Quotes About Addiction

Addiction is the result of being disconnected from Knowledge.

It can represent addiction to a variety of things including

drugs

alcohol

relationships

seeking pleasure

recreational activities

Most people "are so given to survival and gratification that they cannot see anything else.

They are intoxicated with themselves and with those things that they use for their own self-avoidance.

They can only be led by powers that are beyond themselves.

They are helpless to resist."

Directives

"Refrain from alcohol and drugs that alter your state of mind. You are trying to become aware of your state of mind and observant of it objectively, even dispassionately. How can you do that when it is fogged and clouded by taking these things?

"You want your eyes to be clear. You want your ears to hear and your eyes to see. You want to escape the fog of unknowing and all of the suffering and confusion and ambivalence that that creates within you."

What is addiction

"An addiction is a replacement for real relationships."

"There are countless things that people are addicted to, but they all represent a substitute for Knowledge, and a kind of compensation for a life that is fundamentally out of balance, and filled with insecurity and uncertainty."

"You know you are addicted when you cannot do without something that is really not essential."

"The manifestation of addiction is tremendous and varied. People can be addicted to the most innocuous things or the most dangerous things."

What heals addiction

"Greater Community Spirituality" Book

"To really break an addiction you must have a different kind of focus for the mind that must really be all-consuming. It may even look like another addiction. But it must be strong enough to displace and replace what has captivated your mind previously, and what still tends to captivate your mind. Instead of being addicted to a drug, you become addicted to God. You become addicted to the experience of Knowledge within yourself, the deeper intelligence that God has placed within you. You become addicted to serving others. You become addicted to maintaining your health. This new addiction may be temporary but it serves as a bridge."

"Addiction is when personal preference takes the place of Knowledge in a person's life and becomes a dominating factor. Without God, there is only addiction, for without God there are no real relationships. And what is addiction but a substitute for meaningful relationships? The only thing that can heal addiction is meaningful relationships because addiction is a substitute for meaningful relationships."

"You have been given a greater task and a greater understanding to learn. This is a greater mountain to climb that will make all the small hills that frustrated you before seem truly small and insignificant in comparison. Here you will escape your addictions and dilemmas because you are taking on something greater in life."

"With the New Message Teaching, humanity now has great hope. For the first time, spirituality is being presented at the level of Knowledge. It is a great calling. It is a great gift. It brings with it wisdom beyond what humanity has ever established. It calls people out of the shadows—out of conflict, out of controversy, out of addiction, out of tragedy—to respond to a world in need."

What causes addiction

"People want to retire into kind of a listless happiness, without a care, but when you see this, it is pathetic. It is sad. There is no intelligence. There is no inspiration. There is no honesty. There is no true connection with others. There is no service and contribution. They have cast themselves out of the meaning of life in their life of constant repose."

"Goaded by the fear of poverty and deprivation, people are driven to seek endless amounts of wealth and reassurance for themselves. This is pervasive in the world. This is the condition of the human family. This is the 'state of the union' for the human family. And all of the addictions, all of the depression, all of the poor mental and physical health you see around you is a product of this desperation and this disassociation that people have with themselves and with the greater purpose that has brought them into the world."

"To be in hell is to live without Knowledge, which is to live without truth and honesty. Here you live with the demons of fear, and they will haunt you. Then your only escape is momentary pleasure. Your only escape is to be unconscious. This takes you deeper and deeper into addiction, deeper and deeper into fantasy and deeper and deeper into mindlessness."

"If the mind serves itself, it will be fundamentally competitive and destructive. It will always want more of what it thinks it wants and needs. Beyond meeting certain basic survival requirements, it will always want more. It will never have enough. It will want more of this and more of that—more pleasure, more security, more recognition, more approval , more power, more dominance, more beauty. All these things become addictions of the mind. They cannot be satiated. You want more. You gain more. You are not satisfied. And of course most people do not even have enough to even live a balanced and harmonious life, so the more you want for yourself, the more you draw from the limited resources of the world, the more you deprive other people."

Behaviors of addiction

"Look at the behavior of the person engaged in addiction. They are going hot and cold with their addiction. They are giving themselves to it with all kinds of explanations and justifications, and then they are denying it and claiming that they are going to free themselves. Then they say, 'Oh, I can’t do it. Why bother?' And they give in once again."

See also

Obsession

Further study

• Freedom from Addiction and Obsession (January 23, 2009)