Addiction

is a two dimensional word trying to describe a multidimensional problem

Over the coming months, I’ll be sharing excerpts from a selection of essays which were written during the period of time I wrote the 52 essays which became the collection Consolations II, but were, ultimately, not included in the final manuscript.

Photo: © David Whyte

ADDICTION

is a word that tries to help us in our troubles and obsessions but is helpless to do so. Addiction is, unfortunately, an addictive word, one we go to too easily, and therefore part of the problem. Addiction is a word that abstracts rather than helps us to overcome the actual underlying nature of our obsessions. Addiction is a two dimensional word trying to describe a multidimensional problem from the outside in; an initial stepping stone perhaps to be used and then to be left behind and not the long-term solution to what lies behind our particular form of helplessness. We repeat the word addiction like an opiate and like an addictive substance itself, we keep returning to the word to give us the illusion we are addressing our difficulties. We are addicted to using the word addiction, both in ways that are unhelpful to us and by continually letting it be used by the the part of our mind that cannot really face the powerful underlying dynamics we are trying to overcome.

To begin with, addiction is not a word the body alone can understand, the body is puzzled by the word addiction from the very moment it hears it: the body is just meeting the same desires it has always met, and in the moment of the beautifully met satisfaction, cannot tell the difference between good and bad sources, or good or bad endings. The pejorative word addiction makes no sense to the body experiencing its pleasure.