If recovery is thought of as the embodiment and return to ones own eccentricity, ones own uniqueness. Then in turn, we must begin to see addiction as the consequence, or result of our own failing to live the life in which the soul desires. There may be many reasons for this of course ; fitting in, people pleasing, trauma response, the familia history and time we are born into – add infinitum as to “why” we go against our souls. But – the experience of hearing the inner voice, feeling the pull, and scoffing in return is most common.
This thought affords us way to re-imagine just who an addict is, and where the addiction arises from in the soul. Addict, stemming from the Latin “addicere” in its own etymology meant – “to deliver, award, devote, consecrate, sacrifice”. Just imagine for a moment, if we walked backwards in time, and attempted to embody these notions of who an “addict” is. One soon might feel like the man mentioned below…
Socrates famously said, “the unexamined life is not worth living” and was brought to death for simply calling out the others who were quickly entering into a consumerist way, focused not on the examined life of the soul, but literal, material and earthly possessions. When one mentions the idea of soul, most people become confused right away; it’s not something we speak about. Its ways and language are lost.
“Language is power, for it can alter consciousness, shift perception, bring about change, and invoke the divine”, Pam Grossman reminds us.
Depth Recovery follows this call of language, its use, and its power. By returning to the origin roots of a word, it allows us to see where we might have gone wrong in our own understanding, as well as how those before us once lived.
This leads to the question, is addiction arising in the soul as a result of insult and ignorance of its existence itself? Is addiction the price we pay for losing our souls? A life of soul requires certain things; a reflective capacity, an ability to seek and receive, study, imagination, and a devotion to aesthetic awareness. One look out into the greater world and one can see loss of soul everywhere. We are a manic society. In active addiction, the opposite of each of these seems to ring true in my experience. There is no ability to be still, I remain focused on getting one thing, no time to study, no time to appreciate and imagine as I remain highly devoted to one thing – the comfortable life.
In opposition – if one live the examined life, a life devoted to soul, one may experience the actual benefits that the latin definition afford. “Addicere”, or addict then is one whom is; devoted to a life in and of soul, sacrifices ego ideals in favor of soul, consecrates this decision ritualistically, and is awarded from the depths as a result. In turn, we see that being an addict might in fact be a calling – a calling of one destined too, and for, the life of soul.
Has our repression of the origin ideas of “what” an addict is in fact amplified the experience of addiction we see rampant now? The phenomena have their own existence, their own place in the soul. As the collective moves farther and farther away from soul, the modern experience of what addiction is, and “what” an addict is, has grown worse and worse…
