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                   %NOT BEING IN CONTROL ADDICTIONS 870412

     People who value being in control are bound to become
addicted  to  some means to being in control.    By  their
logic  they  must be in control of their chosen  means  to
being  in control,  regardless of what they have chosen as
the  ultimate means to being in control.   The details  of
their  disease  depends  upon  what  is  selected  as  the
ultimate  means to being in control:    knowledge,   money
possessions,  friends,  prestige, respectability,  income,
influence,   power, sexuality,  alcohol,  drugs,  weapons,
allies,  women,  affection,  men,  children,  pets,   life
processes, spiritual powers, gods, or God.

     Seeking to be in control leads to an addiction and to
a loss of what is sought.  To  get over the dis-ease which
results  from trying to be in control one must give up the
belief  that  being  in  control  is  good  and/or  is   a
potentially effective means to the enjoyment of that which
is good.  One must give up the belief that one can achieve
control over the  chosen means to control,  regardless  of
what  has  been chosen  as the ultimate means to being  in
control.    One must give up the belief that it is good to
be in control.

     So  long  as  one believes that it is good to  be  in
control  all problems are merely  technological  problems:
how  to  identify the techniques needed to be in  control,
and how to gain control of those techniques.   The  belief
that it  is good  to  be  in control creates a trap out of
which the belief permits  no  escape.   Only a miracle can
offer salvation from such a trap.  Seeking to discover the
techniques  by  which  to  control the  addiction  is  but
another  form of the addiction!   To believe that one  can
discover  the  scientific  cure for  addiction  is  to  be
trapped  in one of the many forms of addiction which  grow
out of the belief that it is good to be in control.

     Communities  which teach its members that it is  good
to be in control, disciplined, conforming to good patterns
of behavior;   are communities which are bound to be or to
become  addicted  to  many  kinds of  means  to  being  in
control.   The  process  of trying to be in control of the
means  to control leads progressively to higher and higher
levels  of  addiction  to the means to being  in  control;
becoming  more  and more controlled by the  chosen  means,
rather than gaining more and more control over the means.

                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
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