Addiction. It’s all about identity.

Barring a serious physical condition or extreme psychological problem, the source of all our suffering can be distilled down to our identity, or more precisely, our mistaken identity.

Listening to a radio show on opiate addiction, the host asked a young caller, an addict, why he was attracted to drugs. ‘It makes me feel happy,’ the caller said. This was a person raised by loving parents under decent economical and social circumstances. This begs the question, why didn’t they feel happy in the first place?

If you or someone you know has an addiction – be it drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, eating, porn, shopping, you name it – there is a way out. Or better yet, a way in: discovering your true identity.

If you ask someone what he or she most wants in life, the answer is invariably some form of happiness. But the personal self can never be satisfied or happy because it is the false seeking the false. It is like trying to catch the wind in a butterfly net. When you examine the assets of the personal self, all you can find are ever-changing thoughts, feelings, sensations, and perceptions, hardly qualities to invest your identity in.

Our essential nature, Awareness – that which knows the coming and going of all things yet doesn’t come and go with them – needs nothing to be happy. It is eternally without desire because it is the source of all things. Nothing arises outside of Awareness. It needs nothing to be itself.

Identify with this aware presence that is always with you, is you, and be happy. Be happiness itself. Relax in this knowing presence, as this knowing presence, and know, feel, that nothing is missing, nothing is lacking.

Your addiction is nothing but a thought. Your confusion is nothing but a thought. And thoughts, when looked at thoroughly, are . . . nothing. No thing. Put thought aside for a moment and recognize the aware presence that you are and watch as cravings evaporate like a little puddle in the hot sun.

If you are interested in learning more about how Non-Dual Awareness can dissolve cravings, visit Scott Kiloby’s website (http://kiloby.com). Scott is a recovering addict and teacher of non-duality. He has dedicated his life to pointing out to others that our essential being lacks nothing, and therefore, our addictions, when seen for what they truly are – an imagined panacea for an imaginary self – lose their meaning and disappear.