One of the biggest “trap” questions I’m asked is, “Can Addiction be cured?” Over the years, I’ve wavered because sometimes I think it can, but other times, I’m just not sure.
However, while I understand that Addiction is an individualized disease, I think that overall, it can be cured. Quite frankly, the truth is that it’s a simple solution: We must first love and respect our best self and then love and respect others’ best self. As usual, it may sound hokey, a bit religious, or even overly simplified; however, in spite of how it sounds, the reality is that if we did love and respect our best self and others’ best self, there would be no need of drugs or behaviors upon which an Addiction is based.
Humanity craves, on a very deep and basic level, some form of fulfillment. The trouble we face is that day-to-day life doesn’t really afford many opportunities to understand what fulfillment really means. It’s easy to become lost in the needs of life; bills, salary, raising kid all add up and can separate us from our best self. But life has taught me, many times over, that if we allow ourselves to seek that best version of our self, then we will in fact find it. And really, once we find it, our awareness will expand which will then allow us to see others’ best self.
People take drugs for many reasons. There are two (2) reasons that I do see over and over again: 1) to numb deep pain; and, 2) to try and feel as good as possible. But these reasons are flawed because if we lived through our best self, our pain would recede and we would experience life without the need to “feel” any better than our normal state, as our normal state would be one of real and unfiltered joy.
The catch is that there is no one way to find our best self. Everyone has a path and must find their own best self as their situation allows. But there are ways that all people can at least begin to seek. Meditation, prayer, and reflective writing are all available to all people. Self-literacy isn’t a gift to the rich; we all can learn to become self-literate and act towards and through that self-literacy.
The starting point, really, is to see past the “weeds” that life presents and dig deeper until we find that divinity inside ourselves that we all share. I have no doubt that when we do, Addiction will have no place in our reality and will go away. So, from here on out: ADDICTION CAN BE CURED and we ALL have the tools with which we can cure it.
January 4, 2016 at 7:30 am
I’ve heard many say addiction cannot be cured, but managed. This may have come about because of stigmatism and the disease model, the “once an addict, always an addict,” phrase.
But, by the very definition of the word addiction (dependence, habit) people can be ‘un-addicted’ or stop their dependence and habit. As you’ve written about before, stigmatization ‘helps’ dependence.