Can enlightened people still suffer from addiction problems?

Read original publication

The short answer is no.

The longer answer is yes, but they don’t suffer.

There’s physical addiction, and psychological addiction. The vast majority of suffering comes from psychological addiction.

Almost all addictions start as habits of relief. Alcohol, heroin, sex, social media (haha) - you name it - bring a temporary psychological relief, which you then crave again. If it’s not natural for the body (e.g. sex), the body gets conditioned (forms a physical addiction) on top of that.

Psychological addiction is impossible in the truly awakened state. Nothing brings you psychological relief because you are already psychologically relieved, in the ultimate sense. Even sex doesn’t make you more relaxed or chill - it’s physically pleasurable, for sure, more so than before, but there is no “post-coital high” which most people experience, because you’re always “high”. So all this stuff including alcohol kinda just… don’t work.

Physical addiction is still possible, and other people brought up nicotine, and it’s true. Nicotine is a curious case, because even though smoking as a habit starts with psychological relief as all addictions, it quickly becomes purely physical, and the smoker only feels psychological relief because he satisfied his physical craving - the return to the baseline, the exhaustion of psychological help, is extremely fast. One of the most useless addictions ever lol.

Which is why people who tried to quit smoking can attest that the physical cravings only last for 2–3 days, and the rest of the struggle is getting rid of the habit - purely psychological. An awakened person would still feel bodily cravings, but there would be no psychology involved in the process of quitting smoking. So, as other people pointed out, some teachers smoked and openly admitted they just liked it.