This is the cycle, a loop and a chain reaction behind addiction. Sure, part of it is hedonistic experiment but most of it is trying to outrun the devil you’ve imagined or a real one, trying to numb what you don’t want to feel or fill the void of feeling nothing with anything than emptiness. Addiction becomes a perpetual mobile, a true self-sustaining emotional system in a real alchemy transforming something into nothing or producing its own energy to burn through and start the cycle again.

Pain exhausts us and in order to conserve energy and not hurt, anything that numbs it is our friend at that moment – be it a chunk of cake, looking down the bottom of a bottle, promiscuity, gossiping and being sadistic or self-righteous… We can be addicted to absolutely anything at all. It doesn’t have to be pulled from the “dangerous chemicals” cabinet to be an addiction, it mostly isn’t. We can equally snort it as we could speak it and act it out but the loop is the same – pain, numb, feels great, shame, pain – and moves itself again when it hits the trigger feeling for a new coiling. So the only solution is to break the loop and step into your integrity. You already know that what you’re doing is messed up, and not in a “cute, but psycho, but cute” kind of way. This is growing up – understanding that not all will be tolerated but there will be (for the most part) no pending punishment from the outside censor if we behave like a jerk (unless your addiction is one of the highly visible established against-the-law” ones or a direct harm or danger to others). We have to mature enough to become our own censor and implement self-discipline and then enough to deal with emotions that need censoring before the cascade even begins.

Start unscrewing yourself from the machine… and, well, unscrewing yourself generally. Become mindful of your day and pay attention – if there is a behavior emerging that makes you feel good while you’re engaged in it and brings shame afterwards, or already during, making you feel you’ve somehow betrayed your own code and it keeps repeating – that’s your addiction. This is a perverse little secret coping mechanism we concoct to protect a larger issue. If there is no shame involved and you enjoy it – it is not an addiction. If it harms you or others and there is no shame or remorse you might just be too auto destructive to notice it or too lazy to change. Let’s hold ourselves to a greater standard and not say or do things that push us out of our integrity. Split into two if you need to for a while – a you who is doing stuff and an observer you – who notices when you’re heading downhill on the slippery slope. You’ll slide back into the mud SO. MANY. TIMES. That’s all right, wipe it off and try again, and again and again. One of these days you’ll get tired of screwing yourself over and do it right.