Is every addiction an addiction to suffering?
Feeding an addiction allows us to feel comfortable in a place or situation that is not suitable for our sustained vitality.
Because Reasons
In my experience, addictions distract me from my goal. If the addiction becomes habitual, then a new baseline or homeostasis is established. Any dip below, results in the need for more of the substance or behavior again. I have to ask myself sometimes (as I attempt to alchemize all of my addictions)
“Is this next action going to move me toward my goals?”
Sometimes I tell that voice that I still want a cigarette. Sometimes I can actually see the trajectory in my mind’s eye. First I’ll have to buy an entire pack which cost $10. That’s $2 per cigarette. Now, if that were to become more regular, I’ll be spending exponentially more money to feed this habit. Money that I could be investing or spending on supplies that move me toward my goals. Not to mention the amount of time it takes to smoke an American Spirit (they practically last an entire setlist). I often find myself making negotiations with myself for an appropriate exchange to be able to smoke a cigarette. Obviously, its pretty easy to see the opportunity cost in this equation, without even considering the health implications. Time and money alone should be enough to stop me… but they don’t.
When I was in a relationship, my boyfriend did not want me to smoke cigarettes and because he was aggressive, I developed a distaste for them. In fact, if we went to a bar where people could smoke inside I would become very nauseated. When I left him, I picked the habit back up. I don’t know if it was out of spite or if it was because I feel constricted living with family and a cigarette is my reprieve from that feeling of being an incapable child. I pacify myself so that I don’t have to feel those uncomfortable feelings. “It’s just for now, while I live in this situation,” I tell myself…
Struggle makes us creative
It seems to me that struggle is encouragement to move out of a situation. We strive to minimize the amount of discomfort we experience, at the expense of our physical and mental health at times. Rather than going for a run to destress, we reach for a bottle of wine to take the edge off the day. Suffering serves to increase our tolerance to something in life and I believe it also helps to guide us toward success. In our avoidance of suffering, we learn to navigate life in a way that increases our happiness, if we make the decisions that emphasize it. Some cravings are the result of a deficiency in something that our bodies need. Say, for example, you are iron deficient. You may develop a craving for spinach. Now, if you’re body is asking for iron and you give it sugar, you’ve only pleased the mind and not the body. Sure, it may seem like you are better because you have more energy, but it wasn’t the root cause of the problem.
If we didn’t have our addictions, we’d be left to find another way to sooth ourselves. Feeding addictions allows us to give up on that quest for happiness because we convince ourselves “this is good enough because its better than it was a second ago”. With that mentality, we will always be willing to just settle and that is what our life will become. Just settling. Instead, we could increase the amount of service to others we have in our life or the amount of time to do art. In our conscious decisions we are attempting to impress the subconscious mind, only we have to have a good relationship with that subconscious mind in order to be successful in doing so.
Torture versus Struggle
I recognize this fine line between serving the body and torturing it. Individuals like David Goggins (God bless that man) are torturing their bodies. He’s probably one of the few individuals that I am aware of that can do this wisely. Even though he is in peak physical condition, he had a leg surgery recently for an injury that he says has been affecting him for 20 years. So this is the kind of suffering that, might have made him mentally stronger, but was not necessarily good for that leg and likely won’t be in the long run (I couldn’t let the pun go).
Honestly, one could argue that mental strength is the most important thing to increase longevity and minimize suffering, as “it is all just mental”, but that’s actually not true. Goggins loves those runner’s high endorphins, just like my grandpa loved the high of working hard and getting into fights. I know he has one of the strongest minds and bodies in the world… but neither last forever. As far as mental toughness goes, grandpa thought he had it… until his body stopped working for him and he could no longer do those things. It is vital that body and mind be in communication with one another.
I torture my body by forgetting to eat pretty frequently. It isn’t that I don’t get hungry, I just know that I can’t run inside and grab something to eat really fast. I have to move slowly and make sure my grandpa is content. If he isn’t I also will have to do whatever he needs which is a disruption to the day I had planned. I am very good at convincing myself I don’t have time for that shit. However, I am also a firm believer in the power of rituals in food preparation and garnishing. I think I convinced myself that, because my grandpa is a picky eater, I can’t be bothered to do things for him. Alas, I smoke my cigarette to curb my appetite and make my brain function in a way that is conducive to being a hermit writer.
I could, instead, work on my relationship with him. I could sit in discomfort while I cook him a standard milk-toast grilled cheese sandwich with two pickle spears cut into small pieces. I could ask him to tell me about his childhood or how to build but he’s too far gone most of the time in his dementia to not get frustrated while reaching in the non-existant
My Conclusions
I’m starting to see more and more how our current health system has failed us by only treating the symptoms of ailments as opposed to their root causes. It bleeds out into other realms of life when we are not physically and mentally well. A lot of our minds are so disconnected from our bodies that we can’t even begin to understand what all is wrong. Pharmaceutical companies spend excessively large amounts of money on researching preventable diseases and provide free lunches for doctors and their staffs to encourage them to push pills on patients. We’ve learned to expect quick fixes that are not actually feasible or that cause some other imbalance we’ll inevitably have to get under control.
Originally written as part of Collective Journaling at The Stoa
