Recovery: Freedom from Our Addictions

by Russell Brand

Because the instinct that drives the compulsion is universal. It is an attempt to solve the problem of disconnection, alienation and tepid despair, because the problem is ultimately ‘being human’ in an environment that is curiously ill-equipped to deal with the challenges that entails. We are all on the addiction scale.

be liberated from tyrannical thinking and move from the invisible inner prison of addiction to a new freedom in the present.

A task which, in a different lexicon, might be called achieving peace, mindfulness, personal fulfilment, or yet more grandly ‘enlightenment’, ‘nirvana’ or ‘Christ-consciousness’? Certainly not some personal, ethical high ground. My authority comes not from a steep and certain mountain top of po-faced righteousness. This manual for Self-Realization comes not from the mountain but from the mud.

I now believe addiction to be a calling. A blessing. I now hear a rhythm behind the beat, behind the scratching discordant sound of my constant thinking.

‘Who is the me that I am trying to protect?’, that’s a question that we’ll ponder over these chapters and possibly answer.

If you don't have an obvious addiction

Ring pleasute

I also had no technique for addressing that feeling so I had to invent some.

was managing my feelings through external means and the object is not in itself bad.

Start n end

As Eckhart Tolle says, ‘addiction starts with pain and ends with pain.’

The positive aspects of my character were becoming redundant, it didn’t matter that I was bright, or kind or talented, these traits were being diluted to the point of irrelevance by the seeping negativity of my addiction.

‘You’ve faced obstacles, inner and outer, that have prevented you from becoming the person you were “meant to be” and that is what we are going to recover.’

You need only allow gentle hope to enter your heart. Exhale and allow hope, and give yourself some time. This is a process of change that requires a good deal of self-compassion, which is neither stagnant nor permissive. We can just start by being a little kinder to ourselves and open to the possibility that life doesn’t have to be bloody awful.

Hopelessness

The reason I was taking drugs was because I felt hopeless. It was the best idea I could come up with to tackle it.

In practical terms, power is the ability to effect change. On our own we didn’t have enough power to change so we need access to a power that exceeds that.

I have, to immediately surrender my old idea (in this case the old idea is not

must take heroin to be happy’, it is ‘I am here to write’). The idea is surrendered. The power is the program, the sanity is I recover my role as a good father and boyfriend. And I feel good. I feel good typing on this bed with (quite cool actually) lullabies playing on my phone, my daughter gurgling and cooing contentedly by my side, now that is a miracle, with my girlfriend asleep. Can

‘My life in active addiction

was an unexamined matrix of disturbances held at bay by addictive behaviour. The stimulus–response relationship between me, myself and the world was like this: “I’m lonely – have sex”, “I’m sad – get drunk”, “I’m bored – eat a cake”. It probably wasn’t even that articulate.’

When I notice that I am agitated, fearful or confused, I no longer, as in the past, plough on. I pause. I have learned to better

This is a trivial example of the ordinary junction that previously would set in motion a chain

of events that would lead to me needing to drink, or use or ‘act out’ – the kind of everyday challenge that I needed an addictive supplement to tackle.

My life in active addiction was an unexamined matrix of disturbances held at bay by addictive behaviour.

When I ‘made a decision to turn over my will’, that meant that when the impulse to use came I conceded that my mental processes were no longer to be trusted. I had to ask for help.

government of North Korea are not obliged to moderate their reality in accordance with my whims. If I make my happiness contingent on them behaving in a certain way, I am fucked.

I am learning to spot the moment when I give up my inner connection, my serenity, and leap into my ‘beast’ nature.

Do I leap into the synaptic tornado of potential fantasy or do I work Step 10? Have I conceded to my innermost self that my life now is no longer a vessel into which I pack pleasure and satisfaction?

‘This world has nothing else to give you now Russell, it can only take away from you,’ said the bearded swami, all glowing and swathed in ochre.

I know this is an illusion. That I can never be contented by carnal pleasure, that I have awakened to the truth of what my life is and is not.

Here I petition my Self, my Higher Consciousness, this newly awakened experiencer of thoughts and feelings to provide me with power. I am referring to the self as divided, a Higher Self

and a lower self. Conventionally this lower self could be defined as ‘ego’, the mental object we consider ourselves to be before we undertake any serious analysis.

Also there are numerous roles. In my life I have been assigned roles as: a father, a boyfriend, a work colleague, a road user, a gym member, a son, a friend. In each of these roles I now have designated ideals and if ever conflict arises, or I feel discontent, I can mentally or literally check the list. This is a more conscious way of living. It is also highly practical. It’s not just a wing and a prayer. It is often said that you read a manual

Step 9, which deals with the ‘wreckage of the past’, will alleviate this, but I have found that I can still pick up a cudgel from the annals and give myself a good battering.

Structurally, a written Step 10 is identical to Step 4. There are four columns. In the first you write the person, place or thing that is causing you to be agitated. In the

second column you put the resentment itself, in the third how it affects you and in the fourth, your part. In this moment I have a resentment against my girlfriend. She has friends downstairs while I am trying to write. Let’s see how Step 10 tackles this.

Nonetheless, my feelings of agitation were being motored by long-held, deep-seated fears and beliefs.

contest that in this I am no madder than you, that at points in any given day, you, like me, lose contact with your inner ideal, your Higher Self, and fall into an unacknowledged, pre-established pattern of ‘being’ that is detrimental to you and the people around you.

Again, prayer could be regarded as a deep commitment to a Higher Self, a self that is no longer willing to lurk in the unexamined mire of unconscious drives and fear: an ideal self.

I can see how what began as a truthful and noble quest – even if the truth of the quest was to provide people with entertainment and laughter, that is noble –

after a while fell prey to my underwater (unconscious) crocodile drive for power and attention. Before too long the crocodile energy is in control, whether it is the external crocodile energy of that forum or the internal crocodile drive of my own avarice.

Saint ...

These stories contain deep truths, like in a dream, like in life, we play every part, the dragon, the elephant, the soldier, the Christ, all these elements are present in our being and the function of these stories is to place us at the centre of our own story, to awaken, to be aware that your unconscious drives can at any time reclaim you and you will be pulled under.

I recalled the moment when the drugs stopped working, or marriage or Hollywood.

It is hard to pause and reach within to the quiet wisdom, your individual part of the divine that wants to guide you.

Watch when the ‘heat’ rises, feel the heat, know that you can intervene.

A guidebook for self-analysis, a way of communing with yourself and others. There are I know many ways, the reason I use this one is because it is a simple, efficient way to tackle obsession and compulsion. When my obsession and compulsion are removed, I am a different man.

We’ve learned to live with shame and pain, we’ve

learned to live disconnected, cast out of Eden. We have forgotten...

The reason you must tackle your addiction no matter how moderate it may seem or whether it be socially sanctioned ...