How To Handle Addictions/Cravings 🤤 [Spirituality Edition]

Today, I wanted to write about the spiritual antidote to the problem of addiction. I’m going to outline 3 steps to tackle this issue. As with all my posts, this is geared towards those who have a core grasp of spiritual or philosophical principles. Let’s dive in.

Step 1: I am the body, I am the mind myth.

The single greatest obstacle to defeating addictions is believing in the “I am the body, I am the mind” identity. This core belief has to be eradicated before you can adequately handle your addictions. Let me explain. When you believe that you are the body, then whatever cravings arise in the body you’d immediately think it is you that is having these cravings. To give you an analogy; when you’re driving your car you sometimes get a variety of sputters, shakes, and shudders. Maybe you need an oil change, maybe the tires are flat, or maybe the brakes are starting to squeak. A myriad of problems can arise when owning a motor vehicle; the real tragedy exists if someone is so attached or identified with their motor vehicle that they strongly believe that any trouble that happens to their car affects them directly.

The body-mind is a vehicle for consciousness to operate in this physical realm. It is a very capable vehicle with beautiful machinations and systems (respiratory system, nervous system, cardiovascular system, skeletal system, digestive system, reproductive system, etc.); however, it is not YOU.

I hear people all the time saying “I’m addicted to pornography”, “I’m addicted to alcohol”, “I’m addicted to anger”, etc. No. You are not addicted to any of these things. As a matter of fact, you cannot be addicted to anything. Your body might be addicted, your mind might be addicted, but does it have to affect you? Yes, cravings and pattern-forming are common characteristics of the body-mind and I’ll explain further in the next section. However, these cravings affect the body in the same manner that a flat tire affects your car. You simply take your car to the mechanic to solve its issues; you can also take the mind to emptiness to solve some of its issues. If a new mind is needed, meditation and reading articles like mine will help you renew your mind and have it shining again as brand new. So step 1 is to defeat this pervasive belief that you are the body-mind.

Step 2: Let’s explore the brain biology of cravings.

One of the most unique aspects of the brain is its plasticity or its malleability. Brain researchers have revealed that our every thought is a chemical reaction that passes through a channel composed of receptors and connectors. As a certain thought is repeated often enough it forms a groove within the brain. These grooves deepen over time. This, my friends, is how an addiction is formed.

Maybe as a young lad, you were introduced to pornography and very quickly you started forming a brain pattern. Your brain starts to form a dopamine delivery channel through porn. This channel turns into a groove and now pornography becomes the trigger for high levels of dopamine to be delivered to your brain. Does this now make you a bad person? No. Hell no. Your body-mind just fell victim to biology. It is simple but not easy to reverse this groove. Simply abstain at first so that your brain can rewire and restructure itself. In the beginning, this could be tough but it gets easier as time progresses. Remember, the brain is almost miraculous in how malleable it is. So yes at first when you’re reprogramming a DEEP groove, it’ll be tough on the brain. The brain has been rewarding itself and adhering to a specific pattern/process so depending on how deep the groove of the addiction has become, it could be tough. You might receive withdrawals, cravings, sleep disturbances, etc.

When this happens, go back to step 1. Remember that all these withdrawals, cravings, and sleep disturbances are happening to the brain/body, not you. If you can keep this gnosis with you at all times 💡, then you can have compassion for the body as the brain attempts to rewire itself. So step 2 requires discipline, the same discipline that you had to acquire the addiction in the first place. The same diligence that you used to form the groove in your brain to begin with. Now as you practice this discipline of unwiring a groove to develop a new groove; you will need to pair this discipline with something else that I’ll cover in step 3.

Step 3: Unconditional Love

Now you’re probably asking yourself, “Where does unconditional love factor into all of this?” “This Cherechi dude always harps on unconditional love but this article seems to be riddled with conditions”. Well, unconditional love factors into how kind you are to yourself in the process. You cannot whip an addiction without unconditional love.

I know some people suggest the mechanical approach of pure discipline, gritting your teeth 😬, and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. That’s all well and good but the mechanical approach sometimes yields bad results in the end because it hasn’t dealt with the guilt and shame component. Often times what will happen with the mechanical approach is that you will be doing quite well with your discipline and then a random curve ball will be thrown; before you know it, you indulge in your cravings. From that small indulgence, guilt and shame arise in the mind causing you to REALLY over-indulge in the cravings. Now you’re back to square one completely discounting all the progress that you have made. Please remember this core tenet; whatever you resist, persists.

The key is to pair your discipline with unconditional love. Yes, have the intentions to overcome your addictions but if you fail, which is often times inevitable; NO BIG DEAL AT ALL. Just get back to your discipline. Making room for failure in your ethos is one of the best things that you could do to defeat any addiction. You must accept yourself unconditionally to allow changes to occur. The most awakened beings are also simultaneously the kindest to themselves and others. They are so detached from the “I am the body, I am the mind” identity that they can even be kind to the body’s struggles. They understand that sometimes a car might need an oil change, a brake replacement, or a wheel alignment; but ultimately it is the car that needs this tune-up, not them.

Also, keep in mind that unconditional love is the end result of the spiritual journey and sometimes it might be tough to see the end result from the position that you are in at that moment. It’ll be tough for an alcoholic to believe me when he or she just finished an aggressive binge and I come by and say; “hey don’t worry about this, it is going to be ok. There is nothing wrong with you”. The alcoholic won’t believe me because he or she is stuck in the cycle of grief and shame. That is okay. The end result of the spiritual journey is unconditional love so if you start giving it to yourself today; like a muscle, it’ll grow and it’ll get easier and easier to give it to yourself in the future. I have now covered to the best of my ability the steps to help someone deal with addictions; I have left out things like genetic and environmental factors as it’ll make this article that much longer. But please note that I kept those caveats in mind even as I wrote this. Hope this helps someone. Namaste 🙏🏾.