THE GIFT OF MY ADDICTION

My life has been about addiction; I spent the first half getting addicted to everything and the second half in recovery from these addictions and receiving all the gifts it ultimately brings me.

From the beginning, I have gulped life in, in all its forms. I have pursued what always felt like completion in the warm glow of a woman’s eyes and arms; going from the chase to the orgasm, a natural addiction. The touching and the loving was a great comfort, and the orgasm was always like a blissful death.

For solace and pain relief I turned to the bottle; my long history of staring at the bottom of a bottle until I reached oblivion, another kind of daily death, helped me survive in what I thought was a real life.

I gulped down every titillation I could find to divert my attention from my suffering soul. The Great philosophies of India call this endless consumption of life and life experiences samsara; the timeless wheel of birth and death; lifetime after lifetime of consuming, searching, and being consumed, falling back into what seems an endless cycle.

I am a seed.
I am a stalk.
I am a bloom,
And I am death.

I am a seed.
I am a stalk.
I am a bloom,
And I am death.

My thoughts erupted into a frightening conclusion: If God is the author of all there is, is God addicted to His own larger cycle? My fear subsided as I remembered what my spiritual teacher has said to me many times, “God is beyond all things, thoughts, ideas, theories, and concepts human; beyond duality, pairs of opposites; yet closer than hands and feet, closer than breath and blood. The human mind, no matter how amazing or elegant can name or describe God or pontificate on His true purposes.

I must remember that all the pangs of fear and uncertainty will always pass if I don’t lie to myself about my past and who and what I am, and spend time every day in quiet meditation with my thoughts stilled where God can speak to me and isn’t blocked out by my own chatter.

God has used addiction as a great teaching tool in my life to help me see the path beyond samsara. So, I try to never forget that in every problem I have in life, large or small, there is a gift if I’m quiet and pay attention I will find it.

Jack