Reclaiming Addictions As Gifts

One revelatory theme of my life has been that whatever is in front of me is the that thing can move me closer to my connection with my authentic self. Whatever I see as my struggle is my Teacher and Gift. When I'm able to look without judgment, vital information is always available to me. Sometimes I get lost, go into judgement and victimhood and sometimes it takes me some percolating before I'm ready to move into the next cycle. But once I decide to move past the victim and remember the divine creator I am, I regain balance at this new level of creation.

Looking forward with detached anticipation to a nice dinner with wine pairings for each of the amazing seven courses included, is not the same intention as craving a bottle of wine because I'm twitchy. When I'm feeling an urge to drink, especially when that isn't the usual place I'm in these days, I want to look at what that urge is telling me. It's here, it's what I'm experiencing so it has meaning for me. I don't beat myself up about it, I gently ask. Sometimes I take the drink(s) to feed the craving, sometimes I don't. If I do, then I go into the rabbit hole to check out the scenery.

What I found the last time I visited the hole was the realization of a pattern I had been repeating the past two years when I amped up my creative intentions. I discovered that when something big starts coming my way, I get scared. It's really subtle until I find it. But when I tune into it, it's enormous. I don't know where that fear came from, don't know yet how it got here, not sure I care. What I do care about is identifying it, naming it, bringing it to the light of my consciousness. Once I know its name, I can begin my journey and play with it.

Long ago, when I used to do lots of intense breathwork and the facilitator would ask me a "why.....?" to something that might come up, the answer was often: "Because then I will be all that I am." It feels big and scary, brings up pre-verbal terror. No wonder I want to keep it down when faced with some huge shift.

I get now, at a really deep place, that my craving/drinking has to do with issues of personal power. This doesn't surprise me because when I stopped drinking years ago, I was going through a phase of stepping into my power. The crave is me telling myself that something is going on where I'm emotionally out of alignment about my power position, whether it's feeling powerless or feeling too much power coming my way too quickly for my unconscious beliefs in the moment.

Now, with that Gift/message, I can no longer run when I crave drinking...I know that I'm avoiding feeling my power issues, that the craving is my Spirit communicating through my body that it wants me to pay attention. I can either choose to look at it, find a way to be with it, or choose to numb myself again. The good news is that it will always be there to play with, so if I choose to numb, I know it's never too late to play in the future. Either way (if done with consciousness)...choosing to play/be with/heal or choosing to numb...gives me more information about myself. I also trust that if now is not the time, my greatest intention of balance, connection, integration and health will ultimately win the day and I WILL be ready to face this aspect of myself.

The older I get and the longer I do this stuff, I trust that even if my mind misses it, my body will always know and remind me to look further. The Body is not our enemy. It wants what's best for us. It doesn't have a language other than feelings to communicate what it knows to the other parts of us. It's doing its best with the tools it has...one of which is a craving. I don't want to push away those messages from my body by thinking I have to attack and control, burying its messages, talking myself out of my feelings, shaming myself around them, pushing them away. If I'm craving, it means there's more looking to be done, more places in me that want hearing and Unconditional Love.

Obviously if an addiction is out of control, like heroin or drinking oneself into a stupor, it's vital to stop the nasties in whatever way possible because YOU aren't present, the substance is. So stopping whatever is taking over your consciousness in whatever way will work for you is a vital first step if you are over the edge. But the work cannot stop there if you truly want to be rid of the addiction, stop it from running your life, and learn what Gift it's hiding from you and the world.

When we organically heal the need for the craving, it becomes a matter of gently choosing not to take heroin, or drink alcohol instead of fighting a huge battle every day to run from the evil thing that can rule us. We learn to love ourselves and all that we have been and are, instead of fighting ourselves, making ourselves wrong or bad for "having an addiction." It sets up a whole different energy inside us, bringing us a different perspective on life and attracting different things and people into our experience.

Part of changing the mindset and moving from feeling like we have no control over the substance is in the languaging. If I'm forever doomed to be "in recovery," afraid to go near alcohol, call myself an addict for life, I'm telling my deep unconscious that I'm powerless and a victim.This "thing" is stronger than I am so I have to constantly be vigilant. If the addiction is reframed as a positive Teacher, then a whole different energy is set up in the psyche and a whole different avenue for opening and healing becomes accessible.

Because I've done so many personal growth processes, so much work on the deep psyche, so many New Agey journeys, I've learned to be very careful with them. I notice they're very subtle in the messages they sometimes give. To constantly be telling myself I have to "work on" something...some flaw....makes my inner experience a thing to be judged. I've learned to not only become as conscious as I can of what my blocks are, but to REFRAME them into friends...not enemies. I still slip and call it "work," from time to time, but I prefer to call it "playing."

Playing is fun, it sets us up for discovery and creation. It's light, free, expansive. We play with our friends. We appreciate them, give them voice. We're more likely to listen to a friend than an enemy. And when we come to a person, either outside us in the real world or one of our Inner Voices, with friendship, they are more likely to return the favor and not want to annihilate us in order to be heard.

And what does the play look like? It's so simple, yet it's the hardest thing to do.

Just as with any friend, all we have to do is to sit and breathe and be with it. We have to really allow all the depths of the pain in, all the heights of ecstasy while we sit and breathe it through. We think we already are feeling the fullness of the pain, but we're not. There is a holding back just to the point of dissolving that we go and it's that holding on that keeps the pain with us. To make it to the other side, we have to go fully into it, and still continue to sit and be and breathe. The saying "the only way out is through" truly applies here. I will tell you one thing I've learned: the actual dissolving is nowhere near what we think it will be and hold ourselves off from. The continuing pain is there in the resistence to what is. But when we fully embrace it we are free.

Art
Hands chained with butterfly from here

Bella Rosecard from here
Self Love from here

Image of Blue woman hugging herself from here
Self Love by Anne Karinglass from here

Spiritual Gift from here