Societal Addiction

Personal Addiction

Ironically the topic of my conversation today was first written on a chocolate wrapper in the whole foods parking lot. What I wrote was “The one who promises relief is the one supporting the addiction”, and the reason it is ironic is because for lack of paper in my car, the only thing I had left was and expression of my own addiction, an old piece of chocolate wrapper left behind.

Sometimes a seemingly simplistic idea or understanding can appear within a particular timeframe, and seed a whole new way of looking and approaching things. Such is this case.

If you have ever gotten out of addiction, or have been in the vicinity of addiction, you would know that the one thing addiction does very well is - when it comes to the addiction itself, the capacity of the addict to think clearly and logically diminishes. Logically, the addict would realize that this process is a destructive one and would use all his power and ability to kick it. However, since logic and reasoning are circumvented, contrary to all indications, the addict actually believes the promise of relief and continues participating in his or hers destructive behavior.

Once addiction sets in there are two possible outcomes. One is deterioration (giving in), the other withdrawal (getting out). If the addict is fortunate, he will find himself surrounded by a supportive community, one that is resourced enough to guide him through the process of withdrawal. Since the process of withdrawal is an excruciating process, you will hardly find an addict that will be willing to do this on his own. Usually he or she will have to be encouraged or even forced to acknowledge the inevitability of their destructive predicament.

For the addict to break through, and escape his perpetual internal prison, it is necessary that he receive help from the outside. For the most part the addict has to be presented with a firm, external force, needed to start the process of exiting his current state. However there are cases where a firm, internal motivation can suffice.

The way i describe addiction is the following:

Addiction is a process that establishing unnecessary dependency as necessary. Through prolonged intervals of distress and relief, the addict is entrained into a predetermined response, so that when faced with distress the choice of a particular relief agent becomes automatic. Sooner or later, this results in the relief agent itself becomes that which promotes the addiction. This eventually creates a paradoxical situation, in which the natural order of distress promoting the need for relief, is turned.  Now, for the addict, the mere thought of relief, is enough to kick in the feeling of distress.

Giving into addiction results in accelerated deterioration of the physical and mental structure,  Getting out of it requires being resourced enough to face the difficulty of withdrawal.

Unfortunately, by the time the addict notices his addiction, the reliance is so habituated; so deeply ingrained, that the resourcefulness so desperately needed to unhook has diminished. Through this process of distress and relief, resilience is lost and dependency becomes the norm.

It is important to note that the process of facing distress and finding relief does not necessarily point to addiction. Hunger is one such example. When hungry, I am faced with a definite form of distress. When I eat; when I satiate my hunger, I am relieved. As long as the natural order of distress and relief are maintained, hunger will not fall into the realm of addiction. If however, I find myself compulsively thinking about eating, completely independent of my physical hunger, then I have the potential of stepping into the process of establishing a dependency.

Societal Addiction 

What I described so far is addiction on a personal level. What I am more motivated to talk about actually is addiction on a social level. While addiction on a personal level might be easy to spot, addiction on a societal level is much much harder to recognize. The reason is, that while the personal addict can find himself surrounded and contrasted by others which are not, when it comes to the society this is not the case. If the majority of the participants are addicted,  the addiction becomes the norm. Who then will be there to contrast and provide firm opposition? Who will be there to reflect the growing level of distress and the accelerating levels of dependency?

What makes the societal case so unique is that unlike the personal case where the opposition/support usually comes from external sources, in society the opposition to the addiction has to come from within. This makes it a much more complex, difficult to recognize and often quiet painful. When I say, that the whole society is addicted, what I mean is that the majority of the participants in the society are actively participating in the addictive behavior. Since the majority is the norm, and we usually perceive sickness as an out-of-the-norm occurrence, what possibility is there to find a way to unhook?

With rising dependency, and the various relief agents becoming the norm, the society continuously pressures all its members to comply. The pressure piles up both on those who are eager to comply, as well as the ones trying to resist the dependency. As the levels of distress amplify, the ability to think clearly and logically is greatly diminished, and the ones who are healthy are faced with the distress of becoming further isolated. Now they, the healthy ones, find themselves faced with a difficult choice. They can either keep their opinions to themselves, speak out and take a chance at being crucified, or start to gather among themselves, to influence and invoke change.

History is full of examples describing nations caught in distress looking for relief. The higher the level of distress the more susceptible they were to following an agent, a leader, with the promise of relief. Like the personal addict, so do nations have a tendency to ignore simple evidence, and logic, and like the person, they too tend to avoid the process of withdrawal. Painfully, unlike the personal addict, the consequences of societal structural deterioration, are dire. Sadly, these include destruction, violence, and war.

Unfortunately, the way addiction takes hold is stealth like. Society, having no external resource, to guide it through the process of recognition, withdrawal, and restructure, is highly susceptible of falling into destructive norms. Therefor the only possibility it has for resourcing, is to preemptively prepare. Considering the societal addiction, an internal perpetrator, we are not only faced with a perpetrator cleverly disguising itself as the norm, but one that also like to promote itself as the solution and the a source of relief. We , the society are then faced with the question, "how do we educate ourselves to intercept?".

The first step I would say, would be to create, and adhere to, a well thought of set of guidelines, and executive safeguards, aimed at verifying the authenticity of society's own motivations, and actions. This however needs to be followed by promoting, and emphasizing an open, and ever developing set of educational protocols. This is because all safeguards, unless kept up to date, and current, will eventually faultier.

I believe the United State of America, was built on the understandings of such destructive norms, and for this reason the nation was declared as a republic, and the list of safeguards was declared as a constitution. Unfortunately, the educational structure necessary to continue supporting this process was not put in place in a way that allowed the development of these safe guards.

Faced with an acceleration level of deterioration, we can either continue following these destructive norms, or man up, and be ready to go through a process of withdrawal. The first stage, I believe is to recognize that the promise of the "American Dream", is nothing but a habitual thought of relief, one that is probably at the root of the accelerating levels of distress we are currently facing.

Needless to say - we have been breached.