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The experience of the self is always a defeat of the ego. – Carl Jung
Close your eyes and clear your thinking. Now ask your nervous system to bring up the most impactful memories from your childhood.
As they crystalize inside your mind's eye, I'll bet they are all 30-90 seconds in length. This chronochrome of imprints has shaped your life's reality. They became beliefs you adopted about yourself that solidified into life experiences.
Introducing: the EGO.
Not ego as in arrogance. EGO as in its Latin translation: "I". EGO as in what the Christians know as "the advisory" or Buddhists as "self". The EGO is the conglomeration of what you know as your personality or identity.
To understand your addiction, you must understand your EGO.
Let's begin at the beginning. When you came into this world, you were a perfect light mirroring that of God (source energy, infinite intelligence, consciousness).
You didn't know fear, worry, or shame nor have a preference between rap and country music. You were a clean pallet. Imagine a pure ball of light ready to shine and experience unconditional love.
Even as a newborn, the EGO begins to assimilate.
As early as day one, the facial expression of your mother stimulated mirror neurons that detected feelings of either support or neglect. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3997585/). If you sensed anxiety, worry, anger, etc., your light was obscured a little. As you grew older, more experiences caused more emotional reactions.
Imagine, for this discussion, each negative emotion as an individual string wrapping around your light. Each one, little by little, obscures the perfect nature of God. These strings, as they overlap and collect with life experience, form your EGO. This bundle of beliefs creates our personality.
How does the EGO relate to addiction? Let's first understand its function.
The EGO is about safety. It is easy to demonize the EGO because it produces our triggers and repeated patterns. We as humans now view these responses as "bad" but they were essential to our survival thousands of years ago. The EGO's role hasn't changed since then.
While the danger to our ancestors might have been an approaching sabor-tooth tiger, the same emotion signifying danger in the present day could be a call from your condescending mother. The EGO seeks your safety through the flight or fight response.
When an addict misuses a substance, the EGO records the experience as a pattern of behavior that avoids danger (negative emotions) and brings safety (high levels of dopamine). The EGO will perpetually drive the addict to find safety in that same experience.
The EGO is objective. We cannot superimpose human-like thought processes on the subconscious. The EGO does not understand how to determine what is "good" or "bad" for you. It has been created by your beliefs and will fight to the death to prove them right.
Our beliefs are the EGO's algorithm. It will constantly work behind the scenes to bring up into your life experience what it thinks you want to see. All addicts possess some version of the belief that they aren't enough. The EGO will constantly scan an addict's environment to find ways to prove that they aren't enough.
When we are reminded that we aren't enough, we feel negative emotions (danger), and some of us use drugs, alcohol, food, sex, love, etc to quiet that pain. The EGO wants you to use drugs again because it remembers how safe you felt. Ironically, because we haven't worked to change our beliefs, we are allowing the EGO to form a negative feedback loop.
“The ego can never get enough—it doesn’t even know the concept.” ― Gabor Maté
The EGO is malleable. We are the observers and co-creators of our life experiences. This means we have the power to edit our EGO and therefore change our reality. We must see our true nature as separate from what we call "I". Altering the nature of EGO outlines a new identity for ourselves.
Carl Jung wrote, "The first half of life is devoted to forming a healthy ego, the second half is going inward and letting go of it." Whether our EGO is healthy or maladaptive, our role in recovery is to let go of the beliefs that shape the EGO.
Addiction recovery begins once you've become familiar with your EGO's nature. Your job is to remove the beliefs that are obstructing your perfect light. Quitting the substance for thousands of consecutive days does not equal radical recovery.
There are so many people in recovery who are addicted to not being addicted. The propensity is to numb the same pain that drove them to addiction with recovery. Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily. I'd rather them be addicted to recovery than the substance or behavior.
However,
With the EGO unchanged, it will find new ways to meet the same objectives. This is evidenced by people in recovery being constantly triggered, disconnected from themselves, unhappy, and lost without a regular meeting.
You have the power to create a life of self-love, peace, and fulfillment. Through the miracle of free will, you can take control of the subconscious and become the author of your life.
You don't have to be at the mercy of the EGO.
I've provided some tools and resources here to help you get started, but if you are interested in digging deeper, please sign up for a free session with me HERE.
The AfterMeth podcast is under construction. I'll be honest and let you all know that I am way behind schedule. I'm not worried about it, though. It will manifest at the exact right time.
If you or someone you know is a loved one of a meth addict and would like to share their story, please email me: [email protected].
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