The Addictive Problem

The more I circle around the bases about addiction the more I remember that Dr. Reich said it would take two to three hundred years while working with orgonometrically trained professionals to unlock full functioning adults. 

I am totally frozen when I continually realize how moving forward is so isolating from my fellow humans. The miserable blessing of addiction is that it allows one to forget isolation and awareness. If you want to die with a little bit of pleasure addiction is one of the better ways to go.

To be aware totally is Nirvana.
Tiny steps brings the intuitive knowledge that
nirvana even in small steps is way more interesting and satisfying than addiction. Addiction is a treadmill that one must step off of and replace the addiction with life affirming actions.

1. Admit you need help. The biggest hurdle is recognizing how lost you are.

2. Practice what your teacher has taught you.

Breathing is where you begin.
Deceptively innocuous breathing is the doorway to your whole self.
Humans love feeling pleasure. Pleasure is the energy expanding to the surface of your body and breathing moves the energy. Problem  our culture supports no understanding of energetic pleasure and instead sublimation and survival vie for ones habitual attention.

If your energy doesn't expand by breathing than you will find other addictive substitutes
to expand your energy. These addictive's reside outside your body and are not
integral. When you are breathing and experience yourself, life is simple and often pleasurable. Addiction causes unhealthy loss of control because the pleasure is never totally satisfying and the addictive always seeks to be satisfied.

Breathing moves the flow of Orgone, or energy which stimulates emotions.
Knowledge of who we are is the ideas that forms after the repetition of emotions. Now we
are beginning to understand how humans function. Humans seek knowledge of who we are, and the understanding of what we need for happiness..

The journey to satisfaction, pleasure and happiness is complex because humans
bury their feelings to survive our complex world. Dr. Reich recognized the trap of our civilization and taught his patients how to feel. Orgone.

What Map Were You Given?

As soon as you're born they make you feel small.
By giving you no time instead of it all.
Till the pain is so great you feel nothing at all.

Working Class Hero by John Lennon

Words are like vapors; soon to disappear into the next thought, distraction,
or escape. A word of warning use these words as an innocent starting point.
Only in action can words have meaning in your day to day existence. Words are my
addiction hoping to connect. Words are not a substitute for true learning. Dr. Reich said "a person seeking to help themselves is like a person trying to pull themselves out of quicksand by their own hair"

The lack of orgone awareness resulted from the birth process: often the baby is scared witless by strong lights, awful eye drops, long painful delivery, and circumcision. Separation from the mother (poor or no breast feeding) or lack of sensual contact with the mother further drives the baby inward. The expression of energy, Orgone disappears. Orgone

streaming; like a gentle shower stops. Similar to a dam there is a blockage.

Since the block stops awareness you feel safe; like Joyce's walking dead. 

Holding your breath blocks awareness of feeling in the newborn.

Holding your breath deadens you. Restricted breathing armors the body causing the first split between instinct and fantasy.  All in all a recipe for the neurotic search for self satisfaction, and meaning. Not only is traumatic birth and abusive childhood the root cause of the repression of feeling alive but it is the mold that allows one to acquiesce to the abuse of parental and medical authority.

Experiencing the Orgone streaming directs the organism towards satisfying goals.

The problem is what addictions will we use to imitate the loss of Orgone streaming. Orgone, energy accumulates in the body and needs to be  released. The four step energy release formula is one of Dr. Reich's great accomplishments. The lack of full orgasmic discharge leads to finding other addictive behaviors to release partial energy (Orgone).

Doctors and parents have had the same birth and culture they are about to imitate you into. If you are lucky your confusion will lead
you to seek Orgone Therapy. Denial
is prevalent in our culture driven by our addictions. We escape into having out feet in the river and looking at the pyramid of life; yet we have no idea we are in denial.  Addictions are a temporary charge that relieves the horrible confusion and provides a temporary respite. Addictions are one type of map that points to a false oasis.

Unrestricted Breathing

In the beginning there was breath or another word for breath is spirit or God.
Breath is the beginning because it is energy; breathing not only brings in the prana, chi or orgone but full breathing moves the energy within you. Dr. Wilhelm Reich called the energy and feelings moving in your body orgone and the sensations of the movement streamings. He taught his patients how to begin to acces these feeling by breathing unrestrictedly.

The problem with breathing and knowing who you are begins at birth. Like the possum who feigns death to avoid notice babies shut down their breathing instinctively, to avoid the awareness of horrible birth practices. In the baby particularly breathing will shut down awareness: for the baby consciousness is powered by breath. Life for everyone is powered by breath but in babies there are no memories or distractions or addictions to allow you to escape abuse; babies escape is often an out of body experience(a baby form of meditation) fueled by shallow breathing. 

Mother also finds escape in shallow breathing; in enlightened birth practices deep breathing is practiced but unconsciously blocked by repression.  Armored Mothers choose Cesarean sections and often it's recommended. The shutting down of consciousness after birth abuse makes life easier for parents, doctors and nurses. Modern birth for the baby, parents and help is like a trip to a war zone.

Shallow breathing allows everyone not to feel. Unrestricted breathing hardly exists in our culture.
Consciously trying to change your breathing patterns is tremendously difficult because the act of consciously breathing reminds you unconsciously of ones traumatic birth and other traumas.
Shallow breathing was the first habit that saved you from experiencing birth horrors; one feels safe not to feel, safety allows the baby to sleep through the trauma. Any habit is difficult to change and because breathing is instinctive and is the first template, the first mold, the first impression, it is the hardest to change.

Breathing is the engine that begins awareness, and compressing, restricting the musculature in the diaphragm stops the intake of energy and the movement of energy in the body: Shallow breathing stops awareness, perception of the energy movement and particularly holding back expiration can cause a inward, restricted flow of of Orgone, anxiety. All of us breathe, we all take breathing for granted. Unrestricted breathing moves feelings, without full breathing life's meanings become unknowable. Sadly one needs to go through Pandora's Box (baby and child trauma) to access unrestricted breathing: for most of us a long and difficult journey.


When you begin to experience full breathing there is the realization that there is hope. Hope is the realization that you can change your life and move towards pleasure. Addictions is fleeting hope and escape into a temporary pleasure. Addictions, like breathing move feelings often not consciously: Temporary addictions are better than no feelings because any feeling is better than having no pleasure. When you experience full breathing you do not need addictive habits because full breathing allows pleasurable feelings to be safely who you are. All addictions are a dangerous substitute for living a healthy, hopeful pleasurable life.

Contacts Increase's Awareness

I have been watching and remembering my addictive behavior. Why have I eaten
12 donuts over a course of a day. Why was having intimate relations difficult?
How are these two primary drives connected? No one has modeled healthy intimacy. Communication must be person to person which families have limited knowledge. When the culture is survival oriented then there is little time to intimately relax. Unconscious panic drives addiction and those donuts are safe and quickly available. A  release from stagnating.

On the bigger scale 1 billion bottles
of coke are consumed every day, and in the U.S.A. 300 million cups of coffee are consumed every day, and I recognize my problems are shared. Every time I fill my car and review the quick junk food that is continually placed in front of me, I am tempted to get a quick fix. Human beings survive under many difficult situations: Everyday life
can co-exist with less dangerous addictions and surely coffee and coke pose no immediate threat to survival.

Denial is an invisible symptom and goes hand and hand with the famous caveat of I have no problem: smoking once was considered safe. Having an addiction can cause you to feel shame and secretive: keeping the lid on secrets can make your addiction hidden to yourself. Addictions to any of the following can be harmful: Coffee, work, liquor, legal and illegal drugs, sex, TV, and eating. My overeating is a substitute for not being able to satisfy my primary need of intimate sexual contact. Shallow breathing tightens the pressure cooker of emotions

Depression often is an underlying factor that leads to addictive behavior: the easy road
to quick release from depression is losing control which radically opens emotions; it's why addictive behavior is so prevalent. Depression blocks you from the expression of your core. Self perception needed to be hidden, to be covered by armor to protect self realization: depression became your  character and addiction your safety valve.

Music can help friends connect. Relieving depression by sharing is my goal. Music and friensd ship two important avenues that should not be forgotten.

Ain't No Cure For Love by Leonard Cohen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPdUkWCDmGM

Why You Wound Up Like You Are

The movement through the birth canal should actually be one of pleasure,
to the parent and the child. The expression of energy for the baby is all
encompassing; it is a rippling of energy outward. When the babies energy (movement) is blocked, the baby either takes literally days to be born instead of an hour or needs a Cesarean section. Then the baby is welcomed to the world with harsh lights, painful solutions to the eye, separation from the mother and no breastfeeding, and circumcision. Then depending  on how many insults you survived, your musculature will compress (Dr. Reich calls the hardening of muscles armor) to block the flow of energy and not to be scared to death..

Babies are instinctual lovers of pleasure, (as should adults), their energy is fluid and joyous. Dr. Reich uses the analogy of the pin sticking the amoeba. Stick the amoeba enough times and the amoeba collapses on itself and dies.
Depending on how awful your childhood was your armor, ( musculature), character will be a reflection of those insults and like the amoeba can ultimately die.

Babies are great survivors but if we soak up horrible birth practices that hardened musculature, forms the groundwork for addictive behavior.  Each insult, each separation, each physically painful experience causes repressed anger.

Pick up the baby when the baby 

cries: The baby is crying to be close or to be fed. Ultimately not responding to the babies needs causes blocked energy. Your child's addictive behavior is the anger blocked energy trying to release in complaint over their loss of pleasure, closeness, and

autonomy that was never given.

Seeing energy moving in the body as feelings.

Not wildly interactive but if you can imagine the following.
Your at the ocean and it is sunny, a perfect breeze and you are walking
along getting your feet wet. Or
you are coming out of a movie theater just seeing your favorite film. Or
you are with the love of your life. Or
you just hit the winning shot in your favorite sport.

All of these moments bring happiness and pleasure to you.
Feeling groovy as I use to say. Feeling good. What does feeling mean to you?
Please take a moment and scan your body. Do you feel anything moving to the surface of your body? If you feel the movement of energy in your body moving to the surface of your skin then your one of the few people who has escaped our culture of the walking dead.

I am the bearer of bad news. You have forgotten what it is to be alive. Oh I know we all
think and therefore I am. But that is only a small part of being alive. Oh OK big shot
What is the rest?
Ready?
Life is movement. Remember you are that from Yoga. Well guess what you are similar to
moving clouds. Not only does your heart pulse, but energy which you are actually moves within
your body. Like Walt Whitman who wrote about this breeze of energy, this sometimes
gentle movement within us is the movement of life. Your feelings are actually a type of movement in your body: like an amoeba under the microscope that pulses to the surface of its membrane, feelings also move to the surface. Literally when you fall in love it is a moving experience . At different peak moments you have also felt part
of this movement. Why don't we actually feel this movement all the time?

Each of us has our own story. The common denominator is the ceasing of the movement.
If you do not experience the movement (Dr. Reich called them streamings) you will seek addictive ways to compensate for their ceasing.

Energetics of Addiction

Totally based on Wilhelm Reich's work.



Before I start let me tell you some about me. How did I learn the stuff I am going to write about? Writing about addiction is a bit of an addiction. I am very hopeful it is a positive one.

One addiction that I am still confronting and at times experiencing is eating sugary foods.
Over eating and choosing food for it's overstimulating qualities(sugar) still excites me. I believe I am on the right path to balance this addiction. Addictions are secrets. In the following pages I hope to explore what I learned about my energy movement and how honesty about secrets will help the positive flow of pleasurable energy. Keep in mind energy is a huge historical topic: Chi, Prana, Orgone, and many other words for energy.
How does energy move in the body? Why is difficult to feel? How does feeling
energy affect addiction?

We stand on the shoulders of giants. No doubt about that. Who did Freud learn from? I am sure he had many teachers and at some point he was on his own. Dr. Reich was part of Freud's inner
circle from 1920 to 1930. Over the next 25 years Reich taught many Doctors his progressing work.
Reich after leaving Europe set up camp in New York and ultimately Maine. During this time a Dr. Duvall studied with Reich and then went to live and practice in LA..  A Dr. Rinn who I believe
was knowledgeable in Gestalt Therapy studied with Dr. Duvall.

This is where I come in. I began

my therapy with Dr. Rinn an 1975 or so and began my active study of Dr. Reich's work.


I enjoy writing about self knowledge. Without my immersion in Dr. Reich's work
and my eternal gratitude to Dr. Rinn I am convinced I would be dead.
So as we say without further procrastination let me begin.

The future is the child. All can agree on the importance of children.
Children are totally instinctual. The importance of adults in the raising
of children is paramount. Children seek constant reassurance. Any blocking of
their instinctual need for security will result in not only depression but addiction's.

Life is movement. Like an amoeba human beings energy can be pulsing.
Addiction is the substitution of a shallow pulse for life's satisfying primary pulse.
Children are born with the primary pulse and it is a natural unconscious reflex.
As natural as a bird flying. From day one children feel the threat of cessation
of the pulse as an immediate threat to their survival. Closing down the Orgone by contracting the muscles allows a feeling of calmness to occur. The price for peacefully fitting in is the loss of flowing Orgone. Addiction becomes a way of finding some small level of  excitement.  

Without Orgone Therapy my journey to oblivion would have been guaranteed. As a child I was thrown into a culture that demands one stands on a selfish me first. The interdependence of all for human survival has not evolved. The ruthless, narcissistic character begins a path to continued ignorance with no understanding of ones Orgone. Taught how to be Orgone and experience Orgone streaming, and  emotional awareness, I will try to convey my gratitude for Dr. Reich and Dr.  Rinn.