Addiction, alcohol, drugs, phone, fucking, women, boys. What is addiction? You do something that you know is bad, you know, causes other people. Pain causes you pain. Versus financial ruin? Ruin of families. Relationships with your body. And it’s as clear as day. There is no denying it if you drink. Things go really bad for maybe a long time. You become homeless. It’s so. Predictable. It’s laughable. There might not be another thing as predictable. What happens when an addict? And what they’re addicted to? The pathways in the brain. Have been drilled down over decades. Maybe. Of what happens? Those pathways are beautifully worn, beautifully constructed, perfectly. These have become motorways. These are beautifully done. This is the autobahn. There’s no more efficiency. And predictable ends. Then the neural pathways. Connected to someone’s addiction. When you take it. It is ready, and set. Go. That gun is shot and you are going to the same place. Turn offs. It’s the Autobahn, It is just one straight line no speed limits No exits and you’re just going to hit the wall at the end of the motorway. It’s that predictable, why would you ever? Snort another line of coke, and drink another beer. Use anything again. There’s one thing people rarely say you are not that person. You don’t feel like that person because you’re not. That person is completely different from day to day. Even really for a moment, in that moment they’re a separate person. We use ideas. Like this is my brother and sister and mother and Father, Girlfriend, boyfriend, boss, these are tools to orient in the world. To work together, do things, navigate feel safe. What have you, our animal instincts book rally as you or not? That person, the same thing as when a woman gives birth to a kid. The next time they have a. Kid, they don’t remember the agony of pushing a human being out of themselves. They’re ripping and tearing and blood. Oh well, that’s not them, because it isn’t them. That’s why they don’t so emotionally connect with it. Not that you should go shoot that pen, but you are not that person. So how on Earth would you ever? In a million years. Do what that person does or not do something because it would affect that person. And the use. And drinking is freedom. It’s not freedom. But it’s perceived as freedom. It’s not even necessarily the feelings around it, which are a part of it. Connecting memories and emotions of fun and fucking and dancing and laughing and. That that is it. But there is another little. Little thing that’s a bit more in the moment of the using and taking because you know the feeling of the the alcohol and the drugs won’t kick in for a. Few minutes but the. Feeling, actually, the act of just being able to drink because everyone else is drinking. The act of. Using because other people are using. It is not breaking out. Of the confines of what you should and shouldn’t do that act of rebellion. That is so tantalizing and seductive. It is. This is one of the main reasons we go back. The other reason? So these things are hard to connect from the deep web. But the real freedom from it. You need to take another step. Some people think if you just keep remembering how bad. Something feels like you won’t do it and you keep connecting with that. That shame and regret and the damage you would do, which is useful as a direction. But as a. Practise or as a truth to be seen. Is that feeling of wanting freedom? That feeling of thinking that freedom is in the act of rebellion, of breaking out from what you should and shouldn’t do. Which will not satisfy that urge. What you’re looking for that freedom that is attainable is right here now. And it’s actually in the recognition. The dynamic of your mind. It’s to recognize that dynamic deeply and fully. And openly and without resistance or judgment or reaction. And it. In that you uncouple yourself. From the narrow living. Of thought and to see. And be free. Free from the need. Of whatever you’re addicted to give you the thing that you already have.
This act of rebellion. This attempt at breaking freedom breaking away from. This scaffolding of protecting yourself, the scaffolding that you think has become a cage when you attempt to break out of it. By doing the thing you’re not supposed to do, you are not breaking free, you are in fact breaking in to a prison. You are breaking into a stronger prison than the one you think you’re breaking out of. The only way to get out of the cage you are trying to break out of. Is by turning around and looking behind you and seeing you are already free from the cage you’re trying to escape from.