Addicted: From Obstacle to Opportunity

by Will Richardson M.D.

Overview

Will Richardson saw addiction destroy his father’s life and remove him from the children he loved so much.

He vowed that his life would not be centered on addiction, but ever since, it’s been the theme of his existence. Today, his purpose is to ensure that addiction doesn’t ruin anyone else’s life.

In Addicted, he argues that we are all addicts, and once we accept this, we can end the vicious cycle of addiction. His analysis presents a breakthrough concept by bridging a gap that has existed for decades between human behavior, training and development, self-help/inspirational literature, and spirituality.  

Richardson urges readers to confront everything in life they think is the cultural normal and consider a new way of living. Doing so means exploring addictions that do not discriminate against race, religion, culture, or socioeconomic class.

This book represents a true evolution of the relationship of humanity to addiction as the author eloquently lays out how addiction can overtake someone’s life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781982218386
Publisher:	Balboa Press
Publication date:	02/07/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	122
File size:	456 KB

About the Author

Will Richardson, M.D. learned as a molecular cell biologist to always look at how each small part contributes to the whole of life. His passion for art and service of humanity came to life as he found his way and became a leader of dermatology in South Florida at his practice, Natura Dermatology&Cosmetics. He is committed to helping people achieve a greater purpose.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Liberation: A Human Experiment

Wherever you are right now, take a look at your surroundings. Look at the person sitting next to you, look at the room you are in, notice the sounds that you hear easily, and then notice the background sounds. Simply notice your environment. With over seven billion people on this planet, this is where you ended up being with all of your current accomplishments, successes, failures, and disappointments. This is how it went for you so far. Experience the emotions to their fullest, and do not hold back.

For some of you, this may cause feelings of excitement, joy, and fulfillment. For others, it may elicit sadness, disappointment, hopelessness, and resignation that things will always be this way. You have worked very hard to get where you are at this moment, and more often than not, it wasn't easy. There were some struggles along the way and moments when you had to expand what you saw as possible for you to accomplish to get here.

You are a human being on a journey, and the story will end the same for us all. You are born, grow old, and die. It's really that simple and could be the summary of your entire existence. So much happens between birth and death, and you just observed a glimpse of your individuality and uniqueness. At the same time, begin to open yourself to talking about your experiences.

As you read this book, you will begin to find that we are all very similar. Your life could be described as blinded imprisonment with a life sentence of hopeful existence, and missing the mark tainted with partial moments of fulfillment. This may seem upsetting or alarming. It is not the truth. It is the position that, if you take it, will have this book make a difference for you.

In reading this book, there is a promise that will be delivered: Liberation will happen. The significance you place on areas of life may shift, and that's okay. It is time for us to evolve rapidly to make the difference for future inhabitants. What this particular evolution will take is letting go of the significance we have spent creating around us to ensure our personal happiness.

The invitation is to write down what comes to mind every time you have a reaction to things you read in this book. This list, short or long, will be of use and make a difference at the end in liberating you from your personal prison. This imprisonment is not visible, but it impacts you as if it were a physical structure. Your imprisonment is created by silent addictions that have been growing indolently, like a hidden virus inside your mind. The walls of your captivity are an energy field reinforced by addiction and focused on diminishing your life experiences. Let's start to explore the life imprisonment of humanity in the context that every one of us are addicts in disguise.

CHAPTER 2

Addiction: The Inescapable Destiny

Human beings are addicts. Addiction has been a part of us since the moment we attempted to walk. There was such profound risk in that moment, and we failed time and time again. Then, suddenly, we got it right, and the phenomenon called walking followed. The experience of getting it right was extraordinarily exquisite for us in and of itself, but walking gave us an experience of something we couldn't put into words: independence.

This was the first reward we accomplished on our own as human beings. You see, every other reward prior to this moment was given to us. "No," you may have just said as you read that. Consider that all you had to do was cry, and you received whatever you needed or wanted shall I say, automatically — food, water, milk, and perhaps the intoxicating reward of attention. It was absolutely the easiest living; all you had to do was cry, and the world organized itself around you for your survival and satisfaction.

Walking, however, required some assistance initially. But the moment you completed the action solo, you became a new human being. You were unconquerable in your own eyes, and that carried you through the environment where things were significantly larger than you, and you navigated with the courage of a samurai warrior. Every new room, person, situation, and place was inviting. You even had your own cheerleading team, as others around you cheered you on and celebrated this heroic event.

After learning to walk, you were able to take the things you previously had to cry for. There was a twist to this time in your life in that, yes, you could simply now go and get the things you wanted. But you very quickly learned that limitations came with independence and freedom. Suddenly, something very drastic happened: discipline.

Guess what you did when you were first told no. That's right, you went right back to crying. But this time it didn't work, no matter how loudly you cried. What did you possibly do next? You fell to the ground because you knew before you could walk that lying on the ground plus crying equaled reward. That failed you too, by the way. Where did I ever go wrong? you wondered in your very rudimentary language. No matter the logic you came up with or the methods you tried to receive the reward, the only answer was to succumb and be controlled. This worked for a while for you for very long time, taking you into your teen years.

During your teen years, there was one theme: "resist being controlled." Of course, part of that time was self-discovery through a number of vehicles, always with an underlying resistance to be controlled. If you take a walk through an average day in your life, you were taught to brush your teeth, dress, go to school at a certain time, and sit in a class for a certain amount of time, controlled by a bell. When the bell rang, a certain behavior called "changing classes" occurred, and you began to experience a phenomenon called "longing." Remember how you waited for that bell to ring? Minutes seemed like hours, and during that period of longing, there was nothing really wrong, but you couldn't wait for that bell to ring. Why? It signified the arrival of a moment of freedom. At least until the next period of control began. School perhaps was less about giving you knowledge than preparing you for society, where control is a key experience.

Ultimately, the school day ended, and you could return home, where you experienced more control. There was homework that had to be done. For some, chores had to be completed. Then maybe you got a little taste of freedom and could choose what you would like to do with friends in the community. But only until it was time to go to bed, where you slept the number of hours determined to be sufficient to make you a healthy human being. And then you started all over again. At this point, you may begin to get a glimpse of how exhausting this is.

These periods of freedom were the beginning of your brain creating pleasure at an experiential level, as opposed to a reflexive, primitive phenomenon. What brought an experience of pleasure in the brain began to shape your choices and fuel the ever-growing, never-ending resistance to control.

At the same time, another phenomenon was occurring. An addiction to pleasure was being fueled, running completely in the background. It's the old adage, "Hindsight is 20/20." It's easy to look back and distinguish this now, but is it something one can really take as the case? Yes. We can allow it to be a useful bit of information, shaping a future that will be a form of delayed gratification as opposed to immediate reward.

What difference does it make even to have this conversation and write this book for you to read? Things are absolutely okay, and life will happen. You will get to live the life you choose. It's easy to have a conversation about things that don't work, but what does it take to actually implement them in your daily life? That is where breaking the cycle of addiction is the greatest step in our evolution, allowing future generations to enjoy this extraordinary planet we call home. It requires you to confront everything in life you think is normal and consider a new way of living. It's not forgetting everything you know. It's not taking on a new religion, eating new food, giving away your riches, or releasing anything you identify as uniquely you. How to escape can only be answered by first looking at the addictions on this planet that do not discriminate against race, religion, culture, or socioeconomic class. This book is for every human being on the planet, not for one person. Let's continue the journey now, putting aside our judgments, and explore this with an open mind.

What immediately arises for you as a thought when you hear the word "addiction" is not the truth. It is simply a construct created against a background of morality and virtues powerfully influenced by experiences. We see the person on the street begging for money or food, and immediately we think, It's probably for drugs. Perhaps you would even think, If people didn't spend all their money on drugs, they would have money for food. Do you see the lack of compassion and abundance of judgment?

What if we were to accept Adam, in the story of creation, as the first beggar? There are ascribed underlying motives, however. If you remove the story and observe the action in real time without a narrative, it was simply one human being offering to nurture another human being in that moment. For centuries, the story has been a powerful influence. Perhaps this is where our first notions of "good" and "bad" arose in our life experiences. Why would anyone see the action of offering fruit to another human being as anything other than an act of compassion?

Let's get very real. What is meant by the word "addiction"?

Addiction: "The state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that cessation causes severe trauma." 1 Historically, "c. 1600, 'tendency' of habits, pursuits, etc.; 1640s as state of being self-addicted, from Latin addictionem (nominative addictio) an awarding, a devoting, noun of action from past participle stem of addicere (see addict). Earliest sense was less severe: "inclination, penchant," but this has become obsolete. In main modern sense, it is first attested 1906, in reference to opium (there is an isolated instance from 1779 concerning tobacco).

First of all, it seems quite apparent that we as human beings have manipulated language to fit our world. The word was historically (i.e., at the turn of the seventeenth century) associated with the "state of being self-addicted" and later became associated with medical substances. Was it that we changed our focus from addiction as the fulfillment of self-needs to using it as a tool to judge others, intentional or coincidence, such that we deflected the attention from ourselves to a substance? Or was it a subconscious mechanistic action that would allow for the disease to be present undistinguished within human beings? I offer that this was a well-thought, intended action, the source of which we will never know.

Your perspective of addiction may be already evolving, and you may be seeing yourself a bit of an addict. It is perfectly okay and a part of the journey and process of the book. As I mentioned earlier, simply allow yourself moments, where needed, to take a break, close the book, reflect, and then return to complete the work.

Are you rewarding yourself with money, sex, shopping, eating, or creating the perfect post on social media that will foster hundreds to thousands of "likes"? Perhaps your reward is acknowledgment or admiration. Begin to see the drugs that you consume daily. You may be experiencing a bit of anxiety, fear, or an urge to walk away from this book, and that would be simply more of the addiction winning the game. How? You would get to continue on the course you are on without any evolution in the realm of addiction.

Lastly, notice the use of the word "enslavement." If you don't believe you are enslaved by your set of actions that result in delivery of the reward, then go ahead and interrupt that action and delay or remove the reward entirely. Set down your phone. Turn it on silent. Feel the pull to pick it up again. Skip your normal mealtime and notice the urge to eat. Even more so, notice that you may not even be hungry.

When we think about addiction, we often blame the addict. We may even think for a moment about the addict and how terrible it is for people to actually be addicted to anything. "These people should be put away." "They should be punished." "They are a disgrace to society." I feel this point of view is shared by most human beings and that it has been a barrier to moving forward and actually treating the disease. Eckhart Tolle stresses throughout his teachings that awareness creates an opportunity for something unique to arise. However, as long as we are not aware of what is currently there, there is no need to change the condition. If the condition is not distinguished, it cannot be treated.

However, once the condition actually has been diagnosed, then there is real opportunity for healing to occur. I propose that is where we are now concerning our human addiction. For too long, we have been unable to treat what lies at the heart of the human condition simply because we've been unwilling to see ourselves as a part of the problem. It's a problem that is plaguing our lives and our experiences on this planet. We are now taking a step together in this book, and taking the position for ourselves, that we all are affected by addiction. There is evidence to show that you're an addict if you're willing to look around and attempt to interrupt your daily routine, attempt to interrupt your ritualistic patterns of behavior, attempt to interrupt your point of view. Allow yourself to become so present to all the addictions you have in your life that judgment falls away. Allow yourself to be become disgusted with your own condition in your own life.

See how your addiction is influencing the way in which you raise your children. See how your own addiction is being woven into the fabric of their "genetics," from which they will teach future generations, never addressing the underlying condition, which is that, as human beings, we no longer know how to create. We are a stimulus-and-response phenomenon. We spend our entire lives reacting to perceived threats. When did this begin? How do we stop it? The interruption is simply to take the case that your whole life has been controlled by addiction, and it's been going on completely unnoticed in your blind spot.

What is the blind spot? A blind spot is that which you cannot see in yourself that has brought stagnation to your life for decades. When it is revealed, the result is liberation. The time is now. Our very existence as a species depends on breaking this addiction. Addiction to what, you may ask? Our current conditions of living, for one. We must have oil, even though it disrupts our planet. We must have power to fuel our homes, even though the source from which it comes is poisoning our rivers and our environment. We must have tobacco crops that are dried and sold as smoking tobacco or chewing tobacco, both of which cause cancer. We must have access to cars, which comes at the cost of fossil fuels. What are some of the "must-haves" in your life that you're unwilling to live without?

Complete Inquiry 1, then return to continue.

There is an energy field being created within the conversation that this book brings into existence. Inside energy fields, things become possible that once were not. Inside an energy field, particles begin to move and synchronize with time. The absolute greatest outcome of this book would be to share what you discover about yourself through this work so that others can begin to have the same types of self-discoveries and transformational experiences that you can now access. After participating in this conversation, realms of life will evolve. There will be actions that you will not recognize. At first, these may shake your own existence. It may startle you, and you may question what has happened. Don't worry. There will be moments when the addiction will prevail, but if there are moments for yourself in which you become fluid in thought, allowing for newly created spaces to arise, then you will have fulfilled the intention of this book.

(Continues…)

---

Excerpted from "Addicted"
by .
Copyright © 2019 Will Richardson, M.D..
Excerpted by permission of Balboa Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---

Table of Contents

Preface, ix,
Acknowledgments, xi,
Introduction, xiii,
Liberation: A Human Experiment, 1,
Addiction: The Inescapable Destiny, 3,
Getting a Deal or Getting Taken, 19,
Acceptance and Approval, 22,
Alcohol and Drugs, 26,
Sex, Cheating, and Lying, 28,
Beliefs: Religion, Spirituality, Agnosticism, and Atheism, 30,
Money, Success, and Power, 33,
Suffering, 35,
Gambling, Gaming, and Apps, 39,
The Victim and the Martyr, 43,
Admiration, 44,
Created Rights, 46,
Food, 48,
Complaining, 51,
Prediction and the Past, 53,
Ongoing Development, 56,
Addiction to Addiction, 59,
Appendix I, 63,
Appendix II, 65,
Appendix III, 67,
Afterword, 71,
Workbook, 73,
About the Author, 103,