Addiction ... was Epilepsy

[Wendy Howard]

Hi Soroush

Can I just make a comment here?

You wrote:

You could say the same thing about people who drink alcohol and it would be
equally untrue. *Some* people who smoke pot and *some* people who drink
alcohol find themselves in the situation of the substance taking over their
lives, but by no means all. It's a matter of susceptibility. There are many
many people who use both pot and alcohol without ever becoming addicted to
either. In other words, they control their use of the substance rather than
the other way round.

I've found it really helpful to look at the nature of attraction/addiction
as a substitution. In other words, in searching for their path in life,
people get attracted on occasion by substances/ideas/activities that are
closely related to their path but which, as an end in themselves, become
confused with the goal. So you could say that it's not the substance
*itself* that lasts a long time in the body (physiologically, this is highly
unlikely), but the potential to be sidetracked by the susceptibility to what
the substance in part represents.

IMO most "recreational drugs", including alcohol, get a hold on us by virtue
of the fact that they can confer an altered state of consciousness which is
somewhat closer to the divine than our ordinary everyday "reality". By
identifying the "drug" with a more spiritual consciousness (which may, or
may not, be recognised for what it is), people become fixated on the
material.

But bear in mind that the judicious use of hallucinogenic and alcoholic
agents in spiritual activity has been common in many cultures for thousands
of years. It only becomes a problem when the messenger is mistaken for the
message (and it's the knowledge of the ease with which this happens that has
led to some religious movements prohibiting their use).

Regards
Wendy