Addiction is a shape shifting Bastard

 

Addiction is a tricky and insidious thing. I have come to understand that it is much more than addiction to obvious things, such as drugs, alcohol, nicotine, even love. I have come to believe that these things get much more attention because they truly destroy lives, and in the grip of the addiction we are rendered powerless by making the object of our addiction our Higher Power. We worship it. We form our lives around it. We put it above all else, including our freedom and our life.

However, I have been watching other forms of addiction that are even sneakier, as they don’t usually render people homeless or end them up in four point restraints. The ones I have been observing recently are drama addiction, rage addiction, negative self talk addiction, and self sabotage addiction, just to name a few.
The physiological component of addiction that involves neuropeptides and cell receptor sites dictates that there is a cellular need to generate more of the same proteins involved in any of the feelings created by the addiction. It doesn’t have to be a feeling that you ‘like’; you may even hate it. That doesn’t mean you aren’t addicted to it.  You get emotionally hijacked.  You get disconnected from reality, carried away. And on a cellular level,  by creating more proteins, it creates more cell receptor sites on the cells, like little baby birds begging for food. So then a person seeks out emotionally hijacking situations that will stimulate the production of these proteins to feed their little baby birds that are craving CRAVING more more MORE, and by feeding them makes MORE baby birds, who crave MORE proteins, and on and on. So then what? We are robots. Slaves to this cycle, looking for exactly the things we think we DON’T want, but when one is in the grip, it is difficult to even acknowledge it.

In drug and alcohol addiction, there comes a point where one can not even deny there is a problem. The last wheel starts to come off and you know there is nothing left. But with the more subtle addictions, a whole life can be spent in the grip without any ‘waking up’- whole lives defined by, programmed by addictions such as these. They may have had their origin in childhood, with family- often they do- but regardless of the source, the outcome is certain if we don’t do something different.

So what do we do? How do we know?

Contrary action. Herein lies a spiritually significant tool to real paradigm shifts on a cellular level. Simply do things different. Anything you do that is typical of you, do something else.

I have been finding myself making statements about myself- “I don’t do that,” “That’s just the way I am,” or “I’m not like that.” I have been trying to stop and make note of these defining statements, so I could try to do something different. I want to let go of any ideas I have about myself, so I don’t get stuck. I have things that I really identify with, that I don’t want to let go of, but I still need to try to do something else, just to see. Otherwise, how will I know? How will I know if I have connected my identity to an idea that isn’t true, or was true and isn’t any longer?

Also, being of service helps define who we are.. Being of service and contrary action are both humbling. What is “humbling”, exactly? For me, it is the shrinking of the ego and the expansion of one’s soul and its connectedness to all things. In being of service, I get to learn not to take things personally. It is almost never convenient to be of service; there are always other things, in a busy and productive life, that are pressing. But it is putting things in perspective when I ask my life to wait while I help someone else; my life is not going anywhere, and anything I put in front of being of service to others, both in the recovery community or out, I will lose. Or, I should say, I could lose- the risk isn’t worth it. Being of service comes first. Principles before personality.

With just these two spiritual principles and practices, one reprograms the cycle of addiction- the cell receptor sites/ baby birds start to diminish, and you no longer have a starving army to feed, but a few little bad baby peepers will always linger. New cell receptor sites will replace those. This is how good habits form on the bones of bad ones. Esteem-able acts create self esteem, and then you create good cell receptor sites hungry for more self esteem, and the only thing to feed that is more esteem-able acts. And then you want that. It becomes a life, and one worth living. One that always responds, one that puts you down stream of bliss, one that interacts with you in the divine choreography of life. One that fills you with a sense of awe and joy and purpose. Its the exact opposite of what the ego wants for you, which is why doing the exact opposite works.