As a psychotherapist, I encounter people who experience themselves as unable to let go of attachment to objects or behaviours that are destructive. These take many forms… from recreational or hard drug use, to obsessions with alcohol, food, sex, destructive relationships. Frequently the obsession is not the presenting problem. The person may experience depression, a flatness of mood and a sense of pessimism. However, after several sessions of examination, it usually becomes obvious that the individual’s dilemma is being intensified by the use of a substance or continuance of behaviour which alters their mood and prevents them coming into emotional contact with the reality of their circumstances.

This alteration of mood may have initially seemed like a good idea… for instance, I find myself in a deadly marriage relationship with a spouse who continually denigrates me, and I feel so much better when I numb the pain of abuse by drinking each evening. In the short term, I cope better. However, nothing improves. My spouse remains unchallenged, and I suffer from increasingly lowered self-esteem. My health suffers as I daily pour in a substance which taxes my metabolism, depresses my mood and robs me of courage and creativity. Eventually, I become so habituated to managing the psychic pain of my existence with a stiff drink that I cannot find the means to respond any other way. I do not realise that my freedom is being severely compromised by clinging to my own personal “mood alterer”.

The behaviour characterized by the word addiction has been thoroughly and beautifully explored by the psychiatrist Gerald May, in his book Addiction & Grace originally published in 1988. The book continues to be republished to this day. (The last paperback edition came out in January, 2007). It is a compassionate contemplation of the dilemma of addiction from the perspective of an intelligent Christian spirituality.

Essentially, May says that God creates us out of love, with the gift of free will. That love is both the inspiration and the object of our deepest desires and draws us forward by the free choice that springs from those desires. Spiritually, this freedom permits us to choose to submit our being to the creator’s guidance, or to choose the doomed attempt to assert our own complete control over our life. Without free will, we are not able to grow into our authentic personhead as a participant in God’s plan of creative loving.

A good definition of addiction is a state of compulsion, obsession or preoccupation that captures a person’s desires and will.  Indeed, addictions happen where a person’s internal world is dominated by the compulsion to give energy to things that are not in accordance with our deepest desires. I may not be aware of my deepest desires, because I have not been taught or told about them, or because I have chosen to ignore them. Nevertheless, I become attached to that which does not safeguard my deep, true freedom, that freedom which is the spiritual birthright of my baptism.
 
As we all know, the exercise of free will takes a lifetime to master. Psychological and spiritual forces are continually working against it. Spiritually, addictive behaviour is a kind of idolatry. I begin to worship the person or substance or behaviour to which I am addicted, and the freedom of my deepest desire – to be a co-creator with God in bringing about perfect love – is fundamentally compromised. Addiction displaces God’s love as the inspiration and goal of our deepest desires. It is a false experience of transcendence.

What does the Christian spiritual tradition have to say about this – a central predicament of the human condition? Detachment is the concept from the Christian spiritual tradition which describes the safeguarding of this freedom. It has bad press largely because it has come to be synonymous with the denialof passion and desire, and the denigration of all that is sensuously good in life. Perhaps this is how it has been lived out in certain places and times. However, an authentic understanding of detachment is that it is a form of personal spiritual asceticism, which sets free our deepest longing for God. It liberates desire. According to Meister Eckhart detachment “enkindles the heart, awakens the spirit, stimulates our longings, and shows us where God is” (Colledge & McGinn, 1981, pg. 294).

Let us take a look at what this process of detachment might mean today for those who are seeking to move beyond addictive patterns and into responding to God’s beckoning. In the developed West, spiritual growth beyond addiction and into freedom is difficult. We live in a “corporatised” culture based on the complex interplay of market forces which are dependent upon the human capacity for acquisition. Spiritual growth moves in the opposite direction. It is not a commodity, not even an education. It is, rather, a transformation or conversion. Old, unfree behaviours must be let go and healed.

Our spiritual growth from addiction to freedom involves heeding the unrest that attends God’s promptings, seeing this unrest for what it is and trusting it beyond those fears that keep us bound to the slavery of security. We all have a tendency to make images of spiritual reality as we would like it to be and we hang on to such images. These too, give us a false sense of power over God’s reality that is infinitely larger and more surprising than any image we could fashion. We must allow God to be iconoclastic.

Finally, this growth requires us to be essentially contemplative. This does not involve acquiring a lot of complicated skills and knowledge but rather, the willingness to be present to reality, as much as we can, with love and courage.

References

May, Gerald. (2007). Addiction and grace: Love and spirituality in the healing of addiction. New York:HarperSanFrancisco.

Colledge, E., & McGinn, B. (trans.). (1981). Meister Eckhart. New York: Paulist Press.