Re-defining Addiction and Breaking the Pattern

From Krishnamurti's perspective I think we can understand (severe) addiction to refer to a person who's desire for pleasure overrules their logical mind to some significant extent. Normally a problem of subjectivity, I think we can perfectly define this “extent” by marrying the definition to propriety.

pro·pri·e·ty
p(r)əˈprīədē/
noun
noun: propriety

the state or quality of conforming to conventionally accepted standards of behavior or morals.

Our natural freedoms ARE such that we are free to pursue our own happiness provided we do not encroach on the natural freedom of others. Propriety as the measurer of the severity of mental illness CAN deem one a danger to others or oneself and thus qualify a person as an addict without the worry of the abuse of power.

When one is caught in the pattern that defines addiction, the escape from anxiety to a pleasure that brings more anxiety, and propriety becomes clearly displeased, the addict might begin to want to break the pattern.

The only way to ACTIVELY break this pattern is to move towards observation of it.

I used to think it wasn't true that an addict wakes up one day and chooses to begin to put their addiction behind them. But evidence, experience, experts show otherwise. There does seem to be a spontaneous awakening in some addicts (that might not be so spontaneous but rather too complex for us to identify the causal factors).

I think we can bridge these two insights by understanding K's “method” to be the levation of an objective observer. An observer that is not a part of the anxiety, escape, and pleasure that is being observed.

In addicts that seem to begin to spontaneously recover, I think perhaps this perspective of observation might have somehow started to spontaneously arise.

The creation/levation of this perspective might be able to arise in an instant or sometimes might only arise over a longer period of time. This would be related to our unwillingness to address and shed our core beliefs.

The insights here also suggest that although it could be left true that an addict must WANT to change, Bohmian dialogue, whether of the group or individual kind, could be ACTIVELY introduced to the addict in order to encourage/incite the direction of change.