Addiction and Spirituality

Can you stop drinking alcohol right now? Can you stop smoking? Can you stop using man-made illicit drugs? Not just for a week, a month or a year, but permanently? If yes, then stop drinking, smoking and/or using. See how long you can last. Enjoy the health benefits of removing potentially dangerous toxins from your body, while freeing your mind and body from the addictive and negative influences. Let your soul thrive without the attachment of body, mind and soul to controlling substances. If no, you are addicted. The good news is that there is still a chance to release your true self from the physical and emotional influences. The fact that you kept reading beyond the title and continued to this point is a harbinger of hope. If your are an addict, there are three types of people in your life, those who don’t know you are addicted, those who enable your addictive behavior and those who do not. Chances are, you have pushed away those who do not enable your addictive behavior. But those non-enablers are the ones who really love you and want what is best for your body, mind and soul. Enablers come from a dark place of self-misery and insecurity. They have not learned to love themselves and need to be surrounded by others who share their darkness. They are often addicts themselves and a common attitude is; I’m not an addict because I am not as bad as they are. Still reading? It is because these words resonate with your soul. I am not an addict or an enabler but I encounter many people who are addicts almost every day. Most of them know it, many of them admit it, few of them have the spiritual presence to overcome it. The next question is who and what do you want to be in this lifetime? The choice is simple; A spiritually awakened being and lover of your true self, or a spiritually slumbering being in a dark place, relying on that next drink, smoke or drug to manufacture something you perceive as lacking within you. The former is who you really are, your soulful self. The latter is what you allow yourself to be through addiction, hiding from your true self. Clever marketing by those who make money from the aforementioned substances have convinced the masses that addiction is socially acceptable. They don’t call it addiction though. They convince you that their substances are a necessary component of an enjoyable life. Nothing could be further from the truth. Those substances are a mask, hiding parts of yourself that you don’t want the world to see and creating a facade of what you think the world wants to see in you. But everything you hide is a part of you. Those who truly love you will love everything about you. Your body mind and soul are a complete package. When you hide a part of yourself, you attract those who only desire what you show them. When you show your true self, those who seek what you show will gravitate toward you. Live in the present. Forgive the past. Trust the future. The most highly spiritual and genuine people I know believe those three statements. Attachment to the past brings depression. Fear of the future brings anxiety. Living in the present brings peace of mind. With peace of mind, there is no need to self-medicate, no need for substances to hide from attachments to the past or numb your fear of the future. Part of spiritual awakening is learning to love yourself. If you learn to love yourself enough to release attachments and addictions, the path toward a peaceful existence becomes much clearer. Try it, what do you have to lose?