Addiction as a Temporal and Existential Dysfunction

Core Definition

Addiction is defined as a maladaptive attempt to resolve existential, psychological, or spiritual distress through immediate, effort-based gratification (1). This process effectively bypasses the natural, time-bound pathways of psychological growth and insight.

Key Mechanism

The condition represents a profound collapse of balanced temporal experience, characterised by a tripartite failure (2):
Rejecting the formative lessons of the past
Hijacking one’s awareness of the present moment
Negating or radically discounting future consequences

The Tripartite System: Mind, Brain, and Consciousness

Brain – The Biological Substrate

Neurochemical Pathways:

Including dopamine-driven reward systems which underpin the reinforcement of habitual behaviour (3).

Structural Adaptations:

Such as impairments in prefrontal cortex function, directly affecting executive judgement and impulse control (4).

Mind – The Informational, Psychological Layer

This layer encompasses thoughts, feelings, emotions, personal narratives, and core beliefs (5).

It houses the “self-model” that interprets experience and, when distorted, can drive compulsive behavioural patterns.

Consciousness – The Foundational Awareness

This refers to the innate capacity for presence, witness, and conscious choice (6).

When only partially accessed, it leaves the mind vulnerable to addictive loops, as awareness becomes narrowly identified with mental and emotional content rather than serving as the stable observing ground.

Scientific and Holistic Nuances

Neuroplasticity versus Habit Loops

Whilst the brain adapts structurally (a process of entropy-driven disorder) to reinforce addictive behaviours, conscious and deliberate practice can rewire neural circuits towards syntropy, or order and integration (7).

This neuroplastic shift, however, is contingent upon a concurrent change in the mind’s governing narratives.

Partial Consciousness and Dissociation

Addiction thrives in states of dissociation or unexamined impulse (8).

In these states, consciousness is narrowly identified with the mind’s content, rather than anchored as the impartial observing self, reflecting a localised increase in psychic entropy.

The Moral Gyroscope Analogue

This refers to an underdeveloped meta-cognitive capacity—the ability to reflect, align actions with values, and regulate behaviour consciously (9).

It is distinct from simplistic moralising and is essential for navigating internal conflicts and moving towards syntropic self-organisation.

Constructive Reframing and Additions

Addiction as Signal, Not Pathology

It indicates a rupture in the integrative, syntropic process of self-formation, where mind, brain, and consciousness fall into misalignment and entropic decay (10).

Indirect Technologies of Change

These are practices that do not attack addiction directly but cultivate the syntropic conditions where it cannot sustain itself (11).

Examples include:

Mindfulness, meditation, yoga, pranayama, and martial arts

Narrative and psychodynamic therapies

Fostering authentic community connection

These work by nurturing self-empathy, self-compassion, purpose, and present-moment awareness, countering entropic fragmentation.

The War-Within-Self

The internal conflict between “wanting” and “not-wanting” is rooted in a fragmented, entropic self-model (12).

Unification arises not through suppression, but through the conscious, syntropic integration of disowned or shadow aspects.

Precision on Evolutionary, Entheogenic, and Spiritual Dimensions

Evolutionary Perspective

For a partially conscious species, addiction is an expected by-product of advanced cognitive-emotional complexity without commensurate self-awareness (13).

It represents a failure to alchemise primal drives into channels of sustainable flourishing, a state of evolutionary entropy.

The Role of Entheogenic Experiences and Psychotherapy

Carefully facilitated entheogenic experiences can act as a catalyst, introducing a syntropic shock to disrupt rigid, entropic addictive patterns (14).

Within therapeutic contexts, these substances may provide direct access to states of unified consciousness, temporarily dissolving the identified self-model.

This can allow for the re-examination of core traumas and existential tensions from a perspective of expanded awareness, potentially accelerating integrative insight.

Spiritual Quest and Meaningful Suffering

The distress of addiction can initiate an identity crisis that, if met with courageous inquiry, may catalyse profound self-discovery (15).

Therein lies the danger of merely “recovering” to a previous state without integrating the existential lessons offered—a return to a lower-order equilibrium.

This process reflects a broken existential mirror, revealing the two-legged (human) tension between finite embodiment and infinite yearning, pointing towards our latent potential for syntropic wholeness.

Synthesis and Path Forward

Holistic Intervention

Effective address requires simultaneous, multi-level attention (16):

Brain: Neurochemical support and somatic regulation.

Mind: Cognitive restructuring and narrative repair.

Consciousness: Mindfulness training to stabilise witnessing awareness.

Ending the Internal War

This is achieved not by force, but through conscious embodiment (17).

Here, awareness learns to witness mental and emotional patterns without identification, allowing addictive loops to lose their compulsive charge as syntropic order is restored.

Integrating Entheogenic Insights

Insights from entheogenic experiences must be grounded through ongoing practice and psychological and spiritual integration (18).

Without this, the window of altered perception may close, leaving old, entropic patterns to reconsolidate.

The Ultimate Goal

To move from a stable equilibrium of addiction to a dynamic equilibrium of integrated being (19).

In this syntropic state, life’s inherent polarities are held in conscious balance, not feared or avoided.

In essence, addiction is a multidimensional crisis of two-legged (human) becoming—a misguided, entropic solution to existential fragmentation.
When understood deeply, and potentially confronted with the revelatory power of entheogenic insight, it points the way toward genuine syntropic integration of mind, brain, and conscious presence (20).

( द्रुविद् रिषि द्रुवेद सरस्वती Druid Rishi Druveda Saraswati)

References

Koob, G. F., & Le Moal, M. (2008). Addiction and the brain antireward system. Annual Review of Psychology, 59, 29-53.

Wittmann, M. (2013). The inner sense of time: how the brain creates a representation of duration. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 14(3), 217-223.

Volkow, N. D., et al. (2017). The addictive dimensionality of reward processing in the human brain. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 18(12), 741-752.

Goldstein, R. Z., & Volkow, N. D. (2011). Dysfunction of the prefrontal cortex in addiction: neuroimaging findings and clinical implications. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 12(11), 652-669.

Metzinger, T. (2009). The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self. Basic Books.

Vago, D. R., & Silbersweig, D. A. (2012). Self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-transcendence (S-ART): a framework for understanding the neurobiological mechanisms of mindfulness. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 6, 296.

Doidge, N. (2007). The Brain That Changes Itself. Viking Penguin. (Neuroplasticity). & László, E. (2007). Science and the Akashic Field: An Integral Theory of Everything. Inner Traditions. (Syntropy/Entropy).

Lanius, R. A., et al. (2010). Emotion modulation and trauma-related dissociative states in PTSD. Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, 11(1), 109-121.

Siegel, D. J. (2010). Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation. Bantam.

Orford, J. (2001). Addiction as excessive appetite. Addiction, 96(1), 15-31.

Khantzian, E. J., & Albanese, M. J. (2008). Understanding Addiction as Self Medication: Finding Hope Behind the Pain. Rowman & Littlefield.

Jung, C. G. (1968). Psychology and Alchemy. Collected Works Vol. 12. Routledge.

Nesse, R. M., & Berridge, K. C. (1997). Psychoactive drug use in evolutionary perspective. Science, 278(5335), 63-66.

Carhart-Harris, R. L., et al. (2018). The entropic brain revisited. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(42), 10481-10484.

Frankl, V. E. (2004). Man’s Search for Meaning. Rider Books.

Maté, G. (2018). In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction. Vermilion.

Farb, N. A., et al. (2015). Interoception, contemplative practice, and health. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 763.

Gasser, P., et al. (2015). Safety and efficacy of lysergic acid diethylamide-assisted psychotherapy for anxiety associated with life-threatening diseases. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 203(3), 194-200.

Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2008). Self-determination theory: A macrotheory of human motivation, development, and health. Canadian Psychology/Psychologie Canadienne, 49(3), 182-185.

Grof, S. (2008). LSD: Doorway to the Numinous. Park Street Press.

General Further Reading

László, E. (2007). Science and the Akashic Field: An Integral Theory of Everything. Inner Traditions. (For syntropy/entropy in complex systems).

Porges, S. W. (2011). The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-regulation. W. W. Norton & Company.

Griffiths, R. R., et al. (2016). Psilocybin produces substantial and sustained decreases in depression and anxiety in patients with life-threatening cancer: A randomized double-blind trial. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 30(12), 1181-1197.

Lewis, M. D. (2005). Bridging emotion theory and neurobiology through dynamic systems modeling. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 28(2), 169-194.

0 recommendationsPublished in Gaia's Pharmacy with Dr. Andrew Maclean Pagon, MD PhD

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