We become the God we worship.” Richard Rohr
“What you live with, you learn. What you learn, you practice. What you practice, you become.” Ritu Ghatourey
“Whatever you love most is your God.” Terry Kellog
“The god you worship is the one you’re capable of becoming.” Joseph Campbell
Addiction is a process of developing an unhealthy relationship to the point it is the most important relationship in your life.
A healthy primary relationship with a power greater than ourselves nurtures the ability to form sustainable relationships. It creates a safe base for an individual to be initiated, mirrored, and develop a healthy sense of self. A healthy primary relationship enables a soul to mature and learn to love, commit, show compassion, invest in creating a healthy ego, and engage with the world. The primary relationship needs to be expansive and flexible enough to encompass the maturing consciousness of an initiated adult. Healthy mythology (religion) will provide the guideposts, symbolism, and metaphor that inform this relationship with a transcendent power greater than oneself.
In an addictive relationship, the opposite is true. Over time the addict will become less available to others. The relationships in the addict’s life become vehicles to maintain an unhealthy primary relationship with alcohol, drugs, eating, gambling, sex, etc. The addict’s consciousness becomes more myopic as they become an actor manipulating their environment to maintain relationships that support the primary unhealthy relationship. Any relationship that refuses to serve the addiction is weakened or severed.
An addict, over time, becomes needier and requires more and more energy from those close to them to maintain the unhealthy primary relationship. Addicts drain the lives of those who cannot assert firm boundaries with them. Anyone having a relationship with the addict is at risk of losing themselves in an addictive process of their own. The addict becomes the primary relationship that the co-dependent person’s life revolves around. The co-dependent begins giving up any relationships that don’t support the unhealthy relationship with the addict. Like a virus, the disease of addiction spreads through unhealthy dependencies and binds souls in the web of lies, denial, and chaos of addiction.