The feeling of relief that someone experiences from satisfying their addiction is usually shortlived when the effects of the desired substance wears off and the addict feels even worse emotionally than they did before ingesting the addictive substance.

Hi Vesuvius, I brought up Truthfulness earlier this evening and its starting to haunt me. I have had addictions (Drug & Alcohol) in this life time and it is something that has taught me how to grow Inwardly more than anything else in this life experience. They lasted over several years I'm guessing maybe fifteen of my fifty two years.

There is something inside of each of us that knows right from wrong, good from bad. Back then I did not know what this was but it was with me always. It always gave me the strength and choice to do what was right. It never made me feel that I never had an option to a different way of life than the one I was living I always felt in control, and much to my surprise and my families I was able to walk away from that bondage with very little difficulty.

I attended mass at several different Churches and I can honestly say all my strength came from within and IT showed me a more defined path. And I'm still walking my Talk. Namaste

I think guilt comes into play here, which is self created it doesn't exist but it is programmed into us to feel bad if we did something we are not suppose to do. So while I wish to quit this addiction and I fall on the wagon again and drink some whiskey or take some marawana and feel good at the time later I would feel like "oh what have I done? I messed up again!" and that is when the guilt comes in. So if I am sincere in wanting to change all I would do is make myself feel bad, now if on the other hand I am a person addicted to that stuff enjoy it and see nothing wrong with it, (no guilt) I would continue in that direction until I have damaged my body and brain to the point of feeling bad that again leads me to wanting to change. Alcohol damages the organs and Drugs damages the brain so if it isn't the will to change the addiction now it will be later.

I do neither I haven't an addiction but I know my great Aunt had one to cigarettes and now she is on oxygen and the doctor told her if she smokes again it could kill her, she hasn't smoked in years, but has to spend the rest of her life on oxygen now.

In this case the emotional guidance lead her away from guilt of smoking cigarettes even fear of smoking cigarettes to comfort of not smoking.

An addiction means not being able to stop doing something, being psychologically or physically dependent on it, whatever it is. Considering that a large percentage of the people on the planet are addicted to tea, coffee, cigarettes, alcohol, legal or illegal drugs, sex, food, television, work, etc., then most people are addicted to something.

If we understand that, then our work is to get to the root cause of our addiction.

In the meantime, realize that any fear generated from our addiction, say smoking cigarettes is not in our best interest and doesn’t feel good. Because we create our own reality by our thoughts and feelings, feeling bad about smoking and imagining a negative outcome of our actions, say possibly getting lung cancer, does not serve us.

Become friends with your addiction and don’t treat it like an enemy. Instead, make an effort to find the root cause of it without feeling bad about it or yourself. Realize that it is a crutch that can be dropped as soon as you have understood its purpose in your life. Don’t beat yourself up. Love yourself anyway.

There was an experiment where they wired volunteers with addictions of all types, I mean we are talking all types, including murder, sex, extreme violence, fear, suicide, disease etc on to medical devices that allowed the possibly to record the biological response in certain key areas.

They had the volunteers imagine or think about the situations that trigger the addiction response, so for example a rapist was asked to imagine that he was stalking a potential victim.

Would you believe that among other responses, the most interesting observation was that the pleasure center in the mind was stimulated by the addiction response. The pleasure response didn't differentiate between a good socially allowed addiction and a horrible violent illegal addiction.

Now let me make myself very clear. Please ... Please... Please.... don't jump to the conclusion that I am putting all addiction (or all the addicts) under the same category because I am not. Far from it. I don't know why the soul while apparently driven towards the love vibration is also responding this way in moments of suffering or evil intent.

My point is, how can we overcome addiction when the feedback given to the body during addiction is pleasure? I don't know the answer. I'm just asking.