Things make sense only from the starting point. Once you truly understand a starting point no matter how bizarre – the actions that follow make perfect sense. It is often a major leap for family members to truly accept addictions as a form of insanity. They agree that the addicted behaviour seems crazy enough, but insane? Isn't that a bit harsh? Even an excuse for unacceptable behaviour? In facial expression if not word, I have seen and heard countless of these affected family members howl, "Hey, I know this person! I love him despite the aggravation he causes me. He might be acting in an unexplainable manner, but don't call him insane!"

Restored to sanity
Yet, the second step of the famous Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous – by far the most successful programme ever for arresting addictions and surely one of God's greatest gifts to the 20th Century – clearly states, "(We) came to admit that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity." If one needs to be restored, it means he or she isn't there now. What would you call someone who needs to be restored to sanity?

What is important to understand, no matter how much one wants to quibble over the technicalities of insanity, is that active addicts do not think the same as non-addicts. They do not process information in the same way; their values are not the same; their goals and current life patterns have nothing in common with a non-addict. They are coming from a completely different starting point.

Physical and mental turmoil
Addiction is a disease that is often fatal. Addicts are killing themselves. The nature of this disease is such that it attacks all aspects of a person's life. A person in stage-four cancer may have a brilliantly shining soul. There is nothing brilliantly shining about an active addict in the final stages of addiction, regardless of what the addiction is. Addictions are physical in that they involve tissue addiction the very cells themselves cry out to be fed in an uncontrollable frenzy that satisfies nothing. Addictions are mental; thinking becomes warped and is subverted into all manner of denial and delusion – for the insanity demands one thing at the cost of all else: continued use.

And addictions surely are emotional. They feed on guilt and fear, which totally permeate the entire emotional landscape while at the same time draining whatever energy is left to defend itself from feeling this emotional trauma. Often this results in a psychic numbing to a degree that non-addicts can barely imagine. How many countless times have some stricken significant others (loved ones of addicts) screamed at an addict caught in blatant dishonesty, "How could you do this to us! Have you no feelings? No shame?" Their pain is compounded when the addict looks at them as if they were invisible. Or the addict may employ a typical defense mechanism and accuse the astounded family members, "Me! What about you? I wouldn't be in this mess if it weren't for you..." The tragic song plays on and on.

Spiritual death
Insanity. It is insanity. And, of course, at the core of the syndrome is a kind of spiritual death. All addictions are based on spiritual poverty. All recovery is a tale of spiritual awakening because at the core of every human being is the need for love and acceptance. It is God's shadow on our souls. The more addicts spiral downward into their addictions, the less they are able to love themselves. The more they spiral downward, the more they run, the more they hide, the more they isolate themselves which, of course, is the opposite of love. The pain incurred by this isolation becomes a reason for increased use of their "pain reliever" of choice.

Herein lurks the lie. The more addicts use the object of their addiction – chemicals, food, sex, gambling, (I even know of someone with a PhD who is doing pioneer research on TV addiction) – the greater the pain. The greater the pain, the greater the self-hatred and guilt, and thus the need for more of the pain reliever – the addictive substance or behaviour. This is called the addictive cycle. All reasonable enough for non-addicts to understand. What non-addicts cannot understand, however, is the screaming tissue addiction as well as the psychological addiction. The intensity of the pull to that which is self-destructive, against all reason, against all evidence of what is happening, against all taught values or morals, is, well... insane.

A different set of rules
When treating significant others they need help too – we teach that an addict in an addicted state has but three concerns: (1) to continue the addiction, (2) to protect the addiction, and (3) to protect the supply. Addicts always have a stash of one kind or another. This is their life. This is the insanity. Their main concern is not to be loving, not to be honest. They don't care about truth or justice. They will sacrifice their family and their children. Addicts are not coming from the same place as non-addicts. They do not play by the same rules. They are not even in the same game!

Failure to grasp this essential element causes confused, agonised suffering in the concerned others. They see addictions as some kind of adolescent phase or midlife crisis. They expect the addict to "snap out of it" and return to the values, morals, and behaviour of "normal" people. But that is just the point. While in the grip of addiction, the addict is not a normal person. Addiction specialists would be as wealthy as Midas if they had a penny for every time they heard an anguished family member wail, "How could she do this to us? Doesn't she know how much we love her?" In the grip of an addiction, the addicts don't care. They are acting out their insanity. Until that miracle called a conversion experience occurs, they will see no other light. They will hear no other song. They will hear only the song of the lie.

If it looks like a duck...
Most courses on addictions list five identifying traits. There is nothing sacred about these five; others could be used. But these fit. Again, in keeping with our theme, we must remember that talking about people with addictions is not the same as merely discussing addictions. Rather than seeing addictions as an independent idea free-floating in the universe somewhere, I want to wrap each trait around an individual person's situation.

The five traits are (1) preoccupation, (2) loss of control, (3) tolerance, (4) blackouts, (5) withdrawal. Surrounding the package of the addicted person and these traits is mind and soul numbing delusion and denial, hallmarks of all addictions. Mind and soul numbing for the significant others as well.

1. Preoccupation
Meet Ma. At least that is what we called her in the recovery unit. A sweeter, more gentle soul would be hard to imagine. Ma was in her early 70s. Injured in a farm accident, this tiny, unassuming woman at first found it difficult to admit her pain. But when she did, the doctor thought her complaints mostly psychosomatic. "He never did take me seriously," she said later in recovery. In answer to this old woman's complaints, he prescribed large doses of pain killers and advised her to drink blackberry brandy before she went to bed.

The addictive cycle slowly set in like a deadly viper winding itself around Ma's soul. The more she took, the more she needed. The thought of the "medications" and a slug of the brandy (which gradually increased to small glasses, then large glasses) consumed her thoughts. Her life revolved around the pill-taking schedule she had set for herself. Soon she thought of nothing else. Finally, one day her terrified husband found her blacked out on the kitchen floor and got her into treatment. Loaded with shame, guilt, and self-accusation, she began her heroic climb out of the shadows into responsibility. "It got to where using was all I ever though about," she shamefully admitted. That's preoccupation.

2. Loss of control
Al is chemically dependent. No question. But "riding my chemical dependency with sharp spurs," he says, is his gambling addiction. He has been asked to leave several AA meetings because he had started "friendly little card games." Soon the place looked like a Las Vegas casino.

Gambling has taken his soul, his marriage, his family, and more jobs than he can count. After each crash, Al makes a sincere commitment to change. Never again! he swears. He will make a full recovery no matter how difficult.

Al has not yet grasped the point that recovery demands more than determination. The spiritual side of his program is totally lacking. Until that light clicks on, Al will continue to try to control his compulsion. But willpower isn't enough. Every addict, until that marvellous event called conversion and the subsequent effort of "working a programme" begins, finds his or her life increasingly out of control. Addictions are terrorists that assume the total meaning of one's life.

3. Tolerance
Janet is a lovely 22-year-old with a food addiction. As often happens with contemporary food addictions, hers is a combination of anorexia and bulimia. She first starves and then violently purges herself of even the least amount of food intake. Beautiful Janet truly sees a witch in her mirror. Everyone else on the planet sees a lovely, thin unto death, remarkable young woman. Her image of herself is a fat, disgusting failure.

As with most addictions, Janet's started slowly. She hated herself. What she learned in the toxic alchemy of her truly dysfunctional home was that no place is safe. She was not loved because, in her eyes, she was obviously not lovable.

The addiction, as with all addictions, has taken on a life of its own. The more Janet punishes herself, the more she believes that she deserves to be punished. With each passing episode, the witch grows more powerful. Janet needs more and more punishment before she finds even a hint of relief. What began as "healthy fasting" has become a lethal way of life. Addiction has removed any shred of self-compassion. That is the meaning of tolerance: more and more of the addiction is needed to ease the pain that the addict is running from – the spiritual pain of an increasingly empty core.

With addictive use, the addict often reaches the point where tolerance reverses itself. This is especially true with substance abuse. Previously, prodigious amounts of the mood-altering substance could be absorbed before escape – now almost any amount sends the addict into a tailspin. Many recovering alcoholics, for example, find themselves saying things like "It got to where just a whiff of the cork put me under the table." Reverse tolerance is a sure sign of the disintegration of mind and body. I don't know if Janet will recover before she kills herself. If you meet her, give her a lot of love. It's the only hope she has. Through others is most often how God works.

4. Blackouts
A blackout does not mean to pass out. It means that the mind simply refuses (or is unable) to register a block of time. The addict has no recollection of his or her behaviour during those periods. Behaviour brings consequences. It is impossible to record the misery and sorrow of addicts who "come back" after a blackout only to face the consequences of behaviour they don't even remember. It's part of the insanity.

The characteristics I've just mentioned were drawn mostly from research on chemical addiction, more specifically, alcoholism. Blackouts in that context have a firm connection with tissue addiction, or cell toxicity. Blackouts with chemical addiction is easy to understand. But I believe (because I've seen and heard it so often) that the same kind of mental blackout occurs with nearly all addictions. Outwardly, the addict seems to be functioning normally. After an episode of use, however, it is amazing to hear how often the addict has no, or very little, clear recollection of what really happened while in the grip of the addiction. Like Sherri...

Sherri is a beautiful woman in her mid 30s. She is in SLA, Sex and Love Anonymous, which is for people who make habitual, addictive decisions pertaining to relationships. Though love is their deepest motive, they find it impossible to create healthy relationships for themselves.

Sherri is a victim of sexual abuse. Her story – which she tells with a face devoid of any feeling – is worse than anything you'll see on TV or read about. It is the kind of story that enraged Christ, who said it was better to have a millstone tied around one's neck than to hurt a child. She learned a lie. She lived a lie. She became the lie. The lie became her life. More often than Sherri can remember, she has awakened in someone's bed without any clear idea as to how she got there. She got too close to the flame, and the flame consumed her. Psychologically, at least, that is what blackouts do.

5. Withdrawal
Withdrawal occurs when a person is separated from the addicting substance or behaviour. The body panics and goes into shock. Every part of the addict panics. Addictions are about one thing: "Feed me." When the source is denied, hellish chaos reigns in every part of the individual.

Again, as with blackouts, we are most familiar with withdrawal from chemical addiction. Opiate addicts going "cold turkey" is familiar; the d.t.'s (delirium tremens) with alcoholism is the same. But any weaning from addiction will cause withdrawal – sometimes more psychological than physical, but withdrawal all the same. Deprivation of anything we have come to depend on will cause withdrawal, even if that dependence is tragically self-destructive.

Several weeks ago Agnes, 55 years old, a lovely lady, called at three o'clock in the morning. "The shadows are calling me," she said. A recovering alcoholic and a sex abuse victim, Agnes has a long history of buying into physically abusive relationships. Recognising that this behaviour was inconsistent with where she was trying to go in life, she cut off the terribly abusive relationship she was in at the time. Crazy as it may sound, it was all she could do to keep from crawling back to the man who had repeatedly beaten her. Like Janet, Ma, and every addict, Agnes knows nothing about walking in love, cannot accept that she is loved and lovable.

People with blighted souls medicate pain with addictions. Addiction equals insanity. If it looks like a crazy duck and acts like a crazy duck. it is a crazy duck .