Some addictions look like chaos. Mine looked like discipline. Richard Rohr helped me see the difference.
Table of Contents
I’m quoting Richard Rohr here – saying we’re all addicts. Not addicted in the dramatic way. Addicted in the everyday way: the way we reach for something the second we don’t want to feel what we feel.
The notion that we’re all addicts is obviously off-putting and unfriendly to our sensible human desire to be happy, healthy, and semi-normal.
But Rohr is right.
He says we’re addicted to our worldview, the lens we use to interpret everything and justify ourselves.
My attraction to Rohr isn’t religious (He’s a pastor). It’s not even especially spiritual.
He helps me see my simple desires with clarity. I want to live my best and most honest life. Rohr is good for that. He doesn’t let you get away with your own nonsense.
We’re all addicts, even Kids
When I was a kid, all I did was read. I was that little peanut in the back of the classroom getting in trouble because I couldn’t stop reading novels while the rest of the class learned history.
Which is ironic because I hated history, not the stories – the memorization. The dates. The regurgitation. The multiple-choice humiliation of knowing something and still getting it wrong.
So I used my strengths.
Secretly, I was a jock who loved to read.
I memorized facts while doing sit-ups, push-ups, leg lifts, and squats. I’d repeat dates and battles and presidents in rhythm with my body, like some deranged fitness scholar. Kinesthetic learning. Athletic academia. A very specific kind of child.
My family thought I was a freak.
But it worked. I did well in school. And I knew myself early, which is a gift.
And also… if I’m being honest… it’s the kind of thing an addict does.
Because addicts aren’t always the people you picture. They’re not always collapsing in an alleyway. A lot of the time, they’re functioning beautifully – they’re just tethered to a ritual. A system. A belief about what makes them safe.
Kids don’t get addicted to substances. They get addicted to strategies.
We’re all addicts when it comes to creating safety.
If you were a kid who perfected something: grades, performance, humor, competence, this is what you were doing.
You weren’t being impressive. You were trying to be safe.
How we’re all addicts; the games, the goods, and the gate closing
Now the game isn’t trying to remove every addiction. The game is noticing when my particular addictions start running the show.
Those practices imprinted on me. I carried them straight into adulthood.
An easy example: caffeine.
In everyday life, it enhances everything.
I wake up and rev my engine with a blazing hot latte. There’s a deep soothe that hits from the inside out. If I didn’t know better, I’d call it spiritual.
And then, because I’m me, I follow it up with more lattes.
Thanks to Starbucks culture and my De’Longhi La Specialista, I’m not just allowed to do this, I’m basically applauded. I’m a respectable adult with a machine that looks like it belongs on a yacht.
The grinder whirs. The machine hisses. The first sips hit my internal yes button hard.
So what’s the problem?
The same thing that’s always the issue in addiction: my mind.
I get too hardcore about it and it becomes a need instead of a pleasure.
I get compulsive. Demanding. Slightly unhinged.
Inside my head, I’m screaming that nobody but me can make coffee the way I like it. And suddenly it’s not a ritual anymore, it’s a personality.
Now it’s me and my Specialista against the world.
That’s addiction. Not the latte. The narrowing.
The fossilizing.
The way the mind hardens around a preference until it becomes law.
Another way we’re all addicts: denial
The other side of addiction is denial.
When I was younger, I thought denial was the joke part. The oblivious bit.
But denial is also the way we deny ourselves the very things we want most. We play sick little games with ourselves. We get moral about pleasure. We punish ourselves, and then call it discipline.
For example: I went more than three years without coffee in my early fifties.
Green tea and pretension. The classics.
And then I went on a trip. The Airbnb had a De’Longhi La Specialista. There I was, making espressos and lattes for my love like I was running a tiny Italian café out of a rental kitchen.
The aroma of fresh-ground beans filled the room with this ridiculous sense of coming home. The espresso hit the cup with that comforting little sound. The whole thing felt like a reunion.
What could it hurt to have one?
Those years of denial dissolved in about ten minutes, like a brief and ill-fated vegan phase.
What was I thinking? Why had I denied myself this simple joy?
That was the real problem, I decided. Not coffee.
My need to deny myself things that make me happy.
So what’s the line between a simple pleasure and a harmful addiction?
Same answer:
My mind.
It’s the way my thoughts wrap around the thing like a snake turned to stone. It goes from I enjoy this to I cannot live without this. It goes from pleasure to panic. From choice to compulsion.
And our culture jokes about it constantly because it’s so familiar.
Don’t talk to me before coffee.
It’s five o’clock somewhere.
Different substances. Same message.
These phrases sell in the millions because they tap into a mindset: I need my crutch to be a person.
Whiskey. Coffee. Cigarettes. Exercise. Cupcakes. Work. Drama. Control. It doesn’t matter.
If the mind is desperate enough, it will crown anything king.
We’re all addicts – so what?
Exactly. So what?
Let’s just be who we are.
I’ve always admired the people who own their particular kind of crazy – from Frida Kahlo to Tom Hardy. Somehow it only makes them cooler. More real. More interesting.
But addiction has a signature move: comfort and escape.
When I’m hurt, I go either toward denial or toward comfort. My mindset and/or my physical state determine which door I choose.
If I’m exhausted, hungry, angry, or isolated, I have to make a conscious decision to make a better next move.
Nap. Eat. Run. Reach out. Tell the truth.
(And yes, those can become addictions too. That’s not the point.)
The point is consciousness.
We can’t be fully present all the time. If we were, we’d never get anything done. We’d just sit around being extremely aware of our own patterns until we evaporated.
But when I feel myself slipping into that narrowed, desperate state – that’s when I try to wake up.
My version of waking up is breathing.
In for a count of four.
Hold for two.
Exhale for six.
Ten times.
If I’m on the subway or standing in line at UPS, I keep my eyes open. Nobody notices. I just look like a person who’s quietly tolerating society, which is accurate.
It helps me return to myself.
And because I’ve been through this a thousand times, I know what works next.
Sometimes it’s a latte.
And that’s okay.
I don’t need to quit everything. I need to notice when the gate closes.
