Shining a Light on the Silent Rot of Addiction, Shenpa and Mimetic Desire

Join us as we unravel the complexities of addiction, delve into the mechanisms of Shenpa and mimetic desire, and gain valuable insights that can shape our understanding of human behavior and personal growth. Through insightful discussions, we'll explore the interplay of these fascinating subjects, drawing inspiration from renowned sources such as the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Tibetan Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron, French philosopher and polymath Rene Girard, the critically acclaimed TV series 'Mad Men,' and the enlightening YouTube channel, Kurzgesagt. Tune in for an enriching experience that combines knowledge, inspiration, and thought-provoking analysis.

Find detailed show notes on my blog at ⁠⁠Matt's Mindset Blog. ⁠⁠

Show Notes:

Introduction

Greetings to listeners
Addiction Defined

Discussion

Stats from the National Institute on Drug Abuse
Shenpas
The difference between projection and disassociation
Mimetic Desire
Examples from Mad Men
Rat Park Experiment and The War on Drugs
Both Responses have been Ineffective
Stats from According to The Sentencing Project, The National Institute on Drug Abuse, The Drug Policy Alliance, The American Civil Liberties Union
The drugs a society uses

Transcript:

Hello beautiful people. This is episode 12 of the Matt’s Mindset Podcast the pod that helps you to stand on the shoulders of giants to achieve your dreams.

Today we’re going to be shining a light on addiction.

Addiction can be defined as "a neuropsychological disorder defining pervasive and intense urge to engage in maladaptive behaviors providing immediate sensory rewards, despite their harmful consequences." Dependence is generally an addiction that can involve withdrawal issues.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), an estimated 20.6 million adults aged 18 or older in the United States had a substance use disorder (SUD) in 2020. This includes 14.4 million with an alcohol use disorder (AUD) and 6.2 million with an illicit drug use disorder (IDU).

But addiction isn’t just about drug or alcohol use. Those are just the two most visible signs of what is at the heart of addiction. The need to disassociate from life.

I spoke at length a few episodes ago at length about Shenpas.

Shenpa is a Tibetan Buddhist term that refers to the tendency to get caught up in our emotions and reactions. It is the feeling of being "hooked" by something that we find attractive or repulsive. Shenpa is what drives us to repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

Pema Chödrön, a Tibetan Buddhist nun and teacher, describes shenpa as "the charge behind our thoughts and words and actions, the charge behind 'like' and 'don't like.'" She says that shenpa is "the energy that keeps us stuck in our habitual patterns."

When you have a trigger, you have a response. Our habitable responses have been ingrained in our synapses through neuroplasticity. As the saying goes, the synapses that fire together, wire together.

So when you have a trigger, you have a response. This could be a tightening of the chest. A desire to be elsewhere. To not feel this feeling. To suppress. To disassociate.

And so while only 7% of the adult population is debilitated by a disease is afflicting that they must seek treatment, we all have shenpas. We all have triggers. And we all have our favorite ways that we dissociate.

It could be by scrolling on social media, or posting a new photo just to get likes. It could be working nonstop until 8:00 pm and then promptly falling asleep, exhausted. It could be playing hours of video games, completely losing track of time. It could be smoking weed or taking a few gummy’s.

None of these things in inherently bad by themselves. Working hard, posting a beautiful sunset, or relaxing with a THC gummy are all harmless by themselves.

It’s when they are chosen as responses to a trigger when a dependence can occur.

When we are triggered by something, we often feel something we don’t want to feel. And the default is not wanting to feel it. Some of us disassociate, and some of us project.

Projecting is when you feel something, powerlessness, for example, and rather than sitting with the emotion, rather than processing it, you project it onto someone else.

This is what is meant by the saying, “hurt people, hurt people.”

Because it's uncomfortable to sit with the emotion and process it. And if you aren’t going to disassociate from reality: by drinking, smoking, porn, pills, video games, or social media, then odds are you are going to project it.

Onto your wife, your kids, a direct report, a cashier at the supermarket. If someone made you feel powerless, it might trigger a childhood wound that was never healed. And rather than sitting with the emotion, which would mean dealing with a wound that has been festering for decades, most people will just project the feeling onto someone else. Double it, and pass it on.

But there is a moment. A gap between stimulus and reaction. If you can pause, sit with the emotion and feel what you are feeling, you can make a decision not to act in the same way. And every time you do this, you are rewiring your brain. You are firing different synapses. And it gets easier the more you do it.

So take a moment to think: what do you reach for after a hard day of work, after someone gets on your nerves, after someone cuts you off, or the internet isn’t working. Do you numb out? Or do you find someone to take the poison for you?

Addiction can also stem from what’s known as mimetic desire.

Mimetic desire is a term coined by the French philosopher and cultural critic René Girard to describe the human tendency to imitate the desires and behaviors of others. According to Girard, humans are not inherently driven by their own individual desires, but rather are shaped by the desires of others around them. This can lead to a kind of social contagion, in which desires and actions spread through a community like a virus.

Girard argued that this mimetic desire can lead to conflict and violence, as individuals compete for the same objects of desire. He believed that many cultural practices, such as religion and ritual, were developed as a way to channel and control the potentially destructive effects of mimetic desire.

In essence, mimetic desire suggests that our desires are not entirely our own, but are heavily influenced by the desires of others around us. This concept has been influential in fields such as sociology, anthropology, and literary theory, and has been used to explain a wide range of phenomena, from consumer culture to political polarization.

This phenomenon is perhaps best explained by John Hamm in Mad Men: “what is happiness?” Clip

So when we see all these people living a fake reality on social media, or listen to exaggerated stories from friends, we feel mimetic desire, we reach for our Shenpa. Our favorite way to disassociate or project.

Currently in this country we don’t understand addiction at all. Here are two videos from the the YouTube channel Kurzgesagt, which has been funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as well as the Open Philanthropy Project.

Rat Park and War on Drugs

I love Kurzgesagt and they have so many amazing informative videos. Just to play devils advocate for a moment, while there is a lot of truth we can glean from the rat park experiment, its also become clear from the opioid epidemic we are still struggling with that over prescription of opioids like oxycodone can cause addiction even when prescribe by a reputable doctor. And when the course of the prescription has run, it has become commonplace for these newly minted addicts to find relief through heroine, despite their social connections and so on.

Addiction is a complicated issue, but as the video points out, we are in an age where atomization is increasing at an unnerving level, social ties to family, community and nation grow thin.

And the recent response in liberal cities, such as San Francisco, CA, has been no better. Rather than removing the homeless from the streets and treated, as was shown in the videos like in Switzerland, the state allows the addicts to remain, and subsidizes their lifestyles.

There needs to be state run institutions that take addicts and the mentally ill of the street and rehabilitate them and then guide them to a job or career where they can have social ties and self esteem.

This is a public good, just like education. No one wants to live in a country where homeless people camp in tents on random roads or private property.

It reduces them to less than human and the people who have to walk by them everyday feel they have to treat them as such.

According to The Sentencing Project: which is a non-profit organization that works to reform the criminal justice system, the National Institute on Drug Abuse: is a federal agency that conducts research on drug abuse and addiction, the Drug Policy Alliance: is a non-profit organization that advocates for drug policy reform, the American Civil Liberties Union: is a non-profit organization that defends civil liberties and civil rights.

As of 2022, there are an estimated 456,000 people in jail or prison in the United States for drug-related offenses. This represents about 16% of the total prison population. All putting someone in jail for drug use is accomplishing is hardening them into a more violent criminals who find it difficult to assimilate back into society and make the bonds necessary to not relapse.

In some cases they will create social ties with gangs and hate groups and will become a net negative on a society that punishes them for struggling.

In closing, I’ll say this, in the words of Hunter S. Thompson: “You can tell a lot about a society by the drugs it uses. Legal drugs are the ones that keep you docile and obedient.”

Our culture normalizes caffeine and alcohol. Our cultural values implicitly are; drink this to keep going and drink this to forget. To disassociate.

Weed is now becoming more commonplace in our culture: smoke this to forget. To feel good. To dissociate.

We know from the experiment of rat park that even if drugs are offered, if people are happily coupled, with social ties and meaningful work, there won't be any need for a war on drugs. We can use that funding to fund state run facilities which allow addicts to get back on their feet.

Phones and technology allow us to spend an ever increasing amount of time by ourselves, but our need to be cultivate meaningful relationships and social bonds is part of who we are.

Never stop growing. Never stop striving. And never stop setting new and better goals for yourself. As you improve you create positive fly wheels in your life your cup overflows, and then you can begin to help others.

In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson: it is not the length of life, but the depth. Live your life to the fullest today and make the most of every moment. Take time for yourself today. Meditate for ten minutes. And the next time you feel that sticky, tight feeling, or a rush of anger, pause, feel the emotion, and let it go. You’ll thank me later.

Light and love my friends: go in peace to love and serve

Outro: Counting Stars: OneRepublic

Shining a Light on the Silent Rot of Addiction, Shenpa and Mimetic Desire

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