Freedom from addictions

Freedom from addictions

Suma Varughese finds that  identifying with spirit and not  matter affords freedom from  addictions 
 

My increasingly tangible  experience of being spirit  and not matter is giving me  a whole new insight into the  management of addictions. I have been a food addict for  quite some time now. It was not  that I ate in huge quantities but  that I could not control what I  put into my mouth and what I did  not. My inability to be in control of  what I ate was a matter of deep  guilt and shame and damaged  my self-esteem considerably.  The matter became even more  fraught when my love for food  sent me spinning into ill-health,  first through asthma, triggered  essentially by food allergies,  and later through Irritable  Bowel Syndrome (IBS).

 
Knowing that I was endangering  my health made me even more  frightened of food and sent me  into a vicious cycle. The more I  feared food, the more conscious  I became of it and the less I could  control my attraction for it. Of  course, inner work over many  years has reduced the intensity  of the issue considerably and  brought about a management  of my food fixation, but it did not  free me of it. 

My new recognition of being  spirit and not matter is, however,  giving me the philosophical  basis through which I can free  myself of the issue altogether.  These days I tell myself, “As  spirit, I am perfect self-control  and desirelessness.”  
This immediately shifts my  relationship to food and makes  the addiction irrelevant. As long  as I considered myself to be  matter, I felt I was in the thrall of  the addiction and unable to free  myself of it. But, as spirit, the  question of addiction does not  even arise. I am simply not the  addicted personality I thought  myself to be.  

I find that this is considerably  speeding my detachment  with the issue and giving  me far more control over  it. If I am self-control and  desirelessness, I do not have to  fear food. I do not have to fight  temptation. I can trust myself  to eat the right food in the right  proportions. I can well be free  of the whole issue. The more  I identify with my true nature  of desirelessness and self control, the easier it is for me  to dissolve the conditioned  
perception of my having low  self-control. 

I do believe that this is going  to free me fully. Only a fellow  addict will identify with the  liberation this prospect brings.  To be in control over food would  give me back my sense of dignity  and self-respect. 
The first point of the famous 12  point programme acknowledges  that one is powerless to free  oneself of the addiction and that  one throws oneself at the mercy  of God. 

Identifying with spirit is to  identify with the God part of  us and not the frail and failing  human. It elevates us beyond  the hold of matter. It enables us  to see ourselves as far bigger  than the problem, and once we  do that, the problem is licked. 
Suma Varughese is a  thinker, writer, and former  Editor-in-Chief of Life Positive. She also holds  writer’s workshops. Write 
to her at sumavarughese@hotmail.com. 

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