Dear Members:
I wrote this to a member and thought it might be of general interest. Suppression is not dealing with it, and usually dealing with it is only a silly alternative addiction that is more socially acceptable.
An addiction that hasn't been dis-created will just come back in a different form or pattern. Then people will say, 'I have an addictive personality'. That's B.S. in my opinion. No one has a personality to start with, just a bunch of repetitious behavior.
If you can't drink alcohol, you are an addict to not drinking, if you can't drink enough, you are an addict to drinking. If you can have a beer on a hot day and take a nap, then you are probably just tired.
If you can't go into a mosque and pray with everyone, you are addicted to mosques, if you have to pray every day (or pretend as many do) then you are also addicted.
If you can join this forum and come and go as you please, you aren't addicted to it, you simply are.
If you are free to do or not do anything you feel like, then you have reached H/A. Which you are anyways, but keep lying to yourself that you are not.
O.K. Here is where I get nasty... and I know I am going to offend many people but that's their challenge not mine. Nothing real can be offended, only illusion.
Think of an organization that says you have a disease, let's call it ''x''. You can never be cured, (that's your first clue) but you can have an alternative addiction, you can join some ''X'' organization and become addicted to it instead. Now, to my way of thinking, nothing has changed, fundamentally. You are still thinking you are a person with a problem. NO! The only problem is that you think you are a person. Only persons can have problems. Living a lie is fine if that's what you want, but it's just not a hell of a lot of fun. Often it also causes considerable problems for others as well.
These particular challenges do not exist anywhere 'out there'... in a bottle or a drug. They are in you, as are all the answers. I'm not saying it's easy, I'm saying that they way (most) of you are living is very, very, difficult, tiring, painful and hurtful to self and others, and it need not be. Resist and it will persist. You are resisting an unimaginable volume of stuff, virtually all of existence... and you wonder why you are tired.
How about this... just let it all be what it is, as it is. Let yourself be what you are, as you are, no more need for stories, he said, she said, just gently allow everything to be. If you find yourself arguing with what I have written, thinking ''but what about....'' or ''he doesn't know what he's saying'' or, ''That doesn't apply to me''. Then I know what your life is like and I wouldn't want it for the world and it's beyond me why you would.
When you know that you know nothing, you will have all you ever need at your fingertips. It's the simplest thing in the world, but very, very few folks have the courage to let go without knowing what's next... and there's the rub... you can't know what's next. I never met a fortune tell that was anything but bone broke.
So, what are you addicted to... talking about yourself, thinking you are important, thinking all your silliness is real, thinking you need love when you are love, thinking you, you, you, you, you, you.
Lately I've been enjoying some great pizza, I think I may be eating too many or them, what do you think of my mozzarella-ism. Thin crust only, hate thick crust.... lovely little Mediterranean restaurant up the road. Run by the Turkish mafia, but I really like the guy... one slice is to many and a thousand are not enough. I'm screwed. As I walk down the street in the evening (I'm not joking here) I have the pizza beckoning me on my left and the tuk tuk driver trying to sell me opium and the other side of the street. Hmmmmm.... gotta have my pizza.
You always have that choice, the left or the right. Don't ever let anyone tell you that it was done to them. I am so bad I bought my own bottle of tabasco sauce and keep it in my motorbike, just in case. I've even been known to buy pizzas for other people to see if I can induce addictions, but they just eat, wipe their chin and wash it down with a beer. I'm on a very strict pizza and soda water diet, but looking forward to changing my addiction to Expresso and croissants, perhaps tomorrow, but I can't tell what's going to happen tomorrow, it's a surprise.
Take a moment and ask yourself what you could let go of. Just find one thing today that you would gentle release, something not needed, some burden, some forgiveness required. You know... that one, yes... that one!
Love ya, Jed.