In this course, we’ll examine the building blocks of what addiction is and what it does by looking at basic human drives and choices. We’ll dissect the elements of craving, crashing and burning to see what lies underneath. We’ll explore how much we all share the burdens of suffering, not only through addiction and the sacred road to recovery, but through the most fundamental issue that links us all – our spiritual hunger for union with Spirit.

This hunger may or may not include religion. We each find our way, and I respect your path. During this course, whenever I use a term like Spirit or Creator, please use whatever words work for you.

As you may already know, addiction is a bitch. How many ways can we spiral down into misery? The highways to hell are almost infinite, to be sure, yet the basic direction toward darkness is always the same. No matter whether your drug of choice is or was alcohol, ice cream, marijuana, work, porn, shopping, meth or a million others, the narcotic we all share is the illusion that somehow, it’s safer to be alone with our habit, cut off from creation and the vibrant, healthy force of Life itself. Inside, perhaps we even reach a point where we give up. We think, “There’s no way out, so why fight it?”

I believe that we all want a high that brings us an experience of immediacy and connection with ourselves, each other and Life itself. Very few of us have been taught to open deeply to our innate essence of light at a young age. Instead, we experiment with other things to get that high. Our inner mystic just wants love and ecstasy!

We yearn to remember that we’re already merged into a greater whole, and always will be. All addictions are simply sideways fantasies that miss the mark we’re aiming for: the path to wholeness, the road to peace.