Conceptual Thinking Means Your Life's Always in Pieces

In Eckhart Tolle’s book “Stillness Speaks”, he observes that while reality is one unified whole in which are things are interwoven, thinking fragments the whole into conceptual bits and pieces. That got me to thinking about why many people consume alcohol, especially people who abuse alcohol and drugs (something I’ve done more than my fair share of in the past).

The person who drinks to get a buzz or to get really drunk -- tie one on, get wasted, become liquored up, whatever phrase you prefer -- likes the idea or the concept they’ve formed in their mind of what drunkenness is. Maybe early in their drinking “careers”, when they were in high school or college, they had a pleasant experience or perhaps numerous pleasurable experiences while under the influence. Maybe they were at a party, met a member of the opposite sex and well, had sex or something along those lusty lines. Or they played cards or dice with some friends and the combination of alcohol, friendly competition and social interaction turned the experience into a “night to remember”. Or at least something to post on your Facebook page. And it’s a physiological fact (truth) that alcohol stimulates certain pleasure centers in the brain which result in feelings of euphoria and lessening of inhibitions.

So the person’s mind creates a story in their mind about how great getting drunk is. They look forward to the drinking experience. Their ego takes those early drinking experiences, exaggerates how great they were, combines it with the physiological effects and creates a manufactured, a conceptual idea, of how attractive getting drunk is. This leads to the person drinking regularly and for the alcoholic, it leads to habitual (quite possibly daily) drinking. By the time the abuse of alcohol has begun, the individual’s conceptualized ego has trapped them on at least two fronts.

Number one, in their mind, the individual assumes becoming drunk is preferable to being sober because they have bought into their ego’s story about drunkenness. But think about it, the effects of alcohol on the mind and body mean at high levels, the drunken person doesn’t feel anything. They’re numb with drink, which means they will black out at some point and then they’ll pass out. So that person doesn’t really perceive what it means to be drunk because alcohol separates them from reality. Sure, at moderate levels of consumption the effects are likely to be pleasurable and capable of being remembered at later dates, but the alcoholic rarely, if ever, stops at that point. He or she keeps drinking until their awareness of the world goes away.

Number two, the individual is trapped by pride, which is generated by the ego. The alcoholic looks at their past behavior of heavy drinking and even if they’ve suffered negative consequences because of their drinking (e.g. - DWI, injury from passing out, embarrassing themselves at a party, loss of job, etc.), their ego sticks to its conceptual story about how great booze is. Ego will downplay the negative stuff and keep trotting out those “nights to remember” times on the stage of consciousness and say, “Look here, see how great alcohol is. And look at all those times you’ve gotten drunk since then.” Pride (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride), the most dangerous of the Seven Deadly Sins, presumes that if you chose to do it in the past, it must have been the correct decision. How could the great and powerful you have been wrong?

But if the individual can be honest with him or herself and objectively examine their drinking, it’s possible to break out of that prison. Admitting you were wrong and need help with your alcohol-related issues is a daunting prospect. I think that’s what kept my wife Amy from addressing her drinking. I know it’s what kept me from doing anything about my abuse of alcohol for a long, long time. If your self-esteem is low to begin with, admitting you’ve made a mess of your life by drinking is scary. It’s must be like a Catholic person going to Confession and really spilling their guts about how they’ve fallen short of the will of God by <INSERT SIN HERE>.  Fear is the predominant emotion before they confess but then relief follows. For the alcoholic, it’s really true that the truth will set you free. If you admit the truth of your alcohol problem, that declaration, either to another person individually or in an AA or similar group meeting or simply just in your own mind, will naturally lead to taking actions that lead down the path of recovery and a chance for a sane, happy life. But if you cling to your old, dysfunctional ways, you’ll never escape the self-imposed prison cell.

To get glimpses of the unified, interwoven, wholly whole nature of reality, one needs to think a little less and be more aware. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use your mind but rather to use a deeper, broader, more universally-connected part of your mind. Think of it as a shift in perspective. The best way to do that, I believe, is through some form of meditation.

Meditation forces you to slow down your thought processes and just be. Be wherever you are at that moment and soak in the ultimate blessing, which is life, or if you’d prefer, energy. Reflect on the truth that it’s not you as an individual that gives yourself life and it’s not even your parents’ sexual union that really gave you life (their act resulted in your physical birth but not the mystical force of energy that keeps you alive). No one, not even the most brilliant physicist, doctor or holy man/woman can explain the source of life. One simply has to accept the gift and realize that nothing’s personal. We’re all in this game of life together.

 

By the way, don’t box yourself into thinking you have to meditate in a certain way or bodily position. Besides the well-known Buddhist method of sitting cross-legged on the floor or ground with eyes closed for long periods of time, there numerous other options: walking, jogging, bicycling, golfing, fishing, yoga, etc. For me, I use bicycling to make myself aware of my breath, which perhaps the most direct, tangible sign that I’m alive. When I go for a bike ride, it’s a microcosm of my life. Sometimes I go up steep hills, which makes me work harder and if steep enough, make me wonder if I’ll make it up that hill (meet a life challenge). But if I keep pedaling, I make it up that hill just fine. Sometimes I go over a flat stretch that’s not too difficult but it’s also not easy either so I’m moving along at a steady pace (like my every-day, routine life that at times seems boring but it doesn’t have to be if my attitude’s positive). And sometimes I’m rushing down a steep hill that’s seems almost too easy (like when good things happen in my life that I don’t feel like I’ve earned but I get anyway).