Addiction, Mental Health and Spirituality:

Any serious spiritual teaching, path of development and enlightenment presumes that you have mental health issues.

Not being spiritually emancipated and enlightened is a mental health issue in itself. In a real spiritual school there is no stigma attached to compromised mental health or any other kind of karma. Full mental health means Enlightenment, peace, joy, compassion, creativity. A life grounded in Love, Wisdom and Freedom, and dedicated to the Good the True and the Beautiful. If you are not in this state of being yet then it means that you have ‘mental health issues’.

Obviously spiritual schools must show a deep interest in mental health because all spiritual transformation involves not only the heart and the will but also of necessity the mind. Each stage of spiritual development carries with it a recognisable degree of mental fallout. If this fallout is not addressed and dealt with it can result in what is called ‘recoil’.

Recoil comes about because the shed and discarded thoughts impulses and feelings of the previous developmental stage have not been fully transformed in the fires of spiritual practice and discipline.

The new stage of spiritual emancipation is naturally young and somewhat fragile, it needs to be nurtured and allowed to grow healthy and strong. This takes time and sustained effort. The residual skandhas of the previous stage still contain considerable negative energy. This negative energy is almost invariably underpinned by fear and self loathing. Fear leads to suspicion and suspicion can easily turn into paranoia which in turn distorts the minds capacity to deal with reality. The residual skandhic energy and content left over from the previous stage of the self must be fully transformed and integrated.

Every relapse is recoil and every active addiction is an attempt to avoid the current reality of the self and the world. Without doubt avoiding reality is a mental health issue. The issue arises naturally as to the mental and ethical condition of the Addict. By what condition and mental process does the Addict make the decision to either resume [relapse] or go on using for instance, Alcohol, or the Drug of Choice; ‘knowing the consequences?’

It is well understood that relapse is rarely a sudden event, but is the result of a process where the addicted individual has allowed their mental and lifestyle health to diminish to the point where relapse becomes inevitable. A common characteristic of the relapse process is a growing neglect of or negativity towards those ideas and practices which maintain a substance and trouble free life. By slow degrees many small but self-destructive decisions are being made.  The individual is sliding back into their old and destructive ways. Recoil isn’t always dramatic or sudden.

For many, and universally recommended by the addiction and mental heath community is the connection to a “higher power”. Simply believing in a “higher power” cannot really help the recovering Addict or anyone else. In AA the 2^nd and 3^rd Step respectively state:

[2]: Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

[3] Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

This purely subjective approach to a restored or new spiritual life is wholly inadequate because the ‘believer’ has no way to determine whether or not their ‘higher power’ is merely the product of their own fantasy life and a mind distorting and desperate need to clutch at straws in a stormy sea of inner turbulence. This is not intended as a criticism of AA or its methods which work very well for those able to enter into it.

How is a mind distorted by the mental health issues that inevitably flow from active addiction to be sure of anything involving a transcendental realm? Recovery not only involves liberation from obsessive chemical dependency, but the gaining of clarity of mind and the capacity to inquire into essential purposes and meaning. Addiction by definition, means the loss or at very least severe impairment of the individuals “moral compass”.

Only a restored moral compass can deal with the implications of a resolve that takes this form:

[3] “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.”

The decision making part of the mind is the same part of the mind where conscience is present. Conscience decides whether a contemplated action in the form of a thought is a “good” action or a “bad” action. In the Addict conscience is occluded to the extent that the decision to use the detrimental substance can be made. What is actually occurring within the mind of the Addict? The first and obvious explanation is “denial”, that notorious self delusion that permits the Addict to continue to suffer from “the disease that does not believe it exists”.

Essentially what is being denied in all denial, is Conscience.

Conscience is the essential bridge between the spiritual man and the man caught in the everyday world with its corruption and ethical challenges presented at every turn. We are obliged to point out that conscience is more than morality. Conscience is on a higher level than the morality taught by organised religions and cultures. In Theosophical terms Mind [manas] guided by Spirit Soul [Buddhi] is the authentic ‘higher power” within the Individual. This higher Self transcends all cultures and religions.

For instance one religion may teach that eating Pork is forbidden but Alcohol may be taken. Another religion teaches that both of these substances are forbidden by god. The fact that another religion teaches that both of these things are permitted tells us that morality is a culture bound instance of local mores and customs.

Conscience is universal; there is no human community on earth where murder is sanctioned. The betrayal of a brother a member of your family or indeed any other is understood to be wrong. Stealing is universally understood to be wrong, as is the abuse of the weak and helpless. Every human being knows when they have done something wrong. Those human beings who lack this ability are defined as sociopaths or found to be suffering from some other severe mental health condition. In recognition of the distinction to be made between a functioning conscience and its complete impairment the law recognises the plea “not guilty for reasons of insanity”.

What constitutes authentic conscience?

In every case authentic conscience is ethical thought combined with compassion. Compassion need not in every case be personal as such, but functions very well in a trans-personal “does no harm” attitude towards all life. Conscience is always at the heart of real relationship. Conscience as active compassion is the recognition that the self is not isolated; decisions and actions will affect others. If those decisions and actions occur under the influence of Drugs or Alcohol or a combination of both, harm to others will surely follow. And this over and above the harm caused to the self. We can even speak of having compassion towards oneself.

Compromised Conscience is a mental health issue. Everyone who is functioning in the thoughtless manner required by Ideological Left Liberalism couched in Capitalist Consumerism is suffering from impaired mental health. A life dedicated to the fulfillment of selfish desires, inevitably fails in the realms of meaningful relationship and life inclusive of an authentic transcendental realm.