Drug Abuse - Addictive behaviour

Very few people are completely free of any addictive behaviour, and some addictions have more profound effects on you health and well being than others. Still, it is worth getting familiar with the basic elements of addiction and to recognize when your behaviour slips into its realm. 

Addictions usually alter your awareness or consciousness such that while under the effects of the substance or activity you feel powerful, in control, or "high". This effect is most noticeable during the beginning stages of addiction. As the addiction takes a firmer grip on your life, you rely more and more on it, typically needing a fix one or more times per day. You may even use the addiction to relax or to counter the effects of stress. You become less interested in other activities as the addictive activity takes on supreme importance. Eventually the addiction may require most of your resources to feed it, including much of your time and money. By then the addiction colours all your experience including emotions, feeling, and energy levels.

Over time you build up a tolerance and need larger and larger doses of the substance or activity to obtain pleasure, numbness, or satisfaction. You feel as if you cannot start the day or achieve a 'normal' mental state without it. When you try to do without your addiction, you feel depressed and unhappy. Frequently there are physical withdrawal symptoms as well, such as headaches and dizziness.

The pervasive drug problem we have in this country is also directly related to stress. The most obvious example, of course, is alcohol - one of the most costly drugs, both financially and socially. Conservation estimates place five percent of the work force in the alcoholic category, and another five percent are labelled, "problem drinkers". A report from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism cites a 13 billion dollar expenditure for alcohol related health and medical problems. In addiction, there is no way to compute the personal agony involved in alcoholism, nor do the figures truly reflect the loss of creative effectiveness.

Because of alcohol, one's perceptive and reasoning capacities are distorted and interpersonal relationships are seriously jeopardized, and one has serious physical symptoms to contend with. In addition, hypertension is greatly aggravated by the use of alcohol, for when the brief euphoria at the onset passes, even though alcohol does create a short suppression of the sympathetic nervous systems (and subsequent muscular and mental relaxation) the system swings back in the opposite direction causing a tendency to greater fear, worry and tension. What is more, the regular use of alcohol is a known cause of chronic depression; it also creates depression and relationships, achievements and self-image deteriorates.

This principle is very well understood in the science of yoga in which it is recognized that suffering is the direct consequence of undifferentiated consciousness, or what in yoga is referred to as ignorance. This does not mean that we are stupid, or dumb; it means that we are not aware of our nature.

Meditation: For all these problems meditation is the best remedy. A trained instructor gives you a secret word or sound, phrase, a mantra, which you promise not to divulge. This sound is allegedly chosen to suit the individual and is to be silently 'perceived', (If you don't have any teacher you can use the word like calm, ocean, or home). The mediator receives the mantra from his teacher and then repeats it mentally over and over again while sitting in a comfortable position. Mediators are told to assume a passive attitude and if other thoughts come into mind to disregard them, going back to the mantra. Practitioners are advised to meditate 20 minutes in the morning, usually before breakfast, and 20 minutes in the evening usually before dinner.

Shyam