The Seat of the Soul by Gary Zukav

Author:Gary Zukav [Gary Zukav]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Spiritual, Psychology, Body; Mind & Spirit, General, Inspiration & Personal Growth, Self-Help
ISBN: 9781416561934
Google: B3FKm4Q8ARMC
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2007-06-19T21:09:53+00:00

10

Addiction

YOU CANNOT BEGIN the work of releasing an addiction until you can acknowledge that you are addicted. Until you realize that you have an addiction, it is not possible to diminish its power. The personality rationalizes its addictions. It dresses them in attractive clothing. It presents them to itself and others as desirable or beneficial. A person who is addicted to alcohol, for example, will say to herself or himself, or to others, that drunkenness is a way of loosening up, of relaxing after a tense day, of having fun, and, therefore, it is constructive. A person who is addicted to sex will say to herself or himself, or to others, that random sexual encounters are expressions of closeness, or love, that they reflect an evolved and liberated perception, and, therefore, they are desirable.

Recognition of your own addictions requires inner work. It requires that you look clearly at the places where you lose power in your life, where you are controlled by external circumstances. It requires going through your defenses. Even when striving for clarity, or when outer circumstances—such as injury caused by driving drunk, or a marriage wrecked by promiscuity—provide evidence of an addiction, the personality often clings to a perception of its addiction as a mere problem, initially, as a small problem, then as a bigger problem, and then as a significant problem.

Why does the personality resist acknowledging its addictions?

Acknowledging an addiction, accepting that you have an addiction, is acknowledgment that a part of you is out of control. The personality resists acknowledging its addictions because that forces it to choose to leave a part of itself out of control, or to do something about it. Once an addiction has been acknowledged, it cannot be ignored, and it cannot be released without changing your life, without changing your self-image, without changing your entire perceptual and conceptual framework. We do not want to do that because it is our nature to resist change. Therefore, we resist acknowledging our addictions.

An addiction is not merely an attraction. It is natural for males and females to admire each other, for example, and to feel a warmth and attraction toward each other. An addiction is more than that. An addiction is characterized by magnetism and fear. There is an attraction plus fear, plus a jolt of energy that is out of proportion to the situation. Attractions are a pleasing part of life. They can be satisfied and left behind, but addictions cannot.

An addiction cannot be satiated. A sexual addiction, for example, cannot be satisfied by sex. This is the first clue that the dynamic that is involved in what appears to be a sexual addiction is not sexual, but that the experiences of addictive sexual attraction, or repulsion, serve a deeper dynamic.

An addiction can be anesthetized. A sexual addiction, for example, can be made dormant within a relationship by a fear of losing the security of the relationship, but it cannot be healed without a recognition that it is there, and an understanding of the dynamic that lies beneath it.

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