The Nature of Addiction by Roget Lockard, M.Ed.

Beginning With Fire

The Story of Addiction, Human Nature, and Evolution

Chapter Sketches

Section Two

Dissolutions

Addiction is all about moving from fulfillment of longings to pain.

The double-entendre of the section heading, “dissolutions,” is very much intended. Over time the solutions to the problem of self provided by control begin to dissolve — to diminish in efficacy. Meanwhile, there is an accompanying deterioration of the integrity of the “self” that has embraced the control solution, leading to a state of being dissolute (“lacking in moral restraint; degenerate, degraded, dissipated;” etc.).

End of Story   Back to Table of Contents...

Roget Lockard offers important and fresh insights into the nature of human craving and addiction. His understanding of the individual, community and environmental impacts of addictive thinking and behavior are a penetrating and compelling message for all of us at this unique and precipitous moment in human history — as are his particular insights into the physical and existential forces that both give rise to our addictions initially, and help to perpetuate them on a daily basis...

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Vice-Abbot of the Zen Center of NYC in Brooklyn, New York.