The Problem of the Senses

If you read enough Orthodox monastic writings (often lumped into the general category of 'Patristics', which includes theology, philosophy, law...), you tend to get the idea that the serious Christian is fighting two battles in his inner 'battlefield'.

Indeed, the battle is an interior one.  We aren't really fighting with the devil or other people, though it often feels that way.  Relationships represent 60%-75% of the typical confession.  Not that I'm taking notes...

But, honestly, our fight over sinful or 'bad' actions begins with what goes in within our consciousness.  It is deep within ourselves that the struggle takes place between the 'higher' aspirations of the heart and its cruder appetites.

This battle over which side will dictate the actions of the person goes on in each of us.

On the one hand, the battle is one of thoughts.  We have memories, ideas, visions of what we can accomplish.  On the other hand, we have yearning desires for sensory experiences and sated appetites.

While we discuss thoughts a great deal, we often don't give sensory experiences their due.  And, that's a major oversight when considering that most addicts get addicted in order to have a sensory experience.  While the addict will often settle for 'numb,' that numbness is preceded by a 'euphoria.'  And, where that euphoria is generated is important when discussing recovery, especially when trying to break the cycle of suffering and running away from suffering.

But, I think there is more to the matter.  I think that there is room to make the argument that each of us experiences our physical world in a unique way.  For example, I like blue but you like red.  I like salty, but you like sweet.  People have sensory preferences that point to differing experiences.  My theory is that the differences in physical experiences lead to, in many cases, the conditions which lead to addiction.  Our physical experience of fear can either lead us to becoming psychopaths (too little) or shut-ins (too intense).

The addict often reports being 'sensitive'.  I think this is something worth exploring.

How does recovery work?

Christ is Risen!

It has been a busy last few weeks, but well worth the wait.

So, I'm going to jump right into the question: what is addiction?

Is it a mental disorder?  A moral failing?  Those two are the most common categories used in the last few centuries to classify addiction.  The problem is that the tools available in these fields are generally ineffective in helping the addict to recover.  Psychology and moral teachings can have some positive effects, but generally not enough to make a huge difference in addiction.  Most addicts continue to die even with all the religious or psychological encouragement to get sober.

So, what does that leave?  In the 12-Step concept, a spiritual solution is offered, but there isn't really a very clean understanding of 'how' it works beyond describing the phenomenon of people working the steps and somehow 'magically' getting sober.  If God is working on us, what exactly is he fixing?

Think about it for a moment.  There may be a 'spiritual awakening,' but how does that effect one's decision-making processes, particularly since the addict knows that thoughts alone cannot save the addict from the addiction.  Were that true, psychology would work.  But, it doesn't.

As I see it, the problem is a fundamental one of not understanding how humans make decisions and even how human consciousness works.  We once did understand human consciousness in a way that, in fact, prevented addiction from taking hold.  But, as we abandoned ancient wisdom and chased after psychology as the solution to all suffering, we lost out on the key to comprehending human awareness.

So, let's stop and use some reason.  Let's assume that the 12-Step concept is true (but its explanations are incomplete).  So, God does something to the addict, and the addict breaks the cycle of bad decisions.  Where would God place the 'fix'?

If you follow the concept of human consciousness found roughed out in Genesis and later with the Greeks, human appetites rise up from within, and thus the senses are used to find the 'solution' to the appetite.

“The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is not sound, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! (Mt 6:22-23)

"Your eye is the lamp of your body; when your eye is sound, your whole body is full of light; but when it is not sound, your body is full of darkness." (Lk 11:34)

The wise man has his eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness; (Ec 2:14)

Judgement is vision, both what we see and how what we see.  This means that our physical perceptions are key to recovery.  How you see determines what you will do.  And, while sight and taste along with the other senses are important (think about the physical experience of the addict when he takes a drink), it has much to do with 'sight' both in terms of overall intellectual perception as it does the physical one.

Are you aware of how your body truly 'feels'?  Are you aware of all your stress you are carrying around?  Do you 'see' threats in other people around you?

The 12-Step group acts as 'eyes to the blind' because the addict learns, with Divine assistance, to not trust what he sees.  Some of this is thought, but a great deal of it is feeling.  When anger or fear arise (which are thoughts but have enormous physical components), the addict learns not to trust either the 'reasons' or the 'feelings.'

Recovery is about correcting one's sensory experience of the world.  If one learns not to trust one's feelings, then one has a shot at recover.

What's been going on the last seven years

 So, my life has been 'topsy-turvy' the last few years.  New assignment to a mission, and with that moving house and several secular jobs.  Working full time, keeping a small mission afloat during COVID, a fixer-upper house... and questions.

I'd been asking myself a lot of questions about the fundamentals of addiction.  I wasn't happy with the answers, or perhaps the lack of answers.

The problem I was struggling with is the "ping pong ball" I see in modern alcoholism and addiction treatment.  It goes something like this: when an addict sees he has a problem, he goes to a psychology expert, who sends him to a 'treatment program, which sends him to a 12-Step group, but he still ends up back in the office, and then back to the group, and so on.  Back and forth.  meanwhile, the rates of recovery are still abysmal.

In America, addiction treatment is a big business.  Between court referrals and even just social expectations, American addicts go 'back and forth' without really the overall addiction problem in America getting any better.  In fact, I'd say we now have more addicts than we ever had, just spread along a wider spectrum of addictions.

It seemed to me that lots of people are getting paid salaries to do nothing other than assuage the guilt of the 'unafflicted'.  Addict develops, it worsens, and few find a way out.

Perhaps it shouldn't bother me, but it does.  I watch people go in and out of treatment, able to regurgitate all kinds of platitudes about recovery... only to relapse.

The other thing I really struggled with was the inquiries about sexual addictions.  I read and read about pornography and its effects on the brain, but also couldn't square it with what I was hearing both from counselors and addicts.  Nothing was adding up.  I hit a wall.  And, so I gave up on posting here, figuring there was nothing more I could say.

Then, all this changed a few years ago when I began to consider a new angle... a traditional angle.

What if the problem is with how we understand human consciousness?  I began to think of addiction not as a thought problem, but a sensory one.

Eventually, the ideas have come together, and I now plan to gradually roll them out here.

Here's an example specific to sex, but you will be able to see how this can work back into most addictions: https://www.patristicfaith.com/orthodox-christianity/orthodox-christian-theology/sexual-appetite-in-historical-christianity/

In the meantime, stay tuned as I try to bring readers up-to-date with where I believe the discussion about addiction should be heading.

A New Beginning...

 After almost seven years, I think I'm ready to come back with some new stuff.  Stay tuned...

Cheese and Addiction

I've written elsewhere in this blog about the sensory aspects of addiction, so I won't dig all of that up.  What I will say is that, as we discover more, it becomes apparent that the sensory processes of the human person have sadly been routinely confused with psychology.

Here's an example of inroads into the sensory process, this time the Yale University study entitled Which Foods May Be Addictive? The Roles of Processing, Fat Content, and Glycemic Load.

Here's the Abstract:

We propose that highly processed foods share pharmacokinetic properties (e.g. concentrated dose, rapid rate of absorption) with drugs of abuse, due to the addition of fat and/or refined carbohydrates and the rapid rate the refined carbohydrates are absorbed into the system, indicated by glycemic load (GL). The current study provides preliminary evidence for the foods and food attributes implicated in addictive-like eating.

How do we fight our own nature, then?  Well, the truth is that addiction is complex, and has as much to do with context as it does with the nature of the substance.  Plenty of people try cocaine or heroin and never develop addiction.

We can't just blame the substance, though we ought to understand why the substance works.  

Information Overload

A lot has been going on in the news about drugs and addiction, though I don't think much of it is a surprise, really.  The sad drudgery of modern life wears on, grinding us down into the fine dust that we came from.  It is all very sad.  

We live in an era of wealth without beauty.  All of our treasures are ugly.

With all of the luxuries we have, we are still stressed out, as this article points out.  We are overloaded with information.

Think about it: we are expected to know everything these days, and we do certainly have more facts and easier access to them than we ever have.  So, we demand of one another far more knowledge than has ever been required of humanity before.

Think about it: the average fifth grader has more scientific knowledge than Isaac Newton or even Louis Pasteur.  If you could send that child back in time, he would be teaching college at the doctorate level based on his rather limited understanding of today's world and his school curriculum for that age.

Yet, we demand more and more.  If you don't know something, you are automatically labelled 'ignorant' or lazy.'  You had better jump on the internet and find out.  We must know everything about everything.

And so we are stressed, and our minds go wound up.  Then, we wonder why so many people indulge in alcohol and drugs.

It used to be thought that college students drank because they were away from their parents.  While that's a contributing factor, I think the real appeal of it is far more practical: you need to be able to shut your head off once in a while, and alcohol is a great way to do that when you have not been trained to do it otherwise.

We don't teach people how to manage their minds and their racing thoughts.  Thinking is encouraged, but like an engine that constantly revvs up, eventually it burns out.  The child prodigy who gets his doctorate at 14... where is he when he's 40?  Most don't learn how to succeed.  That's left to lesser minds.

Meanwhile, we are finding that young people have a harder and harder time coping with the pressures of the 'know everything' culture.  They have become emotionally fragile, in large part because the new parents 'shield' their children from negative feedback in the hopes that they will absorb more data.

But, when they discover they are wrong, suddenly their world (which defines itself by the ability to always know the most and thus always be right) comes crashing down.  They can't handle and go into anxiety mode.

Suddenly, that 'bong,' filled with either beer or cannabis smoke, becomes one of the few escapes from the stresses of the Unknown and the minor failures of the day.  For some, it is the only escape.  Porn does much the same thing without many of the nasty side effects of a night on the town. 

One of the first things that converts struggle with in Orthodox Christianity is the vast aras of knowledge that seem 'unknowable' or 'off limits.'  There are 'Mysteries,' which sound like an intriguing invitation to be defeated through better research.  Of course, if there were source materials on these Mysteries, then they would not be so mysterious.

So, converts buy books and try to read, but what good does it do?  Many of them burn out after only a few years in the Church because they keep getting a 'denial of service' when they seek to know what they have already been told is unknowable.

The lack of clarity on so many things in the Church drives converts crazy.  They can't just be in the Church... they have to think about it and understand it.  All of it.  This, of course, is the real problem.  They discover they can't know it all, and that becomes a 'failure' of sorts.  They fail to understand, and thus they also be to be 'part of' of the Church from their perspective.

Knowledge is the key to everything so they think.

Sobriety is largely about acknowledging that you don't know everything, nor is it even to be expected.  It is about, first and foremost, existing.  We don't exist very well these days.  Think, yes.  Exist, not so much.  Existence is almost accidental.

The addict knows that too much thinking is as dangerous as too little or none at all.  By learning to accept the Mystery of Life, one's need to over-think decreases.  We don't need to use to slow down the whirling thoughts in our minds.

If we are going to preach the Gospel in this new era, the first thing we will have to do is preach against over-thinking and the dangers of Information Overload.

Embracing a Negative Message

Yes, it has been a while, hasn't it?

 

To be honest, I'm overwhelmed with lots of small things that add up to one big thing... I call it the 'Blob.'  It's just a big blob of half-completed tasks, partly from my own sloth and partly from the broken promises of others.  Oh, well... life is never easy.

 

What I have been thinking about lately is how we have taken a culture of unbounded criticism and created an environment where people have begun to embrace all that is negative.

 

It used to be that criticism was always done in the face of self-confidence, like a counter-weight to pride and vanity.  But, what happens when the pride is gone?  All that is left is the barrage of complaint and fault-finding.

 

This is what you get in religion, where people are constantly complaining about the world or humanity or religion itself.  Then, when the criticism 'wins' the debate, it refuses to stop.  It just keeps coming, and soon it destroys what it once sought to correct.

 

It becomes constant dissatisfaction and pessimism.

 

There are people who are not able to handle both value and criticism.  They want it 'all-or-nothing.'  Outsiders here the criticism of Western culture from Westerners and believe the bad is the totality... and then you end up with radicalism and ISIS/Daesh/Al Qaeda.

 

When everything is bad, we end up prisoners of rage and depression.  That's why those movements eventually become rape-factories and feeding frenzies of oppression.

 

I'm talking politics, but I am also talking daily life.  When you teach kids that their societies are nothing but 'evil' and you make 'good' so totally abstract that they can never really experience it, get ready for substance abuse and other forms of 'escape.'

 

The phenomenon sweeping the world right now is dissatisfaction, one that has come with the 'Critical Theory' movement.  Everything is endlessly analyzed, and examined, and critiqued... often without the benefit of the 'whole picture.'

 

So, we end up fretting endlessly about food ingredients and how everything causes cancer... and forget that humans are living longer than they ever have.  In fact, some say we now have too many of them, but then we run around and save them from diseases and famine.

 

Contradictions, yes?

 

We have become lost in the details of criticism.

 

So we are miserable.  The blob I fight with is a tightly-knit organism of details that disappears only when I step back and get some perspective.  That's what I'm fighting with right now.

 

I refuse, however, to embrace the negative.  I believe the world is good, that it was made good, and no amount of human sin can change that.

 

That's the source of my hope: that the God who is good made all things good.