UNNECESSARY needs, wants and cravings, which are really different intensities of the same ego illness, will never be completely eradicated by willpower, force, or by some elaborate detoxification or training program. The reason is those ‘I want again’ feelings still remain in the egos memory enabling it to refer to them again in the future, ensuring the inevitable ‘fall off the wagon.’
The only way to effectively remove the addiction is to remove the offending pleasurable feelings from the egos memory. This can and does happen sometimes either by a shock to the system - a doctor may tell you that you have only a short time to live if you continue with the habit, or by going ‘cold turkey’ after you fully realize the irreversible damage being done to your body and your life.
Sometimes the memory is so ingrained that even after attempting to give up the addiction by whatever means, a residue of memory remains and if that’s so, it will come back to haunt us for the ego will eventually return to that ‘I want again’ memory, enticing it into using the addictive substance or action again to enable it to re-experience that pleasurable feeling.
In each successful removal of an addiction, the ego has no say in it, the offending memory has been removed by ‘something other than the ego’ and hence, it no longer has that memory to refer to, thus no longer craves for a repeat experience. There are no withdrawal symptoms because there are no pleasurable memories remaining to evoke such symptoms.
We all have that ‘something other than the ego’ within us, waiting patiently for us to be ready. It is absolutely impossible to need, want or crave anything in the present moment. All such desires rely solely on the memories stored in the egos immense memory bank of ‘I want again’ images.
If only medical science could work out a way of removing those memories that trigger addiction, a lot of people’s lives would be much easier and crime rates would lessen as less people needed to feed their drug habit. Maybe that’s the next step in man’s evolution. Let’s hope so anyway...
Dan’s Quote: “We are all in the ‘habit’ of doing unnecessary harm to ourselves.”
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