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you don’t need what you want.

addiction is so bad for the body. but what if the real problem is something else? what if the purpose of addiction is to alert us to an even greater misalignment? a misunderstanding that the soul sought to correct, a lesson we needed, having set a specific intention to heal it in this lifetime?

what you want and cannot get enough of —whether it’s pain, pleasure or oblivion— that’s not what’s interesting. at most, it seems strange or silly to want endless pain, pleasure or oblivion. if it doesn’t seem rational, maybe it’s not. peer into the mind of an addict and you’ll witness the forever inquiry of, “why do i want this?” and “why do i think i need it?” inside the ravenous loop of, “can’t believe i’m doing it again,” and “can’t believe i can’t get enough.” every low, a new low, and yet, the thing itself is not the problem.

the path is to remember that whatever it is we want, we don’t need it. that’s the off-ramp. it’s clearly marked. but addiction disguises what we want as what we need, which is simply not true. addiction is the allegory that points us to the real problem: the internal misalignment.

what we think we want from the world, we call them “needs,” though we need none of them to be whole: love, validation, safety, presence, peace, understanding, power, permission, recognition, connection. we lack nothing. it already exists within. and we have to locate the inner wellspring before we can experience it with anyone else. try loving someone who doesn’t love herself and you’ll see what i mean. try being a safe person for someone that is dangerous to himself. try having a relationship with someone who is deeply disconnected from their own wants, needs, identity and power.

once we remember that we don’t need anything from anyone, we can let go. it would be nice to have what we want from people and places, but we can learn to survive, and we were designed to thrive. the addiction, the pain, it’s a message in our service. the illusion of lack is always pointing us to the abundance within. surrender to the pain, let it guide you home, to the divine light within that lacks nothing. stop wanting what the world can’t give you. you can’t be in control. and no one can give you what you owe to yourself.