What If Your Addictions Were a Blessing?

Four Lessons to Learn From One of Life's Greatest Teachers

The Angel of Addiction snares with her webbed and gnarled hook,

initiating the cycle that begins as longing for change.

The thrill of attainment, briefly sated, leads only to more craving

and fear of loss.

No ground can be gained clutching, gripping, squeezing her decrepit hand,

nor can you remain outside yourself for too long.

For even poor Icarus knew, the journey sunward was a round trip.

You must return to the source and clean up your mess

as you left it.

-Daniel DiPiazza (unreleased)

---

Both sides of my family have a history of addiction. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become less wrapped up in the judgment of “right” or “wrong” around this topic because I’ve dealt with it myself.

Instead, I’m curious about the toll that the struggle to stay clear takes on the mind and spirit of a person.

I asked myself:

What if addiction was a blessing instead of a curse?

What can we learn about ourselves from this great teacher?

Here’s what I’ve learned with certainty about addiction:

1.) To cope is human

I can’t think of anybody I know who doesn’t use some sort of substance, activity, or relationship to “take the edge” off life. Being alive can feel painful for a variety of reasons.

Sometimes we are dealing with traumatic experiences in the past or present. Sometimes we simply dread the future.

In many instances, we just want to be able to deal with the thousands of daily doubts and anxieties that come with existence.

Or we’re bored and feel a sense of purposelessness.

Or we want to numb ourselves.

We’re looking for something external to change our internal state. This never works long term—but humans are anything if not optimistic.

There are all sorts of external mechanisms to create an internal state change. Some are more benign than others.

• Drugs and alcohol

• Love and sex

• Food

• Gambling

• Shopping

• Travel

• Extreme sports and risky behaviors

• Diet and exercise

• Tattoos and body modification

• Media and other distractions

• Workaholism and “success”

• Religion and spirituality

The list goes on. Your mileage may vary.

None of these activities are inherently wrong—in fact, the mechanisms for changing your internal state are usually neutral and can often be positive.

Until they aren’t.

It’s not the mechanism itself, but your relationship to the mechanism that turns medicine into poison.

As the great Nipsey Hussle once remarked, “Anything in excess can turn from an asset to a liability.”

When the balance tips from medicine to poison, the talons of addictions sink into the fleshy hide of your spirit and begin to fly away.

This is because you’ve created meaning where there is none.

2.) False paradigms perpetuate pain

In her book The Last Word on Power, Tracy Goss describes a pervasive and pernicious conundrum subtly interwoven into the psyche of humanity since time immemorial. She calls it The Universal Human Paradigm (UHP).

It goes something like this:

“There is a way life should be and a way life shouldn’t be. When life is as it should be, everything is okay. When life is not as it should be, there is a problem with my circumstances, other people, or myself.”

The UHP is like the eyeglasses you forget you’re wearing.

It’s the water that the fish swims in.

It operates in the background.

It implies that in any given situation there is an outcome that would be objectively better because it’s preferable to you. This outcome is better because you’ve attached meaning to it based on how it affects your life.

The making of meaning is where life’s objectively neutral events get distorted into subjective pain.

Goss asserts that the problem with the UHP is that life doesn’t end up as it should or even as it shouldn’t; it simply ends up as it does—and that the gap of expectation between our assigned meaning to the events of life and the inherent neutrality of life’s events is what creates the pain.

This isn’t to say that pain isn’t real, that trauma doesn’t exist, or that suffering doesn’t count. It simply means that we are creating the frame in which the picture of life is painted by assigning a meaning to every event that happens to us.

This concept aligns with the concepts of logotherapy, developed by psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl, who asserted that despite external circumstances, individuals always have the freedom to choose their attitudes toward situations and find meaning in life.

When we repeatedly try to change our subjectively negative internal experiences using external substances, activities, or relationships, we are telling ourselves that the way we feel now is not okay or that life shouldn’t be going the way it is. This inevitably and predictably leads to pain because we are reinforcing the idea that there’s a problem with the world, other people, or ourselves.

If this is the case, there must be a solution. We look to our addiction to solve the problem—but in doing so, we mistakenly kill the messenger.

3.) Pain is the signal, not the problem to be solved

When we are in physical or psychological pain, the problem is never the pain itself. The pain is always a byproduct of the actual problem.

To heal, we must go to the root.

Pain relief only numbs the signals that would actually point us in the direction of true healing. As it turns out, healing doesn’t always feel good. Healing often means confrontation with the parts of ourselves that have been neglected, integration with the parts of ourselves we don’t like, or changing our behaviors which are self-defeating.

This is often too scary to face directly. It feels easier to add another level to our existing home than to repair a cracked foundation.

Subconsciously, we acquire addictions because we are seeking to blunt the edge of life’s blade—but the joke is on us—for even if you can temporarily subdue your internal response to pain, the effects of the underlying problem will still be seen and felt in the world.

Like trying to hold inflatable beach balls under the water, once your hands are full, they begin to pop up with great force.

Carl Jung maintained that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as “fate.” This is to say, when the individual does not become conscious of his inner opposite, the world must act out the conflict and be torn into opposing halves.

When you run toward an addiction to escape the darkness, the darkness comes to you. There is no hiding from the shadow because wherever you go, there it is. It is only by recognizing the real cause of pain and integrating it that you can move beyond it.

Our addictions become blessings when they push us past pain relief and into true healing.

4.) Start with the body and the mind will follow

This note became a bit more esoteric than I intended, so I’ll leave you with something practical to implement.

Always begin with the body.

Most people see the body as separate from the mind, but it is actually the gateway.

If you are dealing with an addiction, it’s tempting to try to “dominate” your mind by enforcing strict disciplinary tactics and deprivation. This often sets you up for failure long term because humans tend to resist constraint, whether it’s imposed by self or others.

Instead of telling yourself what you can’t do, focus on increasing what you can do.

Rather than constriction, focus on expansion.

Building the body by feeding it with healthy foods, exercising it regularly, and rehabbing yourself will bring natural energy back into your system. It’ll shift your focus from what you’re losing to what you’re gaining.

And the function of getting physically healthier will create a cascading effect that naturally discourages you from doing things that might hinder that progress.

Don’t try to kill your addictions.

Instead, focus on building your health and watch the behaviors that don’t serve you die on the vine in accordance with your new design.

---

Resources for healing and addiction:

1. Our team at New Wave Press recently published CLEAR: The Only Neuroscience-Based Method For High Achievers to Quit Drinking Without Willpower, Rehab or AA.

2. I wrote a short guide for entrepreneurs as part of our New Wave Originals series called Your Body Is The Business Plan. It’s a 90-minute read that will show you how to lead your body so that the mind follows.

3. New Wave Press author Dr. Brett Jones is on the verge of releasing his book The Healing Way, which will break down his approach to using ancestral wisdom to heal your body, mind and spirit naturally. It touches on addiction, utilizing the physical body to improve the mind and a host of other intricate topics related to healing. You can get on the VIP list to receive updates for when that book drops.