Addictive behavior is one of the most troubling for people who go through it.
Overeating (my personal biggie many years ago), drinking alcohol, drugs, porn, relationship obsessing, emails, sex, internet surfing, smoking.
If you’ve ever had even one fogged-out trance-like escapist episode, you might come up for air later and often wonder what happened….and how you can make sure it never happens again.
Only it does.
People write to me all the time asking about how to do The Work on the cycle of addiction.
It doesn’t actually matter what your deal is, whether eating, ingesting something, doing something mindless and apparently time-wasting…..the main thing is that you notice a lack of presence.
And often, a sense that you are experiencing something not exactly helpful for your life. Or downright harmful and death-oriented.
What Byron Katie and many thought teachers often say is, just keep doing The Work, keep looking at your thought patterns and what you believe about everything that bugs you, everything that brings up stress….and you’ll notice that the urge to use will lessen, and then vanish.
But what if it’s not exactly vanishing? Or what if you’re so exhausted by the addictive behavior that the main stress you see is your horrible relationship with that substance?
Just start there.
I hate this cycle. I hate overeating. Why? Because it does nothing for me, it’s bizarre, I keep doing it with the same results. I can’t control myself.
Recently I was working with a wonderful inquirer who has suffered terribly with binge-eating. She has, however, been studying herself in a lighter way in the past couple of years.
Before, when she overate, she detested herself, thought of herself as totally and completely self-defeating. But now, she was open to understanding better the spell that would come over her called a “binge”.
And she had recently discovered something. Just like I did long ago.
BEFORE the feeling of urgency to eat entered, there was an uncomfortable feeling that had nothing to do with food. And guess what came along with (almost simultaneously) before that uncomfortable feeling?
A troubling thought.
Believing something scary, alarming, worrisome, nerve-wracking or terrifying. And believing that was actually true. And not knowing what to do with all the fear.
Bam. Eat. Smoke. Drink. Text that person you’ve been obsessed with. Hunt for workshops to sign up for online. Buy another spiritual non-duality book.
But it’s really OK if you don’t even know what the thought was before you felt like doing your addictive thing.
Like I said, you start with what is prominent, what is screaming in your head. That will be a stepping stone to the next thing.
You can trust the process.
I hate this addictive cycle.
Is that true?
Duh. Of course it’s true.
Are you sure? Are you completely positive? What do you mean by “hate”?
No. I am not completely sure that it’s true that I hate it.
How do you react when you believe you hate the cycle of addiction and everything about it?
I attack it. I hate food. I hate myself. I hate society. I blame everyone. I wish I were dead. I feel discouraged. I hate being alive.
Your reaction may not be so dramatic. The way you react may be that you make a plan. You sign a contract. You vow. You go through a treatment program. You promise. You control yourself.
But who would you be without the thought that you HATE this addictive cycle?
If you really stay and sit with this idea for awhile, even for five minutes, you may notice that something inside of you relaxes. The energy of “hate” which is like an intense feeling of fear surging outward (or however you might describe it) doesn’t have so much vigor behind it.
What if you LOVE the addictive cycle?
Ha ha, kind of funny right? But what if there is something, up to now, that has been useful about the whole thing (apparently)? Even though it has hurt and been so uncomfortable….perhaps it has given you something you thought you needed.
What if you’re not wrong, to have experienced your addiction?
What has been good about it?
Maybe there is another way to find relief, freedom, letting go, power, kindness, soothing, clarity, or love. That has no side effects.
You can find the way. You will, in just the right time, the right moment.
“Who would want their mind to be quiet if they understood it, if they really understood it? If they could meet all their thoughts with unconditional love, which is what these questions bring, then who would want the mind to shut up? Who would want to escape or change it? We haven’t been able to quiet the mind. And we haven’t been able to meditate it down or medicate it down, not for long. It looks like we have control over it until we get the parking ticket. So instead of fighting our thoughts, through these four questions we welcome them as friends.” ~ Byron Katie
I would never, ever, ever be where I am now, with this calm that accompanies me almost all the time around food, without the severity of the food addiction and cravings and urges.
I LOVE that I had that cycle of addiction. It served me beyond anything else possible to study this mind and wake up, wake up, wake up, over and over again.
“Our work is not to change what you do, but to witness what you do with enough awareness, enough curiosity, enough tenderness that the lies and old decisions upon which the compulsion is based become apparent and fall away. When you no longer believe that eating will save your life when you feel exhausted or overwhelmed or lonely, you will stop.” ~ Geneen Roth
Much love, Grace