Root Cause of Addiction

Root Cause of Addiction

“If you’ve got bad news, you want to kick the blues…cocaine.” This line from a song by J.J. Cale expresses the feelings and actions of many Americans today, yet the word cocaine can be substituted with the word pot or alcohol or food or sex or gambling or a number of other compulsive disorders. In fact, all of these things have something in common; in excess, they may all be symptoms of having grown up in a dysfunctional environment.

Problems in dysfunctional homes usually present in one or more of three ways. Physical abuse can include beatings as well as being excessively tugged, shaken, or tickled. Sexual abuse can be covert, such as leering at a child in inappropriate ways, or overt, which can include everything from fondling to rape. Emotional abuse is most commonly thought of as stemming from parental alcoholism and substance abuse, yet it can also include yelling, berating, snide criticism, neglect, and even, in some cases, a severely strict upbringing such as can be the case in devoutly religious & controlling family units. Emotional abuse can be present without physical or sexual abuse, but where there is physical and/or sexual abuse there is always emotional abuse.

The effects on children from these types of situations, and the deep dark secrets they are compelled to keep, can become buried beyond memory and comprehension, scarring these individuals for life. Consequently, adult children of dysfunctional homes (more commonly known as ACA’s for adult children of alcoholics) become adults who bear a heavy burden of deeply rooted pain, suffer from a severe loss of self-esteem, and may fall into a state of denial about what is now known to be a disease, into a world of escapism by using and/or abusing whatever their personal drug of choice happens to be.

They are trying to escape a pain that no words can adequately describe. Susan, a 51 year old professional, tells a story about when she was 8 years old and had to lock her own father out of the house. Her mother had thrown him out of the house for his drinking and he was living in a 12 foot trailer in the front yard. He came to the door and wanted a soda. He was not drunk at the time. But Susan was alone in the house and her mother was virulent, when Susan called her at work, telling Susan not to let him in. She remembers climbing up on the kitchen sink and reaching the soda out of the kitchen window to her father. Remember, she was eight years old. These types of childhood traumas add up, and can cause such torment that victims want one thing and one thing only — to numb those feelings and the memories. How they choose to accomplish this varies with their personal drug of choice.

A drug of choice can be any compulsive/addictive behavior which acts to make these persons temporarily not feel their pain. John Bradshaw, a counselor, lecturer, and author of Healing The Shame That Binds You, and Bradshaw On The Family, said it this way, “Compulsive/addictive behavior is a pathological relationship to any mood altering experience that has life-damaging consequences.” Hence, addictive behavior does not have to be solely confined to drugs and alcohol. Pete Rose, one of the finest and most passionate baseball players of his time, was kicked out of baseball because of gambling. Clearly, his gambling problems had life-damaging consequences; they cost him his one great love of life!

There are, of course, other “socially acceptable” addictions such as over-eating and cigarette smoking which include not only life-damaging consequences (such as alienating others) but, more importantly, these addictions can create life-threatening consequences in the form of heart disease, lung disease, stroke, and peripheral vascular disease. Eventually any behavior, to excess, may likely damage and even destroy lives, yet many victims allow their disease to progress, untreated, because deep down they feel shamed to the core, and believe that they don’t deserve any better.

It’s difficult to determine degree of severity between the most prevalent causes of compulsive/addictive behavior, but lack of self-esteem stemming from the shame of a dysfunctional environment rates as one of the primary root causes of such compulsive behaviors.

Lack of self-esteem allows people to endure incredible amounts of abuse, whether it be self-inflicted or at the hands of another. Because victims feel that they are worthless and want not to think about their lives, they are willing to abuse their bodies through food, drugs or alcohol, or by allowing themselves to be emotionally and/or physically beaten and battered. Furthermore, many of them get trapped in a cycle where they themselves become the abusers. They simply hate themselves so much that they take it out on children, animals and the people that they love the most. The more serious cases become violent against society.

Some people who have grown up in extremely violent and/or abusive households build up so much rage that they just explode as is evidenced daily on the television screen, the internet and the pages of newspapers nationwide. It’s very easy to say that Eric Harris and Deren Kleebold were affected by Marilyn Manson and video games, because they both had two parents and drove BMWs. But no one knows what goes on behind the walls of a house except the people who live in that house. For far too long this country’s obsession with “family values” has decimated any hope of looking at the parents in cases such as Columbine and Virginia Tech. It’s time to at least start asking the question.

Regardless of severity, each of these victims live in their own private hell, and until people who come from dysfunctional environments are able to recognize that their problems are attributed to an insidious, hereditary disease, they will be unable to remove themselves from the spiral in which they are trapped.

The inability to recognize that problems exist is called denial. If people don’t know what’s wrong, they can’t fix it. For example, if a person who had never ridden in a well-running, well-tuned car, were to own a car that knocks and pings, that person wouldn’t know that knocking and pinging weren’t completely normal. He or she may know that the car doesn’t run very well, but it functions, and as far as this individual is concerned everybody has to put up with constant car problems because that’s the way cars are supposed to be.

By the same token, ACA’s who are in denial believe that their reality is the way that life is supposed to be. They see nothing unusual about spending their days getting high or getting hit and yelled at because that’s all they’ve ever known. It was what life was like, or modeled, in their home growing up, and as a child that was their whole world…so, in their eyes, it was everybody’s whole world. By the time they become adults, this belief system is so deeply ingrained that it becomes their reality. Consequently, they don’t understand that their symptoms of drug abuse, alcoholism, compulsive over-eating, compulsive working, compulsive spending, compulsive gambling, but to name a few, are problems that are affecting their life and which need to be addressed. Unfortunately, some can spend their whole lives in denial.

As a result of their upbringing, ACA’s are faced with heart-breaking pain, a shameful view of themselves as human beings, and the hurdle of overcoming problems that they don’t even recognize that they have. The problems of compulsive/addictive behavior go far deeper than many people realize or are willing to accept. Until society, as a whole, faces up to the causes of compulsive/addictive disorders, rather than just punishing those affected individuals, and until society begins to provide low-cost, quality mental health care geared towards these problems, it’s going to continue to be difficult for individuals to seek, and admit that they need, help. However, people are becoming more knowledgeable and attitudes are beginning to change for the better. Hopefully, with time and the willingness to learn, this knowledge of cause and effect will help the millions of people affected with symptoms of this disease, and those who love them.

For coaching assistance for addictions, see Spiritcaat.

New Age Perceptions

Perceptions of Spirituality

“To ride on a broomstick and fly: combine belladonna leaves, stramonium, munkshood, and celery seeds to make an ointment. Add one toad and boil until the skin falls off the bones. Strain and apply the ointment to the body.” This seventeenth century formula, as told by Jeanne Rose in her book “Herbs and Things”, is indicative of what many people, even today, envision a psychic to be associated with.

Although, certainly, they may not think the ingredients are made up of such things as toads and bat wings, many people do believe that those who are openly psychic are ‘devil worshippers’ and practitioners of ‘black magic.’ Nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, words like “new age,” “metaphysics,” “psychic” “paganism” and “occult” are merely spiritual belief systems which fall outside of the widely accepted ‘organized’ religions, such as Christianity.

Just as organized religions have their ‘tools’ that they use for rituals, such as the rosary in Catholicism, or the menorah in Judaism, many metaphysicians have tools to practice their craft and beliefs. One of the tools is “The Tarot.”

The tarot reader interprets cards of various symbolic drawings and combines that interpretation with her or his psychic abilities to gain a greater understanding of the unconscious mind. Geri, a Catholic raised, non-denominational minister, uses the Tarot as her main tool. When she was asked how people perceive her, she said, “…there are the ones who raise their eyebrows in terror. They think you’re going to cast a spell on them because they immediately label you a witch.” Contrary to that belief, however, many psychics are everyday people in everyday clothes, working everyday jobs, living everyday lives. Furthermore, these people are coming out of the closet, so to speak, using the tools of the trade, making metaphysics a viable part of life in our current world.

Today a common name for it is “New Age.” Some people call it “self-spirituality,” “new spirituality” or “new age religion,” but whereas religions are organized, “new age” is more of a ‘movement.’ Furthermore, in many organized religions, there is pressure to make others convert. New Age believers rarely subscribe to that. Geri sees it as “a complete psychological and philosophical system,” and as a way of giving people the freedom to believe in whatever they choose. “It gives you the freedom to be you,” she explains.

Ann, a reader who uses runes as her tool, sees her readings as a result of her beliefs. She defines her beliefs in this way: “We’re not a religion; to me it’s a philosophy.” She believes, as many with an interest in metaphysics do, that her beliefs are hers and that other people’s are theirs. She thinks that no one has the right to judge other people and their views on life. “The only person you have to account to is yourself,” she says, and stresses that because she’s learned to communicate with her ‘higher self’ there is no need for a middle-man, such as a Pope or a Rabbi. Additionally, even though she agrees that many religions teach good things, she expresses her beliefs this way: “I don’t think his way is any wiser than what I believe; I have the same contact with the good Lord as he has…I don’t feel like I’m anybody’s disciple.”

This is not to say, however, that Ann doesn’t keep an open mind. She takes the ideas and philosophies that work for her, leaves the rest, and doesn’t feel threatened when others have the same view of her beliefs. What are her beliefs? She believes in peaceful coexistence.

Each one [religion] has to be the one because they are afraid of the other guy; whereas, if we could all live next to each other…everybody just does their thing, believes in their own thing, as long as they don’t try to make the other one believe in the same…but, that doesn’t make for bigger populations in your religion unless you try to convert–or wipe everyone else out.

The latter has been the cause of wars for centuries.

The philosophies that New Age is loosely structured around stem from ancient far eastern religions. The idea is that all people need only to look within themselves to find the higher spiritual source that they search for. Kahlil Gibran, author of The Prophet, explains it in this way:

It is enough that you enter the temple invisible.
I can not teach you how to pray in words.
God listens to your words save when He
Himself utters them through your lips.

These lines seem to embody a very basic metaphysical belief–the belief that God, as each person perceives Her or Him to be, lives within that person, and that one must listen to oneself to truly find her or his own Higher Spirit.

One of the problems that psychics and believers of this type of ideology have are the pre-conceived notions that uninformed people have about those with alternative philosophies. In his book, “The Kabbalah”, Ponce states, “The commonly accepted picture of a mystic–or anyone for that matter who consciously seeks to find meaning on life–as a self-indulgent escapist has also contributed much to the misunderstanding of mysticism in general”.

The word “mysticism” is key here. The word relates to the word mystery: “something unexplained, unknown, or kept secret” (Webster’s). This suggests that it is really only a mystery to those who are uninformed about the subject of metaphysics. Yet, a shroud of mystery is pervasive. When asked how he generally perceives psychics, Tim, a college student who has never had a psychic reading, yet is very open-minded and curious about them, stated, “For some reason, in my mind’s eye, I’ve always seen them as gypsy type ladies, women of mystique. Of course, they’re attractive, too. They just have to be attractive for some reason.” This idea is not surprising, considering the multitude of movies and television programs that portray psychics in that very, stereotypical role.

There’s quite a difference, however, between those who are curious and those who are staunch non-believers. Tim, our college student, expresses a desire to learn more about the roots of metaphysics, specifically the Tarot, and wants to form a more reasonable understanding about it. “I know it’s not just card reading.” He states, “There’s got to be more to it than that.” In contrast, Susan, a church-going Christian, believes that the whole idea is the work of the Devil and that opening oneself up to psychic powers is opening oneself up to the evil forces that he brings.

Perhaps she is not completely wrong. It is for that precise reason that psychics have their own personalized rituals that they use for protection against those unknown forces, much like Native Americans did when they burned sage for protection. That ritual is still in use by many who practice metaphysics today.

The Tarot, runes (or stones), palmistry, and the crystal ball are all just tools that are used by psychically gifted people to tap into their power. Many psychics believe, however, that everyone has that power, more commonly known as a “sixth sense,” but that they are just not aware of it, or have just not developed it. For Geri, “It’s basically for personal growth through meditation with the [tarot] cards,” which she feels gives her direction and guidance. That, too, is what many people go to readers for, even though it may be a little scary at first.

Meg, an R.N., states she had never been read, but recently went to a seance for the first time where she was told by the medium (a person who communicates with spirits who have passed on) things that Meg knew the medium couldn’t have known any other way but telepathically. She thinks that with the ‘law of averages’ people can’t just pick things out of the air like that and be right, unless there is something more. When asked how she might feel getting a personal reading of some kind, she said, “I’m frightened [because] I just can’t explain it. But, I really can’t disbelieve it because it’s so odd.” She doesn’t feel so much that something will happen to her; rather, she is more afraid of finding out something that she really doesn’t want to know.

Meg’s perception of psychics is somewhat the same. When someone tells her about being psychic, she says she feels “…they can look right through you and know your inner feelings and inner thoughts.” She agrees that maybe she gives them credit for more power than they really have. This is not surprising though; the seed was planted early.

Although Meg stated that she had never been read, actually she had been, and just hadn’t recognized it. She relayed a story about what sounded like some sort of vagabond at the Five and Dime in Chicago, where she grew up. For a dollar, he would correctly tell the serial numbers on it. For a dollar more, he would let the people write three questions on a slip of paper, which he would then answer. Meg was at an impressionable age at the time, about 16 years old, and she wanted a car, but she did not include it in her three questions. He answered her three written questions and then, as she was leaving, he said, “Oh yeah, don’t worry. You’re going to get that car you want.” It made such an impression on her that she tried to get her mother to go back with her, to no avail. She, herself, went back to look for the man, but he was gone, never again to be found.

“New Age” is not new. As Geri says, “It is just the current name. With each generation it’s becoming more acceptable.” In fact, she ascertains that she has read of it being called “New Age” as far back as the early 1800’s; before that, people were hanged because of it. That shows that even though tactics may have changed, human nature surely hasn’t.

Throughout history, most of the major wars have been rooted in and fought over religious beliefs. Even today, we are in a war with fundamentalist underpinnings. The Middle East has not seen peace for many people’s lifetimes and it continues to either spread or move around. Why? Because those ethnocentric people are threatened by, and demonize, anyone who doesn’t have identical beliefs, organized religion or not.

But those who eschew organized religion and are involved in spiritual and psychic beliefs are not the “devil worshippers” portrayed in the movies and in modern propaganda. To the contrary. Most are just everyday people want to live their lives in the best way that they know how, and they are willing to let others do the same. It seems like a fair enough proposition.