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I don't buy it. Lots of people have gotten addicted to cigarettes because they were curious, or they thought it looked cool, or because they enjoyed the minor and totally not worth it buzz the first few cigarettes give you, not because of "pain."

But why did they want to look cool, or to have that buzz? It takes some time to get addicted to cigarettes, so if a person continues doing it in spite of limited benefits, you have to wonder what is the motivation. One might argue it is to ease pain, even if it is just some minor, universally human pain.

Joseph, that is a very reasonable response, but it's a non-answer, in my opinion.

Literally everyone has done stupid things to look cool or be accepted by peers, especially in those insecure teenage years. And most people enjoy things that feel good. That's why we like orgasms, sugar, and salt – among other pleasures.

The problem with chemically addictive substances is that a few bad/ignorant decisions, made in those nearly universal pursuits of fitting in or feeling good, can change the chemical makeup of the brain and create a physical dependency. Addiction means you need the substance just to feel normal.

So yes, obviously, self-destructive behavior can be a coping mechanism for pain or helplessness. However, addictive substances like nicotine and opiates are often experimented with by people who have no special emotional pain (beyond the universal human pain you mention), but using the substance creates a hole, i.e., emotional lack, that can only be filled by the substance.

That's why cigarettes, heroin, etc. are so dangerous, and categorizing all addiction as "inner pain" the subject needs to work through is naive, in my opinion. Often the only inner pain is that caused by the addictive substance.

That said, I don't disagree with gesman's general premise for the psychological component of addiction; I just think it's overly broad and dangerously dismissive of the destructive power of addictive drugs.

Frequently the addiction is not the brain trying to avoid pain. Sometimes it is a socially acceptable substance with addictive chemical properties.

A friend of mine is an alcoholic who, after a DUI, went on a massive downward spiral. He didn't start drinking because of pain, he started drinking because this is Nebraska, and drinking is a gigantic part of social interaction in Nebraska. All the things that are wrong with his life are directly caused by his addiction, and so he drinks because of the pain/depression, and the problems keep coming.

So, in his case, the only way to take care of the real cause of the addiction is to stop the addiction. This game may be something that can help with it.

Being addicted to a substance isn't something you can just wish away, or meditate away. Acting like it's just a matter of self control is borderline disrespectful of the effect a substance dependency can have on a person.

In my case personally, I've been on prescription Adderall for years. I went cold-turkey once to reset my tolerance and drop from 25mg to 5mg; I can assure you that the physical and mental withdrawal symptoms are NOT something you can just meditate away. Amphetamine withdrawal was a goddamn nightmare made flesh, and I was on a relatively small pharmaceutical dose. Alcohol withdrawal is apparently less immediately bad, but drastically more insidious, and there are so many social structures in the world that encourage drinking that quitting completely is astoundingly hard.

I'm not saying meditation can't help, or that it didn't work for you, but I am saying it's not a magic bullet, and definitely won't work for everyone. This game is just a tool that some people can use to help themselves.

It sounds like you're suggesting the real solution for addiction is meditation and mindfulness?

The real solution is to dissolve original pain. If pain is no longer there - the urge for painkillers (addictions, substances, porn, drugs and actual painkillers) fades away.

Replacing one painkiller with "healthier" one or distracting the person away - doesn't work.

That's why diets are such a huge business. People think that to lose weight they need a better diet, without realizing that they use food as a painkiller to distract themselves from some deeper, inner pain. Without looking at- and taking care of the real cause - people jump from one artificial solution to another one, from one failed resolution to new one, while unresolved inner pain continues calling the shots.

Well, sometimes the do just need a better diet. Diets are such huge business because there is so much calorie dense food available.

Here's how it works: negative thought causes discomforting or outright painful feeling within the body.

Once negative feeling and emotion roots itself in the body it keeps invoking similar painful thoughts. Such thoughts in turn keep causing alike feelings and the vicious cycle continues feeding on itself and growing itself, like a weed.

To uproot the weeds you either need to eliminate negative feelings or eliminate negative thoughts.

Meditation, mindfulness or conscious breathing attacks this from the "thoughts" side. "Positive thinking" philosophy also tries to resolve this vicious cycle by replacing negative thoughts with positive one. This works well for very moderate cases of negativity, like temporary irritation or non-life threatening negative events.

The problem comes when people with stronger, deeper, longer living pains (such as strong anxiety, or depression) tries to resolve it this way. Stopping thoughts no longer works because thoughts in that case are just a consequences of deep emotional pain within the body.

The only solution in these case is to locate and resolve the pain directly within the body.

In other words - you cannot think or meditate your way out of depression. You have to approach it from the body feelings/body emotion side directly, bypassing any thinking.

Interesting idea - is it grounded in a particular spiritual tradition? Are there any texts I could read (or places I could study) to learn how to do this?