Hi everyone, welcome back! I took a little hiatus from writing in the last few months but I am back and this time I am examining beliefs around human beings’ addictions which could be anything from being addicted to drugs or alcohol or prescription medications or any other kind of addiction! In today’s post, I am attempting to examine what goes on in a human being’s mind who is an addict and this society’s response to such humans!!
Belief: He should be a responsible adult and get his act together because he is not just hurting himself but his entire family!!
On my recent trip to India, I came across two individuals who are barely in their 40s and who are really struggling with various forms of addictions. Both these individuals have families, wives and kids, but they are still not able to get their acts together as per their families and society’s expectations! And in talking with the family members of these ‘irresponsible adults’, as our society would define them; I can’t help but wonder, what is it that prevents such individuals from giving up their addictions especially when they are not able to become sober even for the sake of their families!! This is my attempt to dig deeper and find some answers. And the reason I am even writing this post is because I want this society including the families of such individuals to view addiction and the addicts themselves from a different perspective – a perspective of love rather than disgust and ridicule!!
Anything that a human being does or does not do throughout his lifetime can be traced back to one thing – his mind. The mind which generates hundreds and thousands of thoughts every waking minute of the day! And if you have ever paid attention to the way a human mind works then you would know how it automatically gravitates towards negative thoughts. Negative thoughts that tell him how this world that he lives in is not a safe place so he should keep his guard up all the time and look out for danger even though none exists most of the time. Negative thoughts that tell him how he needs to behave in this world to be accepted by his own family, friends, neighbors and even strangers. Negative thoughts that tell him how he is not good enough yet until he becomes this or that. Although, this kind of thought pattern is a reality for most people on this planet; however, some of us are able to somehow either train our minds to look for good and positive or are able to learn to not take our negative thinking very seriously. But for the rest of the people who very much believe in the crap that goes on in their heads; they either turn to hatred and violence and hurt other people or they turn destructive to their own self. And an addict belongs to this second category of human beings who somehow over the years of living has come to believe that he is not worthy of living this life because he doesn’t feel lovable enough or good enough or smart enough or beautiful enough or rich enough etc. And because he doesn’t feel ENOUGH, instead of getting angry at other people, he gets very angry with himself and tries to mask and not feel that pain and anger through various forms of addictions! And all these things that he becomes addicted to are to basically keep him from feeling his crappy feelings.
But here is my very honest question to you? Don’t we all think this way from time to time, especially during the lows in our lives? Don’t we all try very hard to not feel the negative and unpleasant feelings that arise because of thinking this way? Don’t we all try to hide the fact that we feel these negative feelings from the rest of the world and our own families? Don’t we all pretend to be happy and act like our lives are so perfect although deep down inside we know that they are far from being perfect? So, if this is how we all think and feel sometimes, to me, the only difference between us and those addicts is that somehow, these addicts are not able to bounce back from this kind of thinking and feeling. And because they are unable to bounce back, they need a lot of help, love and support from their family members, from the medical community, from this society. But what I have understood so far in all these years of living life is that although some of us may try to help such people in the beginning; however, because it’s very challenging to get them to let go of their thinking and hence their addictions; as time goes on and if the addicts still haven’t become sober, even those of us who initially tried to help, start to pull away! We start to pull away because we expected them to have come out of their addictions by now but because they didn’t, we feel like they are not trying hard enough or they don’t love their family and friends enough or they are simply irresponsible human beings who don’t deserve any love and help and support because after all they are doing this to themselves!! But what I have also learned in the process of living this life and paying attention to the crap in my own head is that to be able to let this kind of thinking go is easier said than done because what you are trying to do is to un-learn this old way of thinking so that it would make space for new ways. And that is not easy – even the non-addicts would know that very well!
So, to anyone reading this post who may be struggling with addictions themselves or anyone who has a friend or family member who is struggling; this is what I want to say. Yes, I agree that it’s totally up to the addict to pull themselves out of this mess but family and friends play a very important role. You play an important role by not ridiculing and judging this person; by not making them feel bad about the fact that they can’t do it; by not calling them irresponsible human beings; by being compassionate and understanding even though you don’t understand a thing about addictions; by not giving up on these people because if you give up, they will too! They are banking on your hope for them to pull them out of this mess!! But wait, you can only practice compassion and love if you ever learned that yourself in the first place but because most of us never even learned to use compassion and kindness to help our own very young kids when they are ‘being bad’; how is it that we can make ourselves not judge the adults for not being able to get their acts together!!
And as always, leave a comment if you feel like leaving one. And until next time, give more love and support and compassion to especially to the people who can’t seem to get their acts together because they are the ones who need it the most 😊
