We depend on so many things. Man is generally a dependent being. Sometimes this or that addiction (drug, game, work, Internet or other mania) literally enslaves us. At the same time, a person is a free being, so we can limit and even overcome our addictions, be above them.
When we are faced with real addiction, there can be doubt about the freedom of a person. The most common example is alcoholism. The person began to drink, and then suddenly it turned out that he was no longer in control of the situation, that “it’s not him drinking, but drinking him.” And no matter what his relatives say, no matter what they do, no matter how they fight, he can no longer stop drinking.
OVERCOMING ADDICTION IS EASIER IF IN COMMUNICATION WITH SOMEONE WE CAN FEEL FREE.
Where is the freedom here? There is only a chemical dependence, with which the addict himself cannot do anything. In any case, this is how the situation is seen from the outside. But if we manage to talk heart to heart with this person, if we manage to understand him from the inside and the situation in which he finds himself, our vision will change. It’s one thing to watch from the side of Semyon Marmeladov in a tavern for another glass of vodka. It is quite another thing to understand that, as Dostoevsky writes, he has “nowhere to go.” Then we see not only the one who suffers from his addiction, but also the one who was free from it. Then comes the understanding that there is something obsessive (some thought, feeling, mood) that forces him to drink. He drinks because he can’t live with it when he’s sober. Alcohol dulls his suffering. What we see from the outside as dependence is seen from the inside as freedom. And one more thing: the drinker suffers not only because he feels something that he cannot cope with, which he cannot accept, but also because he is very alone in this feeling of his. No one close to him shares his suffering, his loneliness. Everyone around only repeats: “Do not drink!” What’s the use of saying “Stand up!” a man who is oppressed by an unbearable burden? He simply cannot straighten up, and good wishes only add to his suffering and bitterness, take away his last strength, bend even more. The desire to control everything and be responsible for everything, external care for the addict up to the loss of his own life without understanding his situation from the inside are unproductive. Therefore, if loved ones develop such codependency, it only further alienates them from the one who suffers.
A drunk person lives alone and separate from his loved ones. He will drink until he feels one of them around, until he can share what makes him drink, until he shares his burden with another. Only then will he feel the freedom that comes not from alcohol, but from another person, and then alcohol will lose its power over him. We can overcome our addictions, we can be above them, if in communication with at least one person we feel free.