What defines an addiction? More specifically: when does a normal action become an addiction? That happens when we override the fact that the deepest part of our being either wants us to not do a certain thing or it wants us to do a certain thing... and we either continue in doing the thing that it doesnt want us to do, or we dont do the thing that it wants us to do and we do something else instead. That something else is what we can be said to be addicted to.

So a simpler phrase could be: addictions are things we do instead of what we are naturally inclined to do. Now naturally inclined doesnt mean everything we feel because our feelings can also be triggered by pathological programming in our subconscious. For example, we might feel like binge eating when in fact the deeper feeling is to be romantic.

Therefore, an important part of regaining health and eliminating addiction is to develop a keen sensitivity to the deepest part of our being.

A song once said Wonderful is what youll feel in you when you do the things youre made to do. That means being in harmony with and living out the design of your being and the purpose of your life.

Another factor here though is the difference between intoxicating addictions and non- intoxicating addictions. That is, with non-intoxicating addictions we still can be in touch with all parts of our being, including the deepest part. So even though we may choose to override certain internal messages with an addictive behavior... seeing and acknowledging them is still possible for us, and therefore we can move in the direction of correcting that.

But once we imbibe an intoxicant, we now mask our ability to see all of our internal workings and therefore lose sensitivity and control over them (which actually is a big reason why people uses intoxicantsthat is: they dont want to be shown certain feelings that are going on within them and be pressured to have to act on them or let them ruin their fun).

An example of this would be: the body saying it doesnt want to have sex or is not inspiring sex and then using alcohol to override that resistance or lack of inspiration. Whereas the emotional component of sex would try to drive us to the complete natural way of the sex drive which is within a marriage relationship with a safe, mature, committed partner.

Therefore, in order to be able to resolve any addiction, there ultimately can be no masks.

(c) Lighthouse Publishing