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- Addiction is...
- By: SAMANTHA RICHARDSON
“Addiction” is a nasty word. When we hear it we get flashes of sad, cliched images and we think “no, not me. I’m not addicted. I’m not an addict. I’ve got my life together.” According to the dictionary, addiction is “the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, to such an extent that it’s cessation causes severe trauma”. Perhaps we can be better served by redefining it as simply “if we don’t have it or if we don’t do it, we miss it”. We’ve got cigarettes, drugs and alcohol to depend on. There’s gambling addiction, shop-ping addiction and sex addiction. We can be addicted to food, addicted to work, addicted to television and addicted to exercise. We laugh about our chocolate addiction and over-look our caffeine dependency (but I only drink one cup per day!) without realising that these can be just as dangerous and damaging to our sense of inner strength and how we perceive ourselves. On a more subtle level we have addiction and dependency in relationships and on the drama and patterns we play out again and again. Are we addicted to the need to be seen as always right, always strong, always perfect? Are we dependent on other’s approval and do we need it to be happy? Are we addicted to the illusion that we are in control of our lives? That we can control what other’s think of us? That we can control our children or our lovers? Whether physical, psychological or emotional, addiction and dependency always serve us in some way, for some brief moment in time. If we consider addiction again as “when we don’t have it, we miss it”, can we observe discomfort within when our sense of “control” is taken away from us; when our morning routine is broken; when we are cut off in traffic or when people don’t behave the way we want them to? We are all addicted to our own point of view and our own way of looking at the world and as with all addictions, it is not until the consequences get too much that we think to change. So, we’re all addicted to something but what do we do about it? Get addicted to some-thing better of course! If we drink alcohol every day we could discover the incredible benefits of exercise, if we use Valium, we may find meditation to soothe the mind and slow down the speed of our thoughts and if control is our drug of choice, we work on developing acceptance of what is. Society often tells us when our dependencies reach dangerous levels but ultimately it is our own inner experience that tells us when and how to change our lives - we simply need to listen.Susan Living