Of Life and Times

If not every, then almost every country on earth has something that can be called a stream. A stream is just a flow of water. Every stream is identifiable by where it is, how large it is, where it goes, and so on. Some people debate about whether a stream is too large to be called a stream and perhaps should be termed a river, but be that as it may, its anatomy hasn't changed, it is still a flow of water and will alway follow a predictable path. If it is in Bulgaria or Buford, Montana, if the flow is above ground, anyone can recognize it for what it is, a stream.

Why then when we develop an addiction do we try to cover it up and rename it, deny it, even ignore it? All addictions, like streams have governing characteristics. Now I'm no expert here, but as I understand them addictions are pervasive predilections or outright obsessions that any clear thinking adult should be able to recognize. Funny how many of us can't see them then.

It doesn't seem to matter if the addiction is to food, sex, thrills, drugs, alcohol or anything else you want to name. Every addiction involves a flow of thought that reads pretty much the same in everyone. But the difficulty that we run into is that we are afraid of addictions. There is shame involved, so we mask them, hide them, and when we can no longer hide them some people even become aggressive about flaunting them. Sometimes aggressive behavior keeps people away so we don't have to address the behavior that has us out of control. The football saying that the best defense is a good offense really holds true for addictions.

If a stream is underground is it no longer a stream? If we hide our addiction does it cease to exist? If I build my house over a wet weather stream bed should I be surprised when it rains that my house floods? Even when we take precautions to divert the water around us sometimes nature will take its natural course and we get flooded anyway. Addictions are no different. We can put on a show that we are clean and in control, we have all of our diversions in place. We can assert this in public till we are blue in the face (no racial slur intended for those with blue skin), but nature will take its course. Sooner or later the rain will come down hard enough that the natural result will be a deluge where we thought we couldn't possibly have one any more. We may lose a loved one and find ourselves so lost and bewildered, feeling so alone and without hope that we binge on food, sex, drugs - whatever our addiction is. We will no longer be able to conceal it from society. Then we have to deal with the public scorn, pity and shame which can drive us further into the addictive behavior.

I do not plan on a full treatment of addiction here. I am not qualified for such a task. What I want to point out is that we need to accept the fact of nature that just as a stream has its properties, and though buried beneath the ground it is still a stream, so too do addictions have real and natural properties that cannot be ignored. Burying an addiction does not make it go away, it is still an addiction and will eventually need to be dealt with. It is only when we recognize an addiction for what it is, and admit to ourselves that we have it (or them) that we can begin to address the causes and possible treatments for the addiction. The key is to stop making excuses and stop trying to mask it and turn it into something that it is not. It is addictive behavior and that fact needs to be kept at the forefront of our mind because it will always be there, even if we turn away and look at something else.