Search as a cry for connection
The Company Viewed as a moral failure or weakness of will often. Those who drink, smoke, take drugs or to play compulsively, supposedly lack the necessary discipline. Accordingly, the measures are: punishments, withdrawal, control. But all of these approaches only scratch the surface. Because addiction is not the real disease – it is a symptom. It is the visible expression of a much deeper suffering, a pain that usually begins long before the first consumption. Gabor Maté Getting to the point: “The question is not: why the addiction? But: Why the pain?”
“Not all traumatized people get addicted, but all addicts are traumatized.”
Maté, a renowned doctor and search expert, sees addiction as a survival strategy. People use substances or compulsive behaviors because they want to numb inner wounds – often wounds that were beaten in childhood. He writes: “Not all traumatized people get addicted, but all addicts are traumatized.” This does not mean that every dependency arises from a dramatic event. Trauma can be subtle: emotional neglect, lack of security, the feeling of not being enough. A child who is not seen or loved develops strategies to deal with this defect – withdrawal, adaptation or just striving for external narcotics.
Carl Gustav Jung See the addiction as a spiritual crisis, as a misunderstood attempt to gain wholeness. “Ultimately, every addiction is the search for yourself”he wrote. The alcoholic, the addict, the drug addict – they all look for redemption, peace, consolation. But they find only an endless repetition of excess and crash, brief relief and deeper emptiness.
Society fights symptoms, not causes
Most measures against addiction to control. There are bans, therapy programs, medication treatments. But all of this only deals with the external appearance of dependency, not with the pain on which it is based. It is like trying to save a burning city by selling the smoke but leaving the fire untouched.
Maté criticizes this superficial approach: “We ask what is wrong about the addiction. But we never ask what is wrong about the world that drives so many people into addiction.” Our society is characterized by pressure to perform, alienation, isolation. Many people feel empty internally and unconsciously look for ways to compensate for this deficiency – be it through drugs, food, work or social media. However, as long as the behavior is treated, but not the emotional need behind it, the addiction remains or returns in a different form.
True healing: Mindfulness, letting go, self -compassion and community
If you want to free yourself from addiction, you have to look deeper. It’s not just about no longer consuming – but understanding what drives consumption. Here sets the Mindfulness to:
Mindfulness means consciously perceiving without evaluating. Those who are addicted often flee from their own feelings. Instead of allowing pain, it reaches the narcotics. Instead of feeling fear, he distracts himself. Mindfulness breaks this mechanism. She brings us to the moment, confronts us with what really is. “Healing begins with the ability to sit with what is”writes the Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön.
But knowledge alone is not enough. After seeing it comes to let go. Letting go does not mean ignoring the pain, but no longer holding it out. Many people define themselves about their suffering because they have identity. You say: “I am addicted, I’m broken, I’m hopeless.” But these self -pictures keep the pain in life. Jung writes: “I am not what happened to me. I am what I will decide.”
This is where the self -compassion comes into play. Instead of condemning yourself for your own dependency, the aim is to meet compassion. Maté emphasizes: “The key to healing is not self -discipline, but self -love.” Those who understand themselves, whoever takes on themselves, no longer needs anesthesia.
The community is also decisive for healing. Solks often arise in a feeling of separation – by themselves and others. Healing cannot therefore happen in isolation. Maté describes that addicts not only hang on the addiction, but often also in a deep lack of real, trusting bond. People don’t heal alone – they heal in relation. To open up to others, allow support, to feel understood in a community – all of this can prepare the ground for a deeper, sustainable recovery.
The transformation: from survival to life
True healing is not pure abstinence, but a transformation. It means no longer escaping itself, but taking on. It is about coming to peace with your own pain instead of fighting it.
Addiction is a cry for connection – to others, but above all to ourselves. If we learn to be present, let go, to deal with us and to connect with the community again, then the dependency can lose your hold. The drug, the compulsive behavior, the self -sabotage – all of this was just the desperate attempt to find something that has always been in us.
The question is not: How do I stop being addicted? The question is: How do I find back to myself – and to the people who accompany me in this way?