Thought I would pull together my theories and thoughts about addiction in one place so I can put them together in a single cohesive form and move on from there.
First off, we think about addiction all wrong. We choose to believe that somehow, a lack of addiction indicates virtue and becoming an addict indicates weakness.
This is especially true for the soft addictions, the psychological ones. When it comes to the big ones like drugs or alcohol, most people have absorbed and accept the message that these addictions are diseases that can happen to anyone.
But when it comes to being addicted to video games, or junk food, or casual sex, or any other non-substance based addiction, we still feel free to judge ourselves and others as if having these addictions is a weakness and not having them is a virtue.
Let me make this clear, then : these addictions are just as serious as the big ones you hear about. All addictions hijack the craving center of the brain, and that’s no joke.
It is a very ancient, primitive, and powerful part of out brains. It is the part of the brain that compels a hungry animal to eat, a thirsty animal to drink, and a horny animal to fuck. It is the primary drive that keeps all animals alive, from the most primitive skink to us complicated naked monkeys.
And it is perfectly capable of disabling our entire conscious mind – the totality of the person we think of as ourselves – and taking over if the cravings get strong enough.
This is what leads to a starving man stealing and eating food and having no memory of it. It’s also how people start an affair without any memory of deciding to have sex with the other person.
“It just sort of….. happened.”, they say. Yes, because your primitive mind took over.
This is what we are up against when we battle addiction : a force so powerful that it can take away our very consciousness. Our ability to make decisions. Ourselves.
And more importantly, it means that the subjective experience of “cravings” is just as strong and hard to resist as starvation or extreme thirst.
So forgive yourself for “breaking your diet”, or whatever. The problem is much, much bigger than pop culture realizes and only a nuanced and intelligent approach stands a chance of beating your addiction.
For example, no forbidding anything. The moment you create an ironclad exclusion, the craving center of the brain interprets that as a sudden scarcity of that thing and the cravings begin to build.
The idea is to have just enough of the thing to keep the cravings at bay. If it’s an option, taper off. Ideally, keep the cravings from kicking in at all.
But barring that, tapering off keeps them small and manageable.
And be humble. And by that, I mean realistic. Know that until we have some way to simply reset the contents of the cravings center of the brain, curing your addiction will be very hard to do and you will fail many times before your succeed.
And above all, remember that you are struggling with the life force itself, and that no matter what culture has taught you, that is a mighty enemy indeed.
Now, to go feed my addiction to Skyrim.
As the ancient wizard stretched his mind to encompass the wildly fluctuating river of time, fate, and destiny, he gave the stream a gentle stroke, like a cloth merchant caressing his favorite and most prized fabric, or a bard stroking his lute as he begins the deepest and most heartfelt serenade he will ever sing, he tried to remember why all of this had seemed so important to him.
The young man who began this journey seemed like an entirely different form of life, like a faerie, or a centaur. So gifted, so ambitious, so teeming with cold rage against the world, so scared of everyone and everything that he had to amass a world-destroying level of power just to be able to sleep at night.
The wizard smiled as he remembered those days. Could he have ever been so small? So petty? So hot-blooded? So…. human?
Of course, it was really him who had turned into something alien and strange. He had transcended mortality centuries ago by becoming a lich. Dead but animated by his willpower and magic, he had ruled the night and feasted on blood to build his power.
Because it still wasn’t enough. It was never enough. Not for long. He would labor for decades in order to make himself still more powerful, and all it bought him was a day, maybe two, before the doubt and fear would creep back in and start whispering in his ear about the exact way someone could still “get” him.
Even the transcending of all physicality to become a being of pure magic had not kept his demons down for long. The same brilliant mind that planned all the elaborate magical transformations and the unqiue and potent spells that powered them also created the scenario of his own brutal demise.
The fact that none living even knew his name any more made no difference.
After all, he didn’t know it either.
Once more he stroked the strands of time, trying to remember what in the Planes he had been planning to do with this power.
It upset him that he didn’t know.
It upset him more that he didn’t care. Not really. He was just going through the motions now, hoping it would spark something in him – a memory, a motivation, something – that would give him back his purpose.
He had always been so focused. So driven. So fixated on his goals.
But now he had lost the thread somehow, and didn’t feel like looking for it.
He cast about in his mind for something he actually wanted.
And after moment/eons of casting about, the answer came to him in a blinding flash that left him agape at a truth he could neither accept nor deny.
What he really wanted was people. Just people. And not as slaves. Or soldiers. Or victims. Or servants.
Just people being people, all on their own.
All he wanted to do was watch, and enjoy their…. humanity.
Soul of the Void, has he really labored for centuries and transcended flesh and form and time itself just to find out what it means to be human?
That made the ancient wizard do something truly astonishing : he began to laugh.
Even when he was human, he hadn’t laughed. Laughter was for idiots amused by their own fingers. He was a serious person who got things done.
But now he laugh, and time itself chimed in tune. Great gales of pure merriment swept through planes and realms more alien and strange than the bottom of the sea. Planar creatures felt the vibrations and looked at each other in wonder. Wizards of all kinds suddenly had a giggle fit.
When it was finally over, the ancient wizard sighed. He felt better than he had in….well, better than he ever had, period.
He then smiled to himself and hummed a little tune as he tried to remember how to scry.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.