This blog post is an excerpt from the award winning, Project Addiction book.
PLEASURE Vs. FULFILLMENT
Drug addiction is a symptom of the “Disease of un-fulfillment”!
Happiness and Fulfillment are different:
Happiness: An emotional sense of pleasure. Pleasures are transient and incomplete.
Fulfillment: An emotional and intellectual feeling of being whole and complete. Fulfillment has longevity.
Happiness is featured within fulfillment, but fulfillment is not necessarily a feature of happiness. Pleasure (happiness) appeals to your senses, but fulfillment appeals to your spirit. To feel happy we must acquire and experience, but to feel fulfilled we must achieve and accomplish. Fulfillment goes deep as it continues to evolve after the actual event that began it.
So long as anyone remains devoid of feeling fulfilled, they will unconsciously seek simple pleasures as an alternative (drugs, sex, food). Once fulfillment is experienced it becomes the priority and totally eclipses the desire for pleasure or happiness.
Discovering fulfillment requires the same effort and experimentation as seeking pleasure does, but takes more patience and endurance. Pleasures abound- they’re common- but fulfillment is specific and precise and will require perseverance and tenacity. As you contemplate and search for fulfillment-experiences consider these qualifications:
· Does it require sacrifice to accomplish?
· Does it appeal to the emotion and mind or just the senses?
· Is there a sense of actual passion regarding it?
· Does it affect other living things in a positive way? (like art, charity, service)
These are a few common ingredients of fulfilling endeavors.
The “cure” for addiction and pleasure-seeking is
FULFILLMENT
Dr. Gabor Mate theorizes that addiction is a coping mechanism used to compensate for a biochemical deficiency or some previously experienced trauma such as abuse, pain or shame. An addiction is used as a tool to escape from or avoid the memory or awareness of some prior trauma. I agree but need to add a finer dimension to it: I was never traumatized and yet- I AM an addict. I’ve always sensed that life- even when luxurious and “happy”- has nagging limitations to it and no matter what I acquire, I will eventually realize that all I acquire is sooo futile. Complacency is an inevitability to pleasure.
When I was first exposed to helping others and creating something personal and “meaningful” I felt whole, complete, deep… eternal?
I realized what I truly craved and needed (was truly addicted to) was the untapped and dormant potential to make a contribution to the world in some way. I personally need to serve others and humanity to feel fulfillment.
We all need to feel fulfilled.
If we don’t feel fulfilled we will seek pleasure as a convenient substitute.
The panacea to drugs is to heed the calling of your spirit to contribute in some way. Be a help: not something neutral or a hindrance: we’re either a part of the problem or part of the solution or… we’re nothing (“evil thrives where good men do nothing.”- Edmund Burke).
How do we listen to the call of our spirit? Meditate, pray, seek, want and need it; as bad or even more deeply than you want dope, ice cream or money and it will reveal itself. The answer is inside: Deep in your heart, spirit and mind. The answer is there. We don’t need to create it or have it created; we need to uncover it. We need to reveal it so we can see it. IT… is there already. Allow yourself to need it and beg it to come reveal itself. It already belongs to you so you don’t need to get permission to view it. It’s YOURS.
Go towards the silence inside. Quiet the outer world and its B.S., brainwashing and subterfuge. Don’t seek it… allow it. I know, I know… it sounds cryptic and ethereal. I assure you it only seems that way because we try to view or touch with conventional seeing or touching. Feel it: feel your way- don’t touch or smell or see it; those senses have always misled you. Your “brain” will mislead you too. You “think” with your brain, but you “feel” with your mind. Brain and mind are different. Brain is tissue and it is body and it’s human; but mind is spirit, thought and feeling and it’s very near to soul.
Get involved. Get beyond your SELF.
Krishnanand Scott Spackey is an accredited, private-practice addiciton specialist since 2005. He was a hard core dope-fiend in his youth, got clean on his own and teaches people how to design an effective and custom strategy to liberate themselves from addictions and habits. "The recovery industry has become a money-making empire that saves fewer then 9% of those who pay them their life savings. That's failure. People need personalized methods, not a one-size-fits-all attitude that cannot adapt."
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