Addiction makes us crave for the things we don’t even like

Recovering drug addicts often report that they relapse into indulgence not because they want to get high but because they just want to feel normal.

They understand that the drug offers far more trouble than pleasure. Having experienced repeatedly how it makes them do terrible things, they have come to a stage where they don’t even like the drug very much.

But still they feel near-irresistible craving for it. That craving doesn’t come from physical withdrawal symptoms alone. It comes also from the psychological torments that they undergo. The Bhagavad-gita (16.11) indicates that desires act like shackles. Repeated indulgence creates almost unbreakable shackles between the drug addicts and the drug. The pull of those inner shackles is so acutely painful as to be unbearable. Thus, they end up craving for the thing they don’t even like.

The torment addicts feel to an extreme degree because of their addiction, we all feel to a moderate degree because of our attachments. In the Gita (03.36), Arjuna echoes this feeling when he asks: What impels us to act sinfully even when we don’t want to?

The Gita identifies selfish desire embodied by lust as the culprit (03.37). After explaining how the culprit acts and how we can counter-act (03.37-42), it (03.43) recommends that we can best overcome such desire by intelligently absorbing ourselves in spiritual reality. Bhakti-yoga offers the easiest way to such absorption because it provides quick access to the all-attractive source of all pleasure, Krishna.

By regular bhakti practice, our intellectual and devotional reflexes become strong and sharp. With such trained reflexes, whenever lower desires torment us, we seek relief not in our attachments, but in Krishna. By the security and serenity of such absorption, we can end the tragedy of craving for the things we don’t even like.