A New Earth Excerpt

I'm reading A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose (Oprah's Book Club, Selection 61), by Eckhart Tolle and he has something to say about addiction and how to recover.

A long-standing compulsive behavior pattern may be called an addiction, and an addiction lives inside you as a quasi-entity or subpersonality, and energy field that periodically takes you over completely. It even takes over your mind, the voice in your head, which then becomes the voice of the addiction. It may be saying "You've had a rough day. You deserve a treat. Why deny yourself the only pleasure that is left in your life?" And so, if you are identified with the internal voice due to lack of awareness, you find yourself waking to the fridge and reaching for that rich chocolate cake. . .

If you have a compulsive behavior pattern such as smoking, overeating, drinking, TV watching, Internet addiction, or whatever it may be, this is what you can do: When you notice the compulsive need arising in you, stop and take three conscious breaths. This generates awareness. Then for a few minutes be aware of the compulsive urge itself as an energy field inside you. Consciously feel that need to physically or mentally ingest or consume a certain substance or the desire to act out some form of compulsive behavior. Then take a few more conscious breaths. After that you may find that the compulsive urge has disappeared - for the time being. Or you may find that it still overpowers you, and you cannot help but indulge or act it out again. Don't make it into a problem. Make the addiction part of your awareness practice in the way described above. As awareness grows, addictive patterns will weaken and eventually dissolve. Remember however, to catch any thoughts that justify the addictive behavior, sometimes with clever arguments, as they arise in your mind. Ask yourself, Who is taking here? And you will realize the addicting is talking. As long as you know that, as long as you are present as the observer of your mind, it is less likely to trick you into doing what it wants.

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