Understanding Addiction
The metaphor of the canary
A canary is a small, colorful songbird from the finch family, known for its sweet singing. Exceedingly sensitive, these birds have enchanted people since time immemorial, becoming perfect little companions in homes where they enliven their environments with their delicate singing and presence.
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But a canary’s sensitivity doesn’t stop at just making the world sound and feel more delicate and rosy. Their sensitivity is also an indicator of the nature of the environment around them. Here’s how:
Canaries were used by miners as sentinels to detect poisonous gases in mines. When miners wanted to know whether it was safe to enter a certain area underground, they would send canaries in. Because they are more sensitive than most to their environment, canaries could die almost instantly in the presence of toxic gases.
And if, after a few minutes, no sound was heard in the mining chambers… the miners knew better than to enter that zone.
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Addicts can be compared to the canaries of humanity.
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The truth is, more often than not, people who struggle with addiction are extremely sensitive souls. And all the toxicity of normal life—all the gases of dysfunction that exist in this world—those things, they more than most, have an almost impossible time coping with.
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Perhaps they don’t die instantly upon arriving in this world, but they live with a general internal discomfort about existence. There is a constant background unease in their lives. And this constant noise can become extremely disabling in the long run—like living with a physical disability, only it feels existential.
It is a shame that the world makes it hard for them to see that their sensitivity is not really a disability, but a gift.
What people don't understand about addiction
People think that addiction has to do with drugs and alcohol.
Addictions has really very very little to do with drugs and alcohol.
First of all, the number of addictions on earth is virtually unlimited. People can become addicted to almost anything. including addictions to people and behaviors or relationships. It does not have to be a chemical.
But most importantly what people tend not to understand, is that the drug that the person is using to numb themselves is not the problem.
It's the solution.
Yes, its a solution that destroys your life, but its a solution nonetheless.
The real issue of addiction is the underlying issue that leads someone to seek out a subtsnace or anything else to numb themselves from the pain caused by that issue.
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What is that underlying condition?
A deep discomfort with one's own self.
As Rabi Shais Taub would say "it's like being allergic to one's own self".
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Uncomfortable in your own skin, terminally unique, lonely in a crowded room, always wanting to feel a part of and instead feeling apart from...
That sticky, heavy feeling that we can't seem to shake ourselves from, THAT, is what the drug, the alcohol, the high risk behavior.. the partner.. is being used to numb the person from.
Overcoming addiction, in all honesty...
No human being can help another human being overcome an addiction.
Overcoming an addiction is between the addict and his or her higher power.
When the addict is sick and tired of being sick and tired, and is ready to surrender to a completely new way of being, than transformation can occur.
Anything short of that seems to be doom to fail
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The cure: Your own personal Higher Power
Why would having a spiritual awakening alleviate your need to self-medicate?
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Imagine... you are plunged into a world where you are being forced to interact with people who are playing by unknown rules from an unknown rulebook .... that is creating a lot of stress. You don't know about relating to God, or a Higher Power whichever you may call it.. You don't know that something greater than the mess you see in front of your eyes exists.
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You have an internal sense that you should feeling connected to something, but nothing seems to last, nothing seems reliable enough. Are we all free-falling?
The only option that's left for you is shut everything down, numb it.
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The cure to this existential nightmare is to become aware that there is a constant force, higher than you, greater than you, that is always there, that you can connect to, and who will respond to you.
If that sounds strange, that's because it is. But logic should not be the necessary winning argument for any form of debates. Sometimes, you're answer lies right outside the lines of logic... on the other side.
And we are not talking about insanity.
We're talking about faith.
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Faith, is when constant connectedness becomes a reality. It's like returning to a home you've always known but never knew how to find again.
Home is where the addicts, more than most people, need to be, because anything that falls short of that, is too painful for them.
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What therapy CAN help you with
Therapy can help you make sense of yourself. It can help you with shame, it can help you with putting in order your own personal story. It provides you with a different mirror to self, while you work yourself out. A mirror called "radical acceptance".
While no one can help someone out of an addiction, it is possible for an addict to surround himself or herself with a supportive environment to put all chances on ones' side.
Part of that is to understand who he/she truly is, understand that this constant discomfort is NORMAL, and learn to live with it.
Therapy offers the training ground for this new mode of being.