Addiction the Search for a Feeling

Posted on August 29, 2012 by John Davis, One of Thousands of Leadership Coaches on Noomii.

What a piece of shit I am. I wish I could have good relationships. I never make enough money. Life is hard. Every moment is rough. I need a break. Where’s my______? There it is. There…….. (relaxed sigh). Sound familiar? Does it sound extreme? Are you having this experience on a greater or lesser degree? This is the plight of a person with an addictive behavior. This is the search for relief.

Addiction permeates our society like a plague. It affects not only the addict but family, friends, and society as a whole. People suffer daily and feel helpless, hopeless, and defenseless against it. What is It? What are they truly searching for? It seems to me they are searching for a feeling, something other than the one they are currently feeling. They are looking for a way out of their pain. What is the feeling? What is it they are truly searching for? You can look for it in the psyches of the addicts, but I believe they are searching for the very thing every one of us is searching for: Love.

Many will scoff at the idea that they are searching for love, dismissing the idea as trite, but the simplest concept is usually the correct one. Love: what is it? More than anything else love is a feeling. It is the feeling we strive for from our earliest years. As children, loving positive parents make us happy. An angered parent makes us sad or scared. We desire love in our lives. When we block love from ourselves, we inhibit ourselves from the very thing we naturally need. In my personal belief system I believe that God/Source is Love and we were given fear as our tool to experience love fully. So we are here to experience our separation from love.

Experiencing our separation happens in many ways. For many, it comes in the form of dysfunctional families. This doesn’t mean the horror story family. In some form we all have some dysfunction in our families, be they large dysfunctions or small. Many times the dysfunction is in extended families and friends. Sometimes it is societal or racial in nature, but no matter where the root lies it feels negative and not positive. Love is the positive state.

There are two kinds of love, conditional and unconditional. In unconditional love, there is never a worry or concern. Love is there no matter what. In a conditional love, you must meet the condition to receive love. Conditions create conditions. Many times we see this in families who reinforce negative behaviors with negative responses which tear the child down, instead of reinforcing positive behaviors and building the child up. The child will always lean towards a positive sensation and pull away from a negative one. When continually bombarded with negative reinforcement, many children fall into depression and fear. The fear becomes a dominant force in their lives and they feel as if they are always in a state of anxiety or suffer from self doubt and self worth issues. They look for a way out.

It doesn’t matter where they discovered the substance or experience or what those things are. It only really matters to the addict how it makes them feel. They are looking for relief. They want to relax from the pain of anxiety and fear. They want love. They find it in a feeling, a positive sensation. They find it in many places. The obvious ones are drugs and alcohol. These are followed closely by smoking, but there are many other ways of getting the feeling they are searching for. Many alcoholics, in finding their way clean, turn to God and become addicted to religion as it makes them feel good. Often people will go into therapy and become addicted to the therapy or the therapist. Each new break-through moment is just the next high. The food addiction has people hiding wrappers and evidence of what they eat from others for fear of not having their love. Sex addicts transpose lust for love and are repeatedly disappointed at the state of their "love life.” If this sounds like you in any area of your life, there is hope.

Hope comes in the form of unconditional love. The feeling of unconditional love is relaxation and happiness or joy. It is the relief you seek. So rather than using the weighty word of love, let us instead use relaxation. What is relaxation? More than anything else relaxation is a feeling, a positive sensation. It is a respite from the travails of life. Take this moment and breathe deeply. When you exhale allow your body to fully relax your muscles. Do this several times. Go ahead – I’ll wait. Now that you have done that, how did it make you feel? The answer almost invariably is ”good.” So in that moment you felt "good.” Who was it that allowed you to feel that way? Who was it that that also felt that way? In that moment you felt the positive sensation of relaxation. That feeling is also the feeling of love. You at any given moment can sto, take a breath and feel love in the form of relaxation. If you ask smokers why they smoke, the number one answer is, “It relaxes me.” Watch when a smoker smokes or a drinker drinks and you will very quickly notice that right after each draw of nicotine or alcohol they relax their muscles and fully exhale. They are addicted to the feeling. The next time you feel the need for your addiction. Take a breathing break. And feel the positive sensation you are searching for.

Scientific theory says that twenty one days of continual behavior creates habit. Take a "breathing break” for twenty one days and the old habits are kicked. Whenever you feel the anxiety and the fear, take a breathing break. Whenever the world feels oppressive, take a breathing break. There is no one on earth more or less powerful than you. You are the creator of your experience. You can do it. I have belief in you and I look forward to hearing about your success.

“Love comes to those who still hope even though they’ve been disappointed, to those who still believe even though they’ve been betrayed, to those who still love even though they’ve been hurt before.” ~ Unknown