(This is Part 1 of a 5-part series on addiction).

Just about everyone in our society is addicted to something. Addictions

can take many forms:

SUBSTANCE ADDICTIONS: addiction to alcohol, recreational drugs,

prescription meds, caffeine, nicotine, food, sugar, carbohydrates.

PROCESS ADDICTIONS: addiction to love, connection, caretaking,

anger, resistance, withdrawal, and to activities such as:

o TV

o Computer/internet

o Busyness

o Gossiping

o Sports

o Exercise

o Sleep

o Work

o Making money

o Spending money

o Gambling

o Sex, masturbation, pornography

o Shopping

o Accumulating things

o Worry

o Obsessive thinking (ruminating)

o Self-criticism

o Talking a lot

o Talking on the telephone a lot

o Reading

o Gathering information (if only I know enough I will feel safe)

o Meditation

o Religion

o Crime

o Danger

o Cutting themselves

o Glamour, beautifying

We can use anything as a way of avoiding feelings and avoiding taking

responsibility for our painful feelings. Whenever we engage in an

activity with the intention of avoiding our feelings, we are using that

activity as an addiction. We can watch TV to relax and enjoy our favorite

programs, or we can watch TV to avoid our feelings. We can meditate to

connect with Spirit and center ourselves, or we can meditate to bliss out

and avoid responsibility for our feelings. We can read to enjoy and

learn, or read to escape. Anything can be an addiction, depending upon

our intention.

For example, when your intention is to take loving care of yourself and

your work is something you really enjoy, then working is not being used

as an addiction. But when the intent is to get approval or avoid painful

feelings, then work is being used as an addiction. The same is true for

most of the above behaviors – they can be addictions or not, depending

upon your intent.

All of us have a wounded part of us – our wounded self or ego self – that

has been programmed with many false beliefs through our growing-up

years. There are four common false beliefs that underlie most

addictions:

1. I can’t handle my pain.

2. I am unworthy and unlovable.

3. Others are my source of love.

4. I can have control over how others feel about me and treat me.

I CAN’T HANDLE MY PAIN

While this was true when we were small, it is not true as adults, yet many

people operate as if it is true. When you believe that you are incapable

of handling pain – especially the deep pain of loneliness and

helplessness – then you will find many addictive ways to avoid feeling

your pain. All of us are capable of learning how to manage painful

feelings in ways that support our highest good, rather behaving in

addictive ways that hurt us.

Anything you do to avoid taking responsibility for managing your pain is

self-abandonment, which creates even more pain – the deep pain of

aloneness. Whether you abandon yourself to substances, processes or

people, your inner child – which is your feeling self – will feel abandoned

by your choice to avoid responsibility for your feelings. If you had an

actual child who was in pain, and you got drunk instead of being there

for that child, he or she would be in even more pain from the

abandonment. It is exactly the same on the inner level. Addictive

behavior is an abandonment of self and causes the very pain you are

trying to avoid.

I AM UNWORTHY AND UNLOVABLE

When you did not receive the love you needed as a small child, you

might have concluded that the reason you were not loved was because

you were bad, flawed, defective, unworthy, unlovable, or unimportant.

This is core shame – the false belief that there is essentially something

wrong with you. When you adopt this belief, you become cut off from

your Source, believing that you are unworthy of being loved by a Higher

Power.

OTHERS ARE MY SOURCE OF LOVE

You will become addicted to attention, approval, love, sex, or connection

when you believe that another person needs to be your dependable

source of love. In this case, you will be abandoning your inner child to

another person, which causes as much pain as abandoning yourself to

a substance. Until you learn to tap into a Higher Power as your source of

love, you will continue to be addicted to people as your source of love.

I CAN HAVE CONTROL OVER HOW OTHERS FEEL ABOUT ME AND

TREAT ME

If you believe you can control others’ feelings and behavior, you will

become addicted to various ways of trying to control, such as anger,

judgment, blame, or people-pleasing. When you believe you can’t

handle your pain and that others are your source of love, then you want

control over getting that love. This is the cause of the codependency that

underlies most relationship problems.

There is a way to heal from addictions. The rest of the articles in this

series will address the process of recovery from addictions.