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| Understanding the Causes of Drug Addiction | Educational Resources | |||||||||||||||||
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Page 2 of Understanding Addiction In this article:
ADDICTION: WHAT WE DO IN THE ABSENCE OF REAL LOVE In the last section we discussed a new defintion of addiction and learned that without sufficient Real Love in our lives, the pain and emptiness are intolerable. In order to eliminate or reduce these feelings, we’re willing to do almost anything. This desire to eliminate pain is the key to understanding the causes of addiction. When we find something that temporarily reduces the emptiness and pain of not having enough of that one element essential to our emotional health (Real Love), we pursue that temporary source of relief—that substance, person, feeling, or behavior—with great zeal, even desperation, and when that desperation leads us to regularly disregard the potentially negative social, psychological, and physical consequences of our pursuit, we have satisfied the definition of addiction. Everything we use as a substitute for Real Love—to temporarily make us feel better in the absence of what we really need—becomes a form of Imitation Love, and all those substitutes fall into one or more of four categories: praise, power, pleasure, and safety. Praise In the absence of Real Love, we very much enjoy the acceptance and praise of others, and we’re generally willing to do a great deal to earn it. But therein lies the problem. We have to earn praise. We have to do what other people want us to do, so the approval they subsequently give us cannot feel as though it were given unconditionally. In short, the instant we do anything to get other people to like us in any way, we can’t feel genuinely loved. In addition to praise being an ineffective substitute for Real Love, its effects are also annoyingly temporary. We’ve all had the experience of working hard to purchase a moment of acceptance, only to discover that the effects wear off with astonishing speed. Then we have to earn it again, and again, and again. In fact, the more we rely on praise, the faster the effects wear off. We also have to work harder and harder for the same amount of praise. When you were four years old, for example, you could simply tie your shoes correctly and be rewarded with “Wow, you are so clever.” But you have to do a lot more than that to hear those same words now, don’t you? This continual earning of praise is exhausting. We have also learned that greater quantities of praise are required to give us the same feelings of satisfaction. Where once the slightest nod of approval may have been fulfilling, eventually we require greater displays of acceptance, then applause, then printed notices in the newspaper. Ask most professional performers about their growing and often insatiable need for praise. Eventually, no amount of praise yields satisfaction. It shouldn’t be difficult to see that the pattern we’ve described here for praise is exactly the same as for any addictive drug. Let’s make that comparison here. Any narcotics addict, for example, knows that when using his drug
The addictions to praise and drugs share another important characteristic. While people are addicted to either “substance,” the intoxication and other effects are so distracting that the users cannot feel the effects of Real Love. They can’t feel loved, and that effect alone is deadly. With the possible exception of the physical withdrawal seen in drug addiction, there is little to no difference between the addiction to drugs and the addiction to praise. It should also be emphasized—originally stated in the new definition of addiction—that the addictions to all other forms of Imitation Love follow the same patterns as those for drugs and praise, as described above. All addictions—to praise, power, pleasure, and safety—are essentially the same. They have the same characteristics, and in the end, they’re all capable of destroying our lives, because they destroy our ability to benefit from the Real Love that is essential to our emotional well-being. In order for people to smile at us, compliment us, and want to spend time with us—all signs that they accept or “love” us—we’ve learned that we usually have to be talented, beautiful, wealthy, witty, cooperative, grateful, successful, or otherwise worthy of acceptance. That kind of acceptance is conditional, because all the signs of it—the smiles and kind words, for example—disappear when we make mistakes, inconvenience people, and fail to live up to the expectations of others. Because the absence of Real Love is painful, however, we’re willing to do a lot to earn the approval that temporarily makes us feel good, even if it’s conditional. We make ourselves look good physically, for example, with exercise, clothing, makeup, starvation, and plastic surgery, all in the hope that someone will say, “You’re looking good.” We work hard to succeed at school and in our jobs in order to be complimented for our intelligence, creativity, and diligence. Power Although it’s mostly unintentional, any time we successfully manipulate or control someone, we’re enjoying a sensation of power over that person. We use money, authority, sex, flattery, and personal persuasion to influence, control, and even hurt people. When we control someone, we actually feel more connected to him or her in a brief, shallow way. It’s not Real Love, but when we control the people around us, we feel less powerless; we feel less of the emptiness and helplessness that are always associated with a lack of Real Love. Pleasure When we don’t feel unconditionally loved, we often use pleasure—food, sex, drugs, shopping, gambling, driving fast, and many forms of entertainment and excitement—to feel better temporarily. Certainly there’s nothing inherently wrong with pleasure, but when we compulsively seek it, we’re using it to fill a deep emptiness, and that pursuit easily becomes an addiction. Safety Without sufficient Real Love, we’re already experiencing an insufferable pain, and we’ll go to great lengths to keep ourselves safe from anything that might prolong or worsen our pain. To minimize painful disapproval, we stay away from unfamiliar situations, tasks, and relationships, and then we confuse that feeling of relative safety with real happiness. People who are chronically shy, for example, are addicted to safety. Alcohol and drugs are common avenues to diminish pain, yet another way to achieve safety. The Broad Face of Addiction We can become addicted to anything that diminishes the pain of not feeling loved, and that includes a broad range of “substances, people, feelings, and behaviors.” We can become addicted to
And this is an incomplete list. When we understand addiction in light of the insights above, the incidence of addiction in our society rises to well over 90%. HOW CAN I TREAT DRUG ADDICTION AND OTHER TYPES OF ADDICTION? When we understand that addiction is a pathologic pursuit of anything that will reduce the pain in our lives, usually the pain of not feeling loved, the treatment of drug addiction becomes apparent. As people learn to find Real Love—the single ingredient most important for happiness—their wounds begin to heal. They begin to find wholeness and genuine health. As the pain in their lives diminishes—and it uniformly does in the presence of Real Love—they simply lose the need to fill their emptiness with Imitation Love, which includes all the objects of addiction. People most effectively let go of their addictions not by willpower but because they have no need for them anymore. This is far more than a theory. Thousands of people have now experienced the healing power of Real Love in their lives and have then experienced the freedom of being released from the chains of their addictions. Controlled studies are being planned to demonstrate the effects of Real Love on addictions. In order to learn much more about how to find Real Love—unconditional love or true love—and with it genuine happiness and richly fulfilling relationships:
With literally hundreds of hours of Real Love online education at your fingertips on RealLove.com, we provide new content and instruction on finding happiness in your life. Learn to look at life through the clarifying lens of Real Love and eliminate the confusion and frustration in your life. |
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