The Cheetah's Hunger
What is the real nature of addiction? How does it behave? How susceptible is it to treatment? Can you just decide you’re done with an addiction? When you wake up one day and see the mess your life is in and decide to stop, will that decision hold?
THE ILLUSION: people who are addicts quit drinking, sexting, cheating or whatever their addiction is on a regular basis. Then the hunger grows again, slowly at first, then getting to the point of intense longings making it impossible to get the drug of choice off one’s mind, and ultimately, too many times — the cycle continues. The heavy stone on the Vampyre’s tomb eventually moves away because the vampire inside is Jones-ing in a very powerful way!! Lifting a 3,000 pound slab of stone while lying on your back is no big deal when you’re hungry or desperate or motivated enough.
When a Cheetah has made a kill and eaten its fill, it may lie under a Banyan tree for several days, snoozing and languishing. On day 2, a Gazelle could come up to it, lick its nose, and the Cheetah may open one eye, take a look, and go right back to sleep. But, if the Gazelle were to lick that nose on the end of day 3, POW!! - that Cheetah would explode and that Gazelle would be bleeding out 2 seconds later. That is the nature of addiction!
You can see this same phenomena with people taking medications for serious illnesses: physical or mental. If the medication works well, they start to think they don’t need it and go off it. Thus, if the malevolent hunger disappears, we think it is gone but all too often it is really just sleeping, digesting or taking a nap. Watch a typical serial killer movie: they talk about how long the time is between kills! It can vary greatly, depending on the individual. Yes, the hunger is sated by a “kill” - but the hunger builds back up. A solution to addiction that doesn’t involve core-level change is almost a guarantee that the malevolent malady will return and be resurgent!
The Cheetah is a great image for addiction: Cheetah’s are powerful creatures with great endurance, resilient, dogged in their pursuit, unrelenting. Addictions can share all those qualities, which is why treatment for addiction can be so difficult - the addiction gets a grip the same way a Cheetah does and doesn’t want to let go. And in these cases, the addict is the “kill!”
What is the real nature of addiction? How does it behave? How susceptible is it to treatment? Can you just decide you’re done with an addiction? When you wake up one day and see the mess your life is in and decide to stop, will that decision hold?
THE ILLUSION: people who are addicts quit drinking, sexting, cheating or whatever their addiction is on a regular basis. Then the hunger grows again, slowly at first, then getting to the point of intense longings making it impossible to get the drug of choice off one’s mind, and ultimately, too many times — the cycle continues. The heavy stone on the Vampyre’s tomb eventually moves away because the vampire inside is Jones-ing in a very powerful way!! Lifting a 3,000 pound slab of stone while lying on your back is no big deal when you’re hungry or desperate or motivated enough.
When a Cheetah has made a kill and eaten its fill, it may lie under a Banyan tree for several days, snoozing and languishing. On day 2, a Gazelle could come up to it, lick its nose, and the Cheetah may open one eye, take a look, and go right back to sleep. But, if the Gazelle were to lick that nose on the end of day 3, POW!! - that Cheetah would explode and that Gazelle would be bleeding out 2 seconds later. That is the nature of addiction!
You can see this same phenomena with people taking medications for serious illnesses: physical or mental. If the medication works well, they start to think they don’t need it and go off it. Thus, if the malevolent hunger disappears, we think it is gone but all too often it is really just sleeping, digesting or taking a nap. Watch a typical serial killer movie: they talk about how long the time is between kills! It can vary greatly, depending on the individual. Yes, the hunger is sated by a “kill” - but the hunger builds back up. A solution to addiction that doesn’t involve core-level change is almost a guarantee that the malevolent malady will return and be resurgent!
The Cheetah is a great image for addiction: Cheetah’s are powerful creatures with great endurance, resilient, dogged in their pursuit, unrelenting. Addictions can share all those qualities, which is why treatment for addiction can be so difficult - the addiction gets a grip the same way a Cheetah does and doesn’t want to let go. And in these cases, the addict is the “kill!”
What is the real nature of addiction? How does it behave? How susceptible is it to treatment? Can you just decide you’re done with an addiction? When you wake up one day and see the mess your life is in and decide to stop, will that decision hold?
THE ILLUSION: people who are addicts quit drinking, sexting, cheating or whatever their addiction is on a regular basis. Then the hunger grows again, slowly at first, then getting to the point of intense longings making it impossible to get the drug of choice off one’s mind, and ultimately, too many times — the cycle continues. The heavy stone on the Vampyre’s tomb eventually moves away because the vampire inside is Jones-ing in a very powerful way!! Lifting a 3,000 pound slab of stone while lying on your back is no big deal when you’re hungry or desperate or motivated enough.
When a Cheetah has made a kill and eaten its fill, it may lie under a Banyan tree for several days, snoozing and languishing. On day 2, a Gazelle could come up to it, lick its nose, and the Cheetah may open one eye, take a look, and go right back to sleep. But, if the Gazelle were to lick that nose on the end of day 3, POW!! - that Cheetah would explode and that Gazelle would be bleeding out 2 seconds later. That is the nature of addiction!
You can see this same phenomena with people taking medications for serious illnesses: physical or mental. If the medication works well, they start to think they don’t need it and go off it. Thus, if the malevolent hunger disappears, we think it is gone but all too often it is really just sleeping, digesting or taking a nap. Watch a typical serial killer movie: they talk about how long the time is between kills! It can vary greatly, depending on the individual. Yes, the hunger is sated by a “kill” - but the hunger builds back up. A solution to addiction that doesn’t involve core-level change is almost a guarantee that the malevolent malady will return and be resurgent!
The Cheetah is a great image for addiction: Cheetah’s are powerful creatures with great endurance, resilient, dogged in their pursuit, unrelenting. Addictions can share all those qualities, which is why treatment for addiction can be so difficult - the addiction gets a grip the same way a Cheetah does and doesn’t want to let go. And in these cases, the addict is the “kill!”