Addiction - There is a way out

The alcoholic wants another beer, but what he really wants is love. He feels uncomfortable in his present experience—unloved in every thought, sensation, and feeling—and seeks a way out, and the only thing that seems to alleviate that discomfort is beer. Beer, for a while, seems to remove the not okay and bring the okay. Beer, for a while, seems to bring the womb. Even the serial killer, the rapist, the murderer are all looking for the womb, in their different ways. We are all womb-seekers on legs.

On some level, the addiction object enables us to satisfy the deepest longing that every human has—to disappear, to be absorbed into life, to die into this moment, to come home, to return to the womb, to be relieved of the heavy  burden of the  separate self, to dissolve back into the ocean, and to rest, finally rest.

You see, we aren’t really addicted to cigarettes; we’re addicted to the apparent release, the absorption into life, the temporary reprieve from lack that the cigarette seems to bring. We aren’t really addicted to sex; we’re addicted to the release it apparently gives, the falling away of the burden of “me.” We aren’t really addicted to gambling; it’s just that gambling takes us out of ourselves for a few precious minutes, hours, days. We aren’t really addicted to objects or people; we’re addicted to the release they seem to bring.

The seeker is addicted to release. It’s the wave seeking the ocean again. What a relief it is, for a moment, to think you’ve found what you’re looking for! What a relief to be the ocean, if only for a few perfect moments! And what hell it is to lose that relief and be dragged back into the world of human problems so quickly!

Alcohol addiction; substance addiction; gambling addiction; sexual addiction; addictions to people, to gurus, to money, to fame—it seems as though there are many different kinds of addiction. In fact, there is only one addiction: the seeker’s addiction to release. And when you understand this, what the addiction object actually is becomes less important. Often, in trying to cure ourselves of addictions, we focus way too much on the details of the addiction object and on the story of our addiction, and not on the root mechanism that is fueling the need for the object. I may be healed from my cigarette addiction, but if I don’t face the underlying lack, the addiction will pop up in some other area of my life. I have known people who quit smoking after twenty years and then immediately started overeating. People who are addicted to relationships break up from their current relationship and immediately get into drugs. People who have an addiction to shopping suddenly drop that addiction and become addicted to a spiritual guru. Any addiction cure or remedy or therapy that focuses on the addiction object rather than the seeking in the addict will not truly resolve addiction. It may help, but it won’t heal, in the true sense of the word.

Whether it’s a cigarette, a bottle of beer, or the thrill of the promise of winning a million on roulette, every addiction object serves the same purpose: it seems to take away the discomfort of this moment as it is. It promises release, and it seems to deliver that release for a while. But it doesn’t really provide what we truly long for.

Often addicts talk about “getting their fix.” What are they trying to fix? Deep down, although they probably don’t know it, they are trying to fix a primal sense of separation, trying to fix incompleteness. As we have seen time and time again in this book, nothing and nobody can fix separation and incompleteness; no external object or person can do this. The only fix for incompleteness is a radical and total embrace of that very incompleteness—the embrace that you are in your essence. That’s what we really long for, deep down—intimacy with ourselves.

Of course, we don’t pick up a cigarette or a painkiller or a bottle of beer because we think, “I’m feeling incomplete, and this will complete me.” No, we simply feel an urge, a craving. We feel strangely drawn to our object of addiction, almost against our will. “If I had the choice,” I say to myself, “I wouldn’t be doing this.” But it feels like I have no choice. The cigarette seems to have a strange power over me. Gambling, sex, money—they seem to have a strange power over me, a mysterious power that drags me in, no matter how much I protest. The chocolate—it just sits there in the cupboard, calling to me. Eat me. Eat me. I will make you feel better. The beer sits there, like the devil tempting me, promising release. Go on. Just a little sip …

It’s not an intellectual thing; you don’t consciously realize you’re seeking. You just find yourself picking up a cigarette. You find yourself downing another vodka. You find yourself stuffing your face with chocolate. And it feels like you can’t do anything about it. It feels like you are somehow being controlled by the object of addiction and it’s all out of your hands. Yes, that’s how it feels— like we are victims of addiction. That something called “addiction” is happening to someone called “me.”

This power that we seem to feel emanating from the object of addiction is the same power I have been talking about throughout this book. When we believe that an object, substance, or person is able to complete us in some way, we project a kind of mysterious power onto it. Whether it’s food, a spiritual guru, a lover, a celebrity, a political or religious leader, a bottle of whisky, or a cigarette, it can really feel like it has power over you, like it has some kind of aura, a kind of compelling, magnetic energy emanating from it. It appears to radiate power.

But this isn’t real power. Nothing and no one has that kind of power—the power to complete you. No wave possesses any more power than any other wave; every wave is equally ocean. Power is never external, in that sense. What you experience as power “out there” in the world is simply your own power, projected. It is life power projected outward and focused on another object or person. The power isn’t really in the object or person, although that’s what it seems like, that’s what it feels like, that’s what it tastes and smells like. Power doesn’t belong to anyone or anything, for life itself is the only power.

Since the dawn of humanity, we have been projecting power “out there”—onto the sun, onto the stars, onto animals, onto nature, onto inanimate objects, onto other people. Humans have always had gods. Even atheists are deeply religious in this sense.

The seeker of release projects the power of release onto an object, in the same way that the seeker of enlightenment projects that very enlightenment onto a person, and the seeker of love focuses their longing onto a person, giving that object the apparent power to complete them. The upshot is that it feels like you really need the object. It feels like you need your fix. It feels like you need sex, you need chocolate, you need a drink, you need a cigarette, you need to go to another satsang or retreat, you need to hang around your guru or love object, in order to be whole again.

It’s an astonishingly creative mechanism that seems to keep you from an awareness of who you really are. It’s when we don’t see this mechanism for what it is, when we get caught up in seeking, rather than seeing the seeking and recognizing ourselves as the wide-open space of awareness in which seeking happens, that we suffer, and we reach out to escape our suffering.

There is nothing wrong with eating chocolate, in itself. That’s part of life too. It’s when the chocolate is being used to provide release—that’s when the problem begins. It’s the seeking through chocolate that’s the problem. Chocolate + seeking = addiction.

In the same way, alcohol, in itself, is not wrong or evil or bad, but part of life. Alcohol is a neutral substance that we don’t need to use in the way we do. It’s when we use alcohol to distract ourselves from what’s really going on, to take away discomfort, to provide completeness, to escape from this moment as it is—that’s when the trouble begins. Alcohol + seeking = addiction.

You get the picture. Substances and activities—sex, drinking, eating chocolate, waging bets at the casino or on the stock market—in themselves, are not problems. These can all be fun, enjoyable, innocent parts of life. It’s when the seeker starts to use these activities to get something that the problems start.

When you’re seeking something through a cigarette, you’re not really smoking a cigarette anymore. You barely even notice the actual moment-by-moment experience of smoking the cigarette. You’re not really present with the experience, because you’re anticipating the high too much. You’re not really smoking the cigarette—you’re trying to smoke wholeness.

The cigarette is not the enemy. When you see—really see—this seeking mechanism at work, and in your pursuit of release, you used it and then forgot why you were using it (if you ever knew in the first place).

Not all wants are expressions of lack. When we express a genuine, healthy want, we are saying something like this: “I want this. I would like to experience this. But whether or not I get  what I want, I’m still absolutely okay. Not getting what I want isn’t going to detract one iota from this present okayness.”


There’s a difference between wanting a cigarette and wanting a cigarette to complete you, which a cigarette cannot do. Wanting a cigarette is not a problem, until you want a cigarette in order to take away discomfort. Then you have a want that stems from seeking, a want that is an expression of lack, and that is a want that will lead directly to suffering and more lack. You are saying, “I want this, and if I don’t get it, I won’t be okay. Only getting what I want can make things okay.” That’s a want based on the illusion of lack, the illusion that there is something missing, and the illusion that only a cigarette can fill the void. Now we’re no longer seeing reality as it is; we’ve moved into seeking. We move into a dream and, therefore, suffering.

What we really mean by “I need a cigarette” is “I am unwilling to experience the discomfort of not having the cigarette.” And there it is: I don’t want to experience the discomfort— the incompleteness, the pain, the hurt, the not-okayness—of not getting what I want. I don’t want those waves to come. I eel like I’ll drown in them. I feel like I’ll be overwhelmed by them. I won’t be able to handle them. I feel like I’ll die without my addiction object, without my escape route, without anything to subdue the pain of existence.

When the hope of completion is stripped away from the seeker, what’s left? When time is stripped away, when all hope of getting what you want and being complete disappears, what are you left with?

You’re left with what is. You’re left with your discomfort, your incompleteness, everything you were running away from, without any hope of escaping it. You’re left facing life as it is—facing those rejected waves, the thoughts and feelings you’ve been running away from, perhaps all your life. You’re left facing your pain, your sadness, your guilt, your regret, your loneliness, your worst fears. You’re left here, now, in this moment, facing what is.

To a separate person, being faced with all of these things is a major problem. But in the open space that you are, there is no problem—every wave can simply be there. The extreme discomfort. A sense of lack. An urge to smoke. A craving, a want. The sense that something needs to complete itself. Pain. Agitation. Perhaps heart palpitations. Sweating. All sorts of images—of how awful your life is, of you smoking the cigarette in bliss, of yourself deeply inhaling the cool smoke, of all the relaxation it will bring, of the release of it. The release is so close, you can almost touch it. 

There’s a desperate urge to reach out and light up. In one moment, all this discomfort could be wiped out. In one moment, hell could turn to heaven. The anticipation feels unbearable. You desperately want a cigarette. The cigarette will take all of this discomfort away. Just one tiny, little cigarette. Just a few moments away. Go on. Just one little cigarette. Oh, it’s so tempting.

As we have seen, you don’t really want a cigarette. What you really want is for the present moment to be deeply okay again. What you really want is to no longer be in want. What you really want is to no longer be in lack. What you really want is for all of this discomfort to be deeply accepted. You want to be deeply okay where you are; you want to be at home here and now, and you think having a cigarette is the only way to get there.

“I want a cigarette”—that is a lie. It’s a lie based on misidentification, a lie based on huge assumptions about who you really are, a lie that comes from not seeing the wholeness of your present experience.

Now, I’m not telling you to pretend that you don’t want a cigarette. Pretending never works—it only leads to more pretending. I’m not telling you to pretend that you don’t have urges or cravings. You’re a human being, not a robot. I’m asking you to honor the want, but also trying to get you to dive into the heart of the want—to drop all your assumptions and see with fresh eyes what it really is, beyond what you’ve been told it is, what you assume it is, what you believe it is.

We’ve pushed right through the experience of craving to discover the simple seeking mechanism at the core of it. The longing is not for a cigarette (or a drink or sex or the next high), but for the deepest acceptance. We don’t long for a cigarette; we long for the intimacy of present-moment awareness—the open space in which every wave of experience is accepted.

When a craving is simply allowed to be there, with all the discomfort that entails, and when the urge to escape the discomfort is simply allowed to be there—when every thought, every sensation, every feeling is simply allowed to be there, and when this present experience is seen to be deeply accepted right now—I no longer need the cigarette to complete me. This is where the cycle of need can be broken—right at the very heart of that need. This is freedom in need—freedom in craving, not freedom from craving. This is about discovering the freedom in which the craving and the urge to satisfy that craving both appear and are allowed to appear, just as all waves in the ocean are already allowed by the ocean.

Even without the cigarette, even with all of these feelings that are appearing in the absence of a cigarette, even in the experience of not getting what I think I want, I am deeply okay.

In this deepest acceptance, I end up getting what the cigarette could never give me—freedom to have a cigarette or not. I am no longer bound. I am no longer controlled. I am released from the clutches of my guru. The spell is broken. I leave the cigarette cult. I am no longer powerless. I am no longer a victim.

To put it more simply, when a want—for a cigarette, for a drink, for sex, for a trip to the casino, for a bar of chocolate—is deeply allowed, allowed to be as it is, the want is no longer a want in the true sense of the word. In other words, when a want is deeply allowed, it is no longer an expression of lack; it is no longer an expression of incompleteness and no longer a search for completeness. Now it is simply a bunch of sensations appearing and disappearing in what you are—sensations that are deeply allowed to appear and disappear in what you are, even if they are uncomfortable right now. Wants come and go, and what you are remains.

Find the place of deepest acceptance is not about tolerating or putting up with not getting what you want; it’s about finding the place where even intolerance and frustration are accepted. I’m asking you to see if you can find the okayness in not getting what you thought you wanted, but never really wanted.

Most of the time we’re either trying to ignore a want (which only makes the want grow) or we’re indulging the want. Deeply accepting the want is the middle way. Between rejecting and indulging lies seeing— and allowing, and finding freedom in even the most uncomfortable places.


So your new spiritual practice is this: Sit with discomfort, and with its best friend, the urge to escape that discomfort. Sit without doing anything about them. Sit without expecting them to change. Sit without trying to fix yourself. Sit without hope of any particular outcome. And notice that every thought, every sensation, every feeling—including any expectation, frustration, lack of acceptance, or attempt to change this moment—has already been allowed into this moment. Find the okayness in the midst of the not-okayness. Find the place where this moment is okay, even if it feels uncomfortable and not okay. That place is freedom. That place is what you are. And if that place cannot be found right now, and any feelings of failure arise, deeply allow those too. Simply notice whatever is here, and notice that whatever is here has already been allowed in. This noticing is the very essence of meditation.

The seeker always lives in memories of how bad things were and in anticipation of how bad things might become. The seeker always lives in time.

The seeking mechanism can be brutal and withdrawal horribly uncomfortable—let’s not pretend otherwise. But can you see that contained within even the most extreme discomfort is an invitation to wholeness? Can you see that even when the waves are uncomfortable, the ocean is still present? It’s an invitation that never disappears, no matter what is happening.

The pain, the fear, the frustration, even the feelings of helplessness and blind panic—these waves are not really a problem to who I am. They are part of life’s constant invitation; they are deeply allowed in what I am. They are there to be noticed, to be seen as part of life—they are not a threat to life.

In a society where so much emphasis is placed on getting what you want, and where getting what you want is said to lead to happiness, it sounds almost crazy to suggest that you could be free and happy in not getting what you want.

When you discover who you really are, you’re free whether you get what you want or not. Either way, you are complete—and no amount of cigarettes, alcohol, sex, food, or money can give you that, just as the absence of these cannot take it away.

Maybe at some point you won’t need any more recovery plans. You will find yourself having the urge to reach for your next fix, and you will find a deep okayness within that very urge, within any discomfort that appears. You will find freedom in everything you were running away from, and in that place of total acceptance, you will discover that what you are is not an addict. You will discover that there is nothing wrong with you. What you are has never wanted or needed to use anything to escape this moment. What you are deeply allows this moment to be as it is.

Perhaps one day—and that day could be today—you will find a cigarette or a drink or a piece of chocolate in front of you, and finally you will know, on the deepest level, that it won’t give you anything that isn’t already right here. It won’t make this experience any more complete than it already is. You can honor the appearance of any urge. You can honor the urge to act on the urge. You can honor any discomfort at not getting what you want. And you can simply let it all be here, as it is, without having to change it in any way.


If you’re going to channel your seeking energies, channel them right back here, to when you actually are, and embrace everything that is happening right now. Let go of your search for a future moment when you will be free from addiction, and discover what is really here, right now. And perhaps soon this will become the overriding urge—to accept this moment totally. Perhaps you will become addicted to the deepest acceptance of this moment. That’s an addiction you’ll never need to recover from, an addiction with no known side effects.

-Jeff Foster
The Deepest Acceptance