“I’m addicted to pornography/alcohol/drugs/cocaine.” is something a lot of people ask me – how do you heal an addiction?

Some people are addicted to work, some people are addicted to food and there’s all these different ways in which they find destruction, in which they numb from something else.

An addiction becomes an issue once it starts affecting negatively the life of the person, because eating a lot is just an issue when you start having health problems.

Being addicted to sex or to pornography is only an issue when it gets in the way of your family life or when it gets in the way of a healthy sexual exploration.

Being addicted to work if it gets in the way of your life or of your health, then it’s an issue, same with drugs.

Let’s define what’s an addiction: An addiction is anything that we do as a way to avoid the present moment, which by doing it, our future is a little bit worse off.

An addiction is anything that we do to distract ourselves from this moment, which has a negative impact in the future.

Social media can be an addiction, work can be an addiction, working out can be an addiction, there are healthier addictions, but the essence is that we go to addictions when we’re suffering, when we’re in pain.

The way that people teach us to battle these addictions is through force, through willpower, stop drinking, go on a diet, spend 21 days without pornography, work less.

We understand and we smile, like yeah! “I’m gonna go on another diet this time, i’m gonna heal, these months i’m not gonna drink.”

What happens afterwards very often is, you come off the diet, you eat to make up for those days and more days just in case.

People break their fasting, their diets midway through, most people come back and go out of control even more.

Supression is the worst way which you can try to treat an addiction, what you really need to do is to understand two things:

What is this addiction doing for me? How has it served me?

Maybe it’s useful, that’s why you’re doing it, maybe alcohol distracts you from the fact that you hate your job or your family life.

My pornography distracts you from the sense of loneliness, from having a partner that you could share your life and moments with, perhaps you work too much because you have this pain inside, this anxiety or this sense of inadequacy and low self-esteem, so.

Outside achievements make up for that, so, the first step in healing an addiction is understanding why it has been good for you.

How has it served you? It doesn’t mean that it’s a healthy thing, but it has helped you and that’s why you’re doing it unconsciously, now you’d understand “Oh, my addiction is helping this part of my life.“

Then you go a little deeper, what emotion or sensation am i running away from through this?

For food it tends to be anxiety or sadness, there’s a deep sadness that they try to avoid by eating, by being distracted, because food creates insulin, pleasure, it’s the first drug that most people have access to, the one we can indulge in.

For alcohol, it tends to be that freedom of self-expression, some people drink because they feel more of themselves in that moment, but in reality, they’re running away from a sense of shyness, inadequacy, rejection, so.

Once you understand what the emotion is under that addiction, you can start your journey of healing, which starts by accepting that, embracing it, being able to look at it and see where it comes from, where it’s going, what it needs.

Learning to supply what it needs in a way makes your life better, a lot of women over-eat because there’s an absence of love, self-love, romantic love, this creates a sense of comfort.

If love is life and food is also life then i’m gonna put more love into my mouth and feel more loved by life.

But what they really need is openness, they don’t realize that maybe there’s already a lot of beautiful things in their life and they’re not letting them in, they’re closed off, they’re supressing their capacity to give love as well.

They’re making it up with food, so when someone understands where it’s coming from, a lack of love, which is coming from sadness, they can start moving in a direction where they find a healthy way to take care of those needs.

After understanding the essence of that addiction.

To wrap it up: An addiction is not something bad, it’s something that you have used to learn to take care of a part of you that was in pain, it has been useful for a while but it’s no longer useful, that’s why it’s bothering you.

An addiction also has a root emotion, and unless you take care of that emotion, the addiction is not gonna go away, you can quit drinking – you’re gonna start smoking, you can quit watching porn – you’re going to start drinking.

All these things are going to happen, so, until you take care of that emotion, you’re just going to be driven by another compulsion.

Pay attention to that, make space for you to at least sit and understand what is underneath, all these compulsions, all these addictions.

If you’re interested, Ayahuasca helps with that, it brings us to a place of crystal clear clarity, where we’re able to see what happened, where it’s coming from, where it originates from, “This is why i haven’t forgiven this person/myself.”

I was allowed to go in there and let that go from its source, removing a tree from its roots, not just chopping the leaves and expecting it to be gone by the next day.

Maybe you have an addiction and you want to treat it, there’s many ways you can do so on your own that are effective, there’s also ways that you can do that with the help of plant medicine which are also very effective.

Only if you have a commitment from your heart and you’re open to it.

It tends to be a little bit faster because it’s a bit of a stronger experience so.

If you feel the calling to sit with Ayahuasca, in a container held by Colombian shamans at a sacred temple in the middle of the mountain forests please go to: https://ayahuascacolombia.com/retreats