Season 3 Podcast 171 Some Random Thoughts on Addiction Pt III Time
Some Random Thoughts on Addiction Part III, Time
This is Part III in the series on Addiction. We leave it to the experts to treat addiction. Personal treatment is beyond the scope of these podcasts. We are grateful to all those who have dedicated their lives and services to helping addicts to overcome addictions. Everyone must choose for themselves the type of treatment they pursue. We make no suggestions or recommendations.
In these podcasts we address mental and spiritual preparation. Anyone who is seeking to overcome an addiction must first prepare themselves both mentally and spiritually for the challenging road ahead, whatever course they take. We merely offer suggestions as one prepares himself or herself spiritually.
In Part I we asserted that the three theological virtues—faith, hope, and charity—are the first place to start when trying to overcome an addiction. (Please listen to Podcast # 157) In Part II, we asserted that all creation is first spiritual and then temporal. In addition, we discussed how to overcome bad habits. (Please listen to Podcast # 170) In this Podcast we shall discuss Time and Addiction.
We live in a capsule of time we call past, present, and future. One cannot be addicted to behavior in the future for it hasn’t happened yet. All addictions are products of the past, a forbidden land which does not allow second chances. The present alone allows second chances. Only in the present do we have freewill. The past allows no revision; the future allows no action. All actions occur in the present. The future can only be changed by the present. The past is a memory only, frozen in the ice of antiquity. Lloyd Alexander, a children’s writer, said ‘we are a great perhaps.’ That is true only because of the fluid present. What you should have done in the past is only as valuable as what you can do in the present. The past, though it is dead to chance, is a living wellspring of wisdom that we must draw on to improve the future. Those who deny the past are dead to the future for their course is fixed in constant repetition. They become animals, one day like another in endless reiteration. In a real sense we can imagine a future where we are free of addiction and create a solution where that is possible, but for that to happen we must act in the living present drawing wisdom from the crystal ball of the past. The past is a fortune teller whose prophesies can only be changed if we act wisely in the present. Time is an erupting volcano in which the lava of the past immediately solidifies forming a tunnel so that the present can carry the liquid lava into the future. Only the present has power to channel what flows into our future. If we do not take charge of our present, we will repeat the past and condemn the future to incessant repetition. That is what addiction is. Addiction freezes time into constant repetition. Addiction stops progression. In spiritual terms repentance is the only thing that can break the cycle. That is what repentance is. It breaks the cycle of endless bondage. However, the only period where we have absolute control is the present. The past is past, the future hasn’t come. One cannot be addicted to behavior of the present for it is in the process of becoming. The present is a razor-sharp edge between the past and the future. We live on that edge. We may, and certainly should, use the present to decide what course we are going to take in the future. We may use the present to set up a plan of attack, create a schedule. But I repeat, it is only the present where we have freewill, where we can change our behavior, where we can reset our course that will affect the future.
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