Addiction, Attachments and Emotional balance

Addiction begins because we seek equilibrium in our lives. Picture a man in rural India bringing water from a colse to river. He has a bucket on the end of a pole and the pole over his shoulder. He finds it impossible to keep the water steady and in the bucket while walking back to the village because the bucket is weighing him down on one side, he is not in balance. The clarification is to attach an equal size bucket to the other end of the pole creating balance.

In the same way, we seek emotional balance. If we sense some trauma, pain or wound, we plainly seek some distinct emotion that is equal in intensity to the negative emotion of the trauma or pain. We may find that distinct feeling in experimenting with drugs, drinking alcohol, throwing ourselves into work, eating ice cream, going on a shopping spree or acting out sexually. The source of our distinct emotion will depend on what is available to us, what is a part of our world at the time and what is truly accessible.

Addiction In Drugs

The power of the addiction finds its source in our need to be in equilibrium emotionally. The pain that we have experienced drives us toward pleasure. Once we sense the pleasure, we attach ourselves to it. Whenever we are triggered by pain, we seek the distinct feeling of our addiction. Very soon the pattern becomes roughly involuntary and our attachment to the distinct feeling keeps us going back for more. We have now industrialized an addiction.

It is leading to mention here that this pattern is often driven chemically as well as emotionally. Because our emotions are affected by our hormones, the presence of alcohol, drugs or the adrenaline of a pleasurable sense can help us turn the projection from feeling depressed and down to feeling joyful and happy. We swiftly learn what we must do to trigger this chemically induced "high".

Since this attachment is the beginning of addiction, it is also the key to overcoming addiction. Some habitancy strike their addiction by using accountability or "tough love" to help them stop anything the addictive operation is. The question with this coming is that it does not address what drives the addiction; the pain. In fact, the pain of giving up our addictive pattern usually makes our desire for our attachment even stronger. One of two things usually happens; whether we go back to the addiction or we plainly change to other attachment. I have seen alcoholics become chain smokers, chain smokers become over-eaters and over-eaters become gym rats!

True leisure from an addictive pattern can only be found when we effectively deal with the pain which lead to the initial attachment. Looking medical and resolution for our pain through therapy, forgiveness, and distinct relationships can sell out the inner drive for the attachment to the source of our pleasure. We cannot change the events of our past which led to our pain, but we can learn to issue the power of that pain so that it no longer drives us toward addiction. Going back to the Picture of the man from India, if we can take some water out of the first bucket, we can sell out the need for the second bucket. This is true recovery.

Addiction, Attachments and Emotional balance