How Bitter the Soul when it Craves so Sweetly
A Meditation on Addiction
“For the lips of a strange woman drop as a honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil; but her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.”
Proverbs 5:3-4, KJV
I am no stranger to addiction, though I have avoided the typical vices. Neither alcohol nor stronger substances have ever appealed to me, and I often call myself a teetotaler in jest. The lack of desire is result of many factors, but one of which is witnessing the deleterious effects resulting from addiction and another being my own desire to retain control of my own faculties.
The flesh aches, the heart races, sweat beads down the skin, and the body quivers with desire. There comes a point in which it is no longer just a want, but a need, a physical need of the body in order for it to continue to function.
While the body craves, the mind plots. Lies, theft, lashing out in anger, it doesn’t matter; the appetite must be sated. Money, the empathy of others, relationships, all are tossed into the insatiable bottomless abyss that will only ever ask for more. Sneaking into your grandmother’s bedroom to steal her jewelry to have something to pawn for another hit is an afterthought. What must be done, must be done.
Depending on one’s particular poison, it becomes Consumption. Consuming one’s thoughts, dreams, and ambitions; sneaking away to drink down mouth wash or rubbing alcohol to sate oneself for a time. Shoot it in the veins, and the body is Consumed; the hair withers, the skin thins, the teeth rot and fall out, the body wastes away. Not yet dead, but can hardly be described as living, the Consumed becomes as a shambling corpse that has yet to die. When the mind is devoured, what can be said is properly left of that person?
And when someone wishes to break free, to wash the Consuming tar off himself, if the addiction is severe enough, he must be slowly weaned off, lest the withdrawal symptoms kill him.
It is slavery in the truest sense of the word.
I mentioned earlier about my desire to remain in control of myself. As such, all my sins I have committed of my own free will, with a completely sober mind. And my addiction, that which consumed me, was much more of a fleshly nature.
“Night for me is a frenzy without restraint, very dark and moonless, a sinful love-affair.”
Hymn of Kassiani, sung on Holy Wednesday in memory of the woman who anointed Christ
Anticipation and arousal. Flesh against flesh, the tender touch of skin against skin, the sweet taste of another’s lips. Passion. Intensity. Ecstasy. Release and regret.
I am going to Hell.
Lust just as equally devours the finances, the mind, and even the body with rancorous disease (should one be less than careful during his sordid affairs), as an illicit drug. Should there be any wonder why sex and drugs so often walk hand in hand into the darkness of the bedroom?
As I said, “The flesh aches, the heart races, sweat beads down the skin, and the body quivers with desire.” Does this not describe the arousal of a lustful Eros as equally as it does when someone needs one more drink? My body craved the touch, my tongue the sinful black ichor which tastes of sweet honey in the moment, but soul and heart were set blaze, kindled by desire.
In online discussions about addiction, the word “Addiction” itself is often thrown into question due to how it is used colloquially versus a more “clinical” definition. If one mentions “porn addiction,” “sex addiction,” a “gambling addiction,” even an “addiction to social media,” others are quick to inform you that those don’t exist since they are not a result of a chemical dependence being formed, as which occurs with substances such as meth. Yet, even without a chemical dependency, we all understand what it feels like to have that itch that will not go away, even if our scratching tears at the skin and our fingers become coated in our life blood.
We are both soul and flesh, mind and body, and what is true for one is often reflected in a mirror darkly for the other. Addiction is no different. What we understand as “addiction” is but the secular understanding of concupiscence, the human inclination towards evil, a consequence of the Original Sin, when Adam and Eve indulged and gave into desire. The desire gnaws at the flesh and gnaws at the soul just as strongly.
“For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.”
Romans 7:14-15, KJV
Just ten more minutes scrolling on 𝕏witter, just a couple more TikTok videos, then I will go to bed. Sloth then eats away at the dwindling attention span, already depleted throughout the day and one can never truly sleep soundly under the glow of a screen’s blue light.
“Can’t miss a single day on this app!” Itching ears and wagging tongues, even the quiet gossip needs to stay up-to-date on the feuds and scandals of the e-celebs. I don’t even know who this person is, yet I must indulge in his public destruction.
The shambling, half-living addicts wandering the less savory parts of town are a common sight in the wealthy and poverty-stricken California Bay Area. What a sad sight to see minds and bodies gnawed away at by the addiction, yet theirs is just more visible. Turn the mirror on oneself when gorged with food, half-conscious scrolling the phone, mind enraptured by pleasure when the person becomes but flesh, and the addiction and sin is no less the same. We just prefer the walls of our tombs to be white.
We are all addicts of some sort, to various degrees, because we are all sinners. The key is to acknowledge to which master we are a slave and to fight against it, to thrash about and resist being consumed, even if we are in the very jaws of the formless tar of our sin, teeth piercing the body and soul alike.
Yet even then, even when we know our struggle, how easily the words, “just one more time” escape our lips.
Ten more minutes, then I’ll start. Finances are hard, I need this, no more stealing after this. I’ve already indulged, one more cookie then the diet starts tomorrow. This has to be the last time, I can’t do this to my wife again. I’m so stressed out, I need the endorphins, no more videos after this one. Just one more hit. Just one more drink. Then I’m done for good. I promise. Last time.
“The last time” is never premeditated. The last time is only something that exists in reflection, in looking back when you had decided change starts now.
“O Lord, grant me chastity and continency, but not yet!”
Saint Augustine of Hippo, Confessions 8.7
We all try to replicate the experience of that first time, how sticky sweet it was, the pleasure intoxicating. But we can never return to that same feeling. No matter how much we engorge ourselves on the forbidden fruit, apple after apple, fig after fig, core, stem, seeds and all, our eyes can never be opened a second time. We can only ever learn of evil once; then we know it as intimately as Adam knew Eve.
At least Judas returned his ill-gotten silver, but how many of us can say the same? When I had priced the Son of Man and took the silver, I spent it, returned, then tried to sell Him again, all the same.
“For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”
1 Corinthians 13:12
When the heart stops and the soul is sundered from the body, whatever state the soul is in at the time of death is what undergoes judgment. The addiction, the gnawing, the consumption, the inclination doesn’t go away when that separation occurs. That sinful desire remains within the soul, though, now cut off from the body, there is no way to satisfy the desire.
We on earth are given signs, symbols, and reflections of the spiritual realities of Heaven and the spiritual realms. Withdrawal symptoms from addiction are one such dim reflection; a withdrawal is but a temporal foretaste of an eternal Hell.
When the craving becomes so intense in the body, you clench your fists, you tear at your hair, you wail and grind and gnash your teeth. And while one still draws breath, a man may find relief from this torment with time; in the eternal, the soul can only wither and burn from unsated desire and everlasting longing.
O, how bitter the soul will be when it craves so sweetly the sin of man.