Addictions

Parents and teachers are increasingly faced with serious problems connected to the various addictions, even among children of primary school age. Widespread abuse of these addictive substances appears to be symptomatic of the current decline in values. It is also a symptom of the underlying lack of love in the lives of so many adults and children preventing them from feeling recognised as worthwhile individuals.

Instinctively, people seek a means of escape from pain, whether it is physical, mental, emotional or spiritual. However, any type of pain is really a safeguard, or warning, alerting them to the presence of an unresolved problem and giving them an opportunity to address it.

We are currently being bombarded by the media with news of natural disasters: earthquake, floods, drought, famine and cyclones, as well as wars, riots, epidemics, murders, rape, child abuse and a host of other horrors, not to mention pollution, the greenhouse effect and the holes in the protective ozone layer.

The effect of this daily barrage is an emotional overload. Individuals are not equipped to deal with so many enormous multiple problems for which they can see no obvious solution, especially on a personal level. It is as if they are overdosing on horrors, causing many to suppress their feelings and become numb as a means of self-protection. The result of this reaction is the hardening of the heart and the suppression of sympathy and compassion. This situation is evident today when usually loving and concerned individuals scarcely turn a hair at hearing or seeing instances of violence because they feel totally incapable of handling them emotionally.

Problems can be a challenge when their solution is a possibility. But without that hope the accumulation becomes too heavy. With no visible means of dealing with it, every avenue of escape from the oppressive burden is desperately sought. These hoped-for panaceas include the many addictions which hold out the promise of relief. Addictive substances react on different people in different ways. Some sedate the users, with the result that problems are not felt as keenly. Others overstimulate, and keep people so frenziedly active that they have no time to dwell on anything for very long, let alone any problem.

But these substances are merely palliatives. They do not heal a condition or solve a problem, so the situation they were supposed to alleviate remains and is there when, in time, their distracting or numbing effects wear off.

There is another serious side-effect of resorting to these means of escaping pain. In addition to their being addictive, and eventually enslaving their users, there appears to be no certain cure. Once addicted, it is not only extremely difficult to break the habit, but even when, with professional help, they are freed from one addiction, they frequently fall prey to another.

It seems clear from the many cases of continued dependence on such ‘crutches’ that there are addictive personalities. This personality trait can be traced to many different causes, such as the early patterning by parental and family behaviour. If children become used to seeing their parents, or other authority-figures, turn to alcohol, cigarettes, pills, drugs or other compulsive habits for relief of stress, they will gradually develop the habit of relying on the same or similar means of escape themselves.

Other cases of addictive behaviour can be traced to a hereditary imbalance in the body, such as a lack or excess of certain chemicals and minerals. Many alcoholics have a family history of sugar imbalance.

Effect of Thought-Forms and their Energy

We often refer to people or things being in tune or ‘in sync’ with one another, or having a rapport. We are all creating thought-forms all the time for the simple reason that we rarely stop thinking except during deep sleep, or unconsciousness. When we habitually think about something, or give our attention to it, we gradually strengthen it with our energy, for it takes energy to think, speak, act and live.

When many people repeatedly direct their attention to something, even more energy is invested in it, with the result that it gains power over individual people by eventually becoming stronger than them.

These huge collections of energy contained in thought-forms can be likened to archetypes. They possess so much power that they are stronger than the individuals who have used their thoughts and energy first to create them and then to maintain them. Some are positive in their effect, others are negative, depending upon the quality of the original thought. Some of these negative pockets of energy are so powerful that they are almost tangible. They can be felt as a black cloud in the atmosphere, or attached to a particular location, or emanating from a building.

Some people carry these archetypes and are controlled by them, often quite unconsciously. Since they are larger than life, the individuals under their influence are helpless, having given away their power to these impersonal creations.

When people attempt to escape from pain through addictions, they often unconsciously tune into the multiple archetypes linked to the addictions and, once connected, find themselves utterly helpless to free themselves from these forces. This type of control is one of the causes of failure to overcome dependence on these means of escape from life’s problems.

Children need to be taught that problems provide them with the opportunity to find solutions. Then they can look upon difficulties not as signals to escape, but as challenges enabling them to become stronger and free to live more fully.

Many children first experiment with addictive substances when they are learning to experience many new activities, or because of peer pressure, or from the desire to be popular or in fashion.

Parents and teachers need to inform children of the larger overlying forces connected to these habits. At the same time, they should be shown how to work out any problems they may have with the help of their Higher Consciousness or their Soul-Self. It is also helpful to explain that we are all too weak to overcome such powerful conditioning with our own familiar ego strengths. It takes the added energy of the High Consciousness to conquer the powerful archetypal control.