Do you ask yourself the questions, 'what is alcoholism or what is drug addiction really?' because you really want to understand the nature of addiction?

With drug addiction and alcoholism being quite complex, if you're serious about wanting to get a handle on what they are, hopefully what I'm about to share with you will help your understanding.

To understand addiction and alcoholism in depth, you would need to know things like the causes of drug addiction and alcoholism, if alcoholism and addiction is a disease, the hereditary and genetic impact on alcoholism.

It does help knowing all that information, but I want to take it a step deeper first, to really help your understanding.

Having an alcoholic or drug addict parent who has passed down the addiction gene to you may increase your chances of going the same way, or you may simply find the stresses of life getting you down so alcohol or drugs have become your comfort, but there is still fundamentally a deeper reason at play.

Ultimately it's a lack of wholeness or emptiness that you feel, which you use alcohol or drugs to suppress. I've been there so I know the feeling. You question your purpose and feel disconnected to people and simply life in general.

MD, Andrew Weil, explains it excellently in his book, called Natural Health, Natural Medicine. He says that addiction is NOT a pharmacological or psychological problem and cannot be solved by these methods. Rather, it is he says, a Spiritual concern at root, because it represents a misdirected attempt to experience completeness, inner satisfaction and wholeness.

So if you really question, what is alcoholism and what is drug addiction? Know that they are in essence a Spiritual 'problem' first and foremost. And by keeping that in mind you will go a long way to overcoming them successfully.