's just because this is such a common thing that it became normal… People feel like "They can't live without love", that "All we need in this world is to love and be loved"… Well, I agree that it's true… But people now get addicted to that, and the result is: They are moving from abusive and dysfunctional relationship to another… Some other very common type of emotional addiction worth mentioning in this part is pornography and sexual intercourse.

Thinking & day-dreaming: This is also a big one, we are so worried about our well-being, money, work, family, partner, home, bills, government… etc… All this worrying will never leave our mind free from thoughts, not even at night when you need to sleep…

4. Monetary :

We can have monetary addictions in so many different ways… Some ways are obvious such as shopping or overspending, another obvious addiction is to be stingy and greedy, get addicted to economizing and assembling money to the point of starvation and deprivation… But there are some tricky and subtle monetary addictions… Some people are workaholics, or are addicted to success, success is a good thing too, but when we're addicted to it, we will be constantly craving for rewards and validation…

II – What are MY addictions?

I am sure that you have recognized some when reading the list of addictions, but now that I've mentioned it, some addictions are so subtle you won't even notice you have them… So I'm going to give you some signs to recognize if any behavior you do is addictive or normal.

1. The origin of all addictions

"Fear of emptiness" here is the word!  When you are all alone in an empty room with nothing to do, you tend, from your childhood, to try to avoid and escape that state by distracting yourself with anything possible.

So it's easy… To recognize an addiction, just sit around and do NOTHING. Any behavior you think about doing, whether it's turning on your TV or checking your phone, all of these are addictions… Even when you sit there and just think about reading a book, that's an addiction too, remember, anything you think about doing when you're bored and empty is an addiction… It can be ANYTHING!

2. Guilt

Well, guilt is not a perfect measure to detect addictions. I never remember feeling guilty after reading a book… But guilt is the way to detect hard and difficult addictions, the ones that will give you most trouble.

It's pretty straightforward to explain, anything you do that will give you the feeling of being full and fulfilled outside but empty inside, guilty and hollow, is a hard addiction… If you keep doing it despite that feeling, you're a hard addict!

III – Solutions

Now is the very tricky part, although I am going to state different facts from studies and observations, still, most of this information is my personal point of view…

1. Facing your "inner demons"

To overcome your addiction, face it head-on, don't go into fantasy land or distract yourself, be very mindful and aware. Just sit there and experience the cravings, if you can't sit alone in an empty room doing nothing, you can't understand how important it is. Because life was empty from the start and you've been running away from that. The nature of "being" itself is emptiness, it seems depressing and negative, but remember that all your life you've been "doing", you never experienced "being" in its fullest, and that's the problem… The feeling of "being" and not "doing" is incredible!

2. Contemplation

If you can't sit alone without wandering away with your mind and getting distracted, then I've got a big thought for you to think about while sitting alone: Contemplate your own death, you will be dead someday right? You will be experiencing neither silence nor darkness, it's even emptier, it's "NOTHING"… Sit with that and think about it, that's "the void"... That's what you were before you were born, and what you will be when you're dead…Be careful, this might lead to an existential crisis, but you need to face that at some point in your life, if you want to conquer addictions sustainably.

For your information, you won't be able to conquer totally all of your addictions, you just need to make peace with them, surrender yourself to the purifying fire of emptiness. Your mind and body are going to go crazy with cravings and thoughts, but without doing this, you are going to fall back, because the solution was temporary, you swept the emptiness under the rug. The ultimate very mature solution requires emotional distress, not replacing a bad habit with a good habit, that's still in the addiction category!

3. Results and conclusion

This is indeed very challenging and nobody wants to do it, you try to avoid the emotional labor, but running from that emotional labor is the origin of all addictions in the first place, a vicious cycle…

So to conclude, your mission is not to "quit" the addiction, or replace the bad addiction with a good addiction. You just need to be aware and conscious of it, notice it and contemplate it… Do some existential investigation… And the results would be: You either totally quit it because you found a "positive" reason to do so, and not a negative one (like "smoking kills"), or another result of this contemplation would be that you control your behavior very responsibly, this will not only make it no more an addiction, but you will also enjoy doing it a lot more…

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If you like this article, then stay tuned. I will be publishing more articles in the future about the same subject, which is the counter-intuitive things that we never do, that are the true solution!

M.K. Ibn Hadj Kacem

Thursday April 21st 2016