Addiction and Recovery
An Addict Is An Escape Artist
By Scott Kiloby
Feb 22, 2008

An addict is an escape artist. From an early age, he learns mechanisms to escape this moment, and therefore to escape life. He looks to thought for his sense of self. And his thoughts tell him that he is separate from the rest of life. This illusory separateness creates a sense of lack within. So he looks to other thoughts which tell him that he will find fulfillment and completion in some future moment.

He does not realize that each and every movement towards future fulfillment is simply a presently-arising thought, and that thought itself is the fuel for the sense of lack.

And so, in his mind-made dream of future fulfillment, the addict is much like a rat on a wheel. Going nowhere. Round and round within his own head. His search for fulfillment in time is only a mental dream. He is simply looking for fulfillment within his own thoughts. Never "getting there." He can't "get there." The wheel won't let him. The wheel is the time-based mind---the ego or "dream self" as its sometimes called. This illusory, separate dream self is built from, and thrives on, a thought-made sense of lack, which feeds into mental projection towards future, which in turn feeds the sense of lack, which in turn feeds the projection towards future. And so the addict is only ever chasing his own thoughts, which he mistakes for reality. He identifies with thought, believing that his sense of lack can be fulfilled if he can just reach his own mental projection. This is futile. The projection will always keep changing because his thought-based self-centeredness is only interested in maintaining itself, and strengthening the illusion of separateness. This futile search for future simply strengthens and maintains the separate dream self or ego. And, because the separate self is an illusion, it cannot find true fulfillment. It cannot know the truth. The truth is that "fulfillment" and "lack" are merely concepts which the ego uses to keep itself separate, and at the center of life. They are simply movements of energy, or thought forms, arising within the addict's field of awareness. They have nothing to do with who he truly is at the deepest level. An addict does not see that if he stopped, and faced these movements directly in the moment they arise, he would realize that he is already fulfilled at this deeper level, and that his searching and dependency were obscuring this realization.

If an addict were to give clear expression to the unconscious beliefs which were manifesting at the time he first used something to escape, it might sound something like this: “If I take this drug, I will have fun, life will be better;” “If I drink, I will be more social;” “If I eat these cookies, the pain will go away;” “If I buy these clothes, I will be more attractive and therefore more fully myself.” When he looks at these more closely, he sees that each of these is a movement towards future in thought, and that every such movement is an attempt to escape from this moment, the only place where life is, where he is. This is, of course, impossible because he cannot escape this moment. His thoughts are merely thoughts, occurring in this moment. He is literally living in a virtual reality, comparing in his mind "what should be" with "what is." He believes that “this” is not enough, no matter what form “this” takes. And so he attempts to escape “this.” He tries to escape his very presence.

He continues using until the desire to escape turns into a physical compulsion, which sets a course for his destruction. He may die, end up in jail, or continue in the physical compulsion for years.

Or he may get clean . . .

And he may try to stay clean without a 12 step or other spiritual or religious program. But if he does not realize his basic dysfunction, which is this urge to escape life itself, he may very well use again, which may restart the cycle of physical compulsion.

He may enter what we call "recovery" by participating in a 12 step or other program. But if he does not become alert, aware, and present, the search for fulfillment will simply find other mental content. For example, he may continue to be lost in the role of victim, seeking life situations which will confirm his addiction to thought about his victimhood. He may start seeking a more fulfilled self by storing an accumulation of knowledge about recovery or his program, looking to be "more spiritual" than others. Or perhaps he begins searching for fulfillment in a better job, a more beautiful wife, or material things. His addiction may turn towards food, tobacco, or coffee (the "safer" vices). All of these are attempts to escape life, this moment. There is nothing particularly unhealthy about enjoying beauty, career, and material items, unless one seeks a sense of self from these things.

He may even begin looking for a more fulfilled self in the spiritual search. In that way, he escapes this moment by getting lost in techniques, methods, concepts, words, outside authority, teachers, mantras, and beliefs--all of which keep his mind moving--escaping! These things keep in place, and solidify, the illusion of separation between him and others. He is constantly wanting to be someone other than who he is now, and better or different than others.

In all of these cases, the escape artist simply puts on different masks. Having never realized beingness--his spirit--he replaces the mask of a junkie looking for a fix with that of a junkie looking for the better wife or life, or a spiritual seeker looking for that ultimate recovery or enlightenment experience or relationship with God.

What is the difference? Every search is a search for self.

How does he find who he really is by looking outside himself or in thoughts of future or in belief systems? These are methods of escape.

When his mind rests, when it is still, when he stops trying to escape this moment, when he fully accepts this moment exactly as it is, he is home. Then, and only then. All else is escape. This realization is beyond or prior to all masks, beliefs, methods, concepts, words, and steps. When he accepts this moment as it is, he realizes his true nature, and he sees at once the futility of ever attempting to escape this truth. He realizes that any movement away from this moment is a movement away from God.

In his true nature, he watches all cravings. He needs no escape. He realizes, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that no fix outside of himself could ever fulfill him. He is already whole. He comes to see this only through presence. He sees that beliefs themselves are attempts to escape reality. So his knowing is not mental, but rather a heart knowing, deep within, beyond hope, beyond faith, and beyond thought.

This knowing is never smug. It never preaches. It is a knowing about which the mind knows nothing.

Thus, in his true nature, he does not know, does not resist, and does not try to control with his mind. He is at one with God in this way, having emptied himself of his egoic attachment to thoughts of past, future, and resistance to now. He realizes that he is an addict only on the level of story. That is not who he truly is. He no longer needs that identity to stay clean. The identity itself is a drug. In the same way a victim looks for people and situations to confirm his victimhood as a conceptual identity, the addict seeks people and situations to confirm his identity as an addict. The identity of "addict with a disease" is a mind-made construct. It is the past carried as a heavy burden of self, and projected into the future in an effort to become free, to once again escape this moment. To totally believe that this construct is who he is, he places himself back on the wheel.

In his true nature, he knows he is already free. He realizes there is no such thing as recovery. Addiction and recovery are temporary, false egoic states which pass through this field of awareness which is his true nature.

This realization has a depth that no thought or emotion or label can capture. In fact, his true nature is that within which all thoughts, emotions, and labels arise. This is a depth the mind knows nothing about. The depth is realized when the rat steps completely off the wheel of "becoming."

With this realization of his true nature in this moment, he simply says no to any drug, substance, or other thing, not because others tell him to say no, or because it is the "right thing to do" or because he is fearful of where that will lead. No, he says no because he realizes on a level which can never be put into words that his true nature is love itself, a depth of love which swallows any sense of separation within him or between himself and the other. Thus, there is simply nothing to search for. Fulfillment is here, now. He stops any and all attempts to escape this love. He refuses anything which might contaminate or obscure this love. When he drops all illusion, all searching, all seeking, all escaping, it is then that his spirit is truly clean.