Affairs and Addiction: A Quest for Happiness
Addiction and affairs are historically taboo topics that have touched the lives of many. If not through firsthand experience, you probably know someone who has been inflicted with the pain, turmoil, and drama that often comes at the expense of these two subjects. We’re often stunned when we hear stories of vicarious accounts. We’re enthralled by the way television and movies glamorize and embellish these concepts. Authors provide vivid detail in books where characters are embedded with scandals. Reading books such as Adultery, State of Affairs, and In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts influenced how I personally ponder about the quest for happiness in costly endeavors. Can we be happy with how life is? Are these two concepts symptoms of existential crises?
Let’s Start with Love. Love is a short loaded term containing a variety of interpretations. Philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience have all studied the various meanings of this four letter word. Love is often associated with a viscerally unique euphoric state. How else could we explain irrational fantasies about someone? Feel the excitement resembling a child on Christmas morning by simply seeing someone’s name light up on our phone? Romantic beginnings combine knowing just enough about a person with mystery leaving us yearning for more. The sparks of chemistry beginning of a relationship don’t necessarily last after ten years of being together. Overtime predictability and security interrupt euphoria and excitement. The novelty in the genesis of romance induces feelings of vitality, energy, eroticism that blend together into a recipe inherently associated with the person we romantically choose. People often question their relationship when these feelings wane overtime. To simplify: the difference between love and romance is that love is based in security, and romance is erotic. Eroticism is best described as sensual feeling of aliveness.
Ester Perel writes in her book The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity:“Sometimes, when we seek the gaze of another, it isn’t our partner we are turning away from, but the person we have become. We are not looking for another lover so much as another version of ourselves.
Affairs hold elements of betrayal: hiding and lying, which induces more of the shame and guilt. This is not dissimilar from behavioral symptoms addiction holds. There is an immense power in understanding how these manifest without condoning these hurtful actions. No one is ultimately immune to the temptations life readily offers to get outside of oneself.
“Not all addictions are rooted in abuse or trauma, but I do believe they can all be traced to painful experience. A hurt is at the centre of all addictive behaviours. It is present in the gambler, the Internet addict, the compulsive shopper and the workaholic. The wound may not be as deep and the ache not as excruciating, and it may even be entirely hidden—but it’s there. As we’ll see, the effects of early stress or adverse experiences directly shape both the psychology and the neurobiology of addiction in the brain.” Gabor Mate, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts
Addiction engages in behaviors and/or substances hijacking the reward system to endorse repeating the action despite negative consequences. Substances and behaviors provide a relief from the being inside of us that holds onto deep pain. Under the guise of feeling alive, addiction also has the license to kill all that is good in our lives.
A common root in both affairs and addictions is desire to be outside of who we are. Wanting to create a semblance of a life that we want rather than living the life we have. We as humans do not tolerate present moments with mastery without skillful effort to endure such moments, particularly uncomfortable ones. Practicing staying in the present moment, contacting an embodied experience with each emotion, and getting to know the pain lying in the dark depths of the soul are all essential to such existential crises. Relish security, and get outside of your comfort zone emotionally and with life’s offerings of new experiences. It’s a calibration that can be fine tuned to live embracing vitality.
