The pathway from addiction to passion is each other

​I think we are all born with a spark that is intended to fuel our desire to create beauty. I believe we were created from beauty for the sole purpose of creating more beauty.

Along the way, though, many of us experience things that aren't beautiful. Things that make our past a burden and our future something we fear. Then we discover drugs or gambling or porn or shopping or our cell phone or our jobs or sex or on and on - things that for even a moment make the present tolerable - and then we are no longer creating beauty.

We are incinerating the voices that haunt us within.

Addiction is complicated. So complicated, in fact, that there are a lot of addicts among us who don't even know they are addicts. A lot of people among us turning to vices and devices to drown out the voices of fear that make their every moment intolerable.

As complicated as addiction is, we make it more complicated - more incinerating - by focusing so much of our attention on the vices and devices and not the fears. Not the voices. We pile shame and guilt on top of the fear instead of pouring compassion on the flames so many can't find a way to extinguish.

And don't be mistaken - they do want it extinguished.

It's a beautiful thing how that flame is ultimately extinguished. It's not a gang of fire fighters rushing the scene with their axes and hoses. It's a soothing voice. Empathetic. Curious. It's an ear longing to hear the voices within as desperately as the addict wants to feel them gone.

An ear that sticks around after those voices are indeed gone - and then goes looking for your spark. Goes looking for the beauty you were created to create.

The guided pathway from addiction to passion.

Treatment and recovery are often as complicated as addiction. Both too often overlook someone's longing to have something in the pursuit of helping someone stop something.

They overlook the longing for connection.

They overlook the reality that in many ways we are each other's treatment and recovery. We are each other's path from addiction to passion.

We are each other's chance to put out the flames and rediscover the sparks.

Sparks that never go away. We were created out of beauty to create beauty. Just because we don't see it doesn't mean it's not there.

It's always there. Help someone find it.