Towards a better understanding of the phenomenon of addictions

Besides, the collapse of ideologies, including religions, has left a vacuum, not only in the realm of ideas. First and foremost, it has created a vacuum in the psyche, which has taken the form of an existential vacuum, or even psychopathology. A well-constructed system of ideas has the power to transform (in the best case scenario) or to legitimize (in the worst) elements which a person’s psyche considers unacceptable, siphoning them off into collective interests. Without ideology, the psyche is exposed to its destructive and aggressive urges, for which the ideology constituted a functional alibi (and not always with regrettable consequences, of course). So the need to transcend the existential vacuum or chaos inevitably leads to techniques for supposedly supplementing it through objects or experiences.

Obviously, true supplementation never happens by means of addiction, which is why, after the initial enjoyment, the psyche presses for a repetition of the experiences, like the eternal torture of Sisyphus. In any case it is in this repetitiveness that the power of addiction resides.

These two features should  trouble us especially when we come across addiction in people of the Church. It is here that we really see the high frequency with which we encounter both the history of a person with a psychic trauma (because of which the person hesitates to engage in a substantial relationship, preferring addiction) as well as the absence of theology. There is an attempt to fill the vacuum of theology with pleasure, Father Vasileios Thermos

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