Intro to Addictions – IECPA 5th Annual Spring Conference

Bismillah Alhamdulillah wa salatu salam ala rasulillah holiday was a drain In the name of Allah whole praise and glory be to Allah mais finest peace and blessings be upon His messenger Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and his family and his companions and all those who tried his path may Allah write for us and you are life upon his path and a death upon his birth, and a reunion around him and behind him sallallahu alayhi wa sallam say I mean, among them in.

So I'm going to keep this extra short.

So that we can reset our punctuality. inshallah we'll be back on on Schedule B at midnight, tada, I just had wanted to share some introductory thoughts

on addictions and how we are to look at addiction and understand it, and look at someone who's struggling with an addiction,

and understand what they're going through. And consequently, as a result of that, what they need from us.

Of course, many of the topics at the conference tonight may not technically scientifically qualified to fall under the addiction classification, right. Some of them may be addictions, some of them may be considered by specialists as an obsession.

Whether or not it's a disorder, and unhealthy attachment, but all of those descriptions, all of those problems that people may have, whether it's an addiction, or an obsession, or an unhealthy attachment, or anything else, they have a common denominator, they all are identical,

at the fundamental level, and that is that they overcome your willpower,

your self determination, your ability to take charge of your life, and then and then in this order, and then secondarily, they will under overcome your reason, overcome your intelligence. And that's a huge problem. Because our greatest asset that Allah subhanho wa Taala honor the human being with after creating us with his own two hands and granting us a very special soul Spirit through that he created for us is that he endowed us with superior intelligence. And also he made our success, our survival, our fulfilling our purpose in life dependent on capitalizing on our intelligence. And so the addictions route, the obsessive compulsive disorder route, the unhealthy attachments route,

these could all be phases towards you foregoing the one thing you need that honors you, the one thing you need, that will avail you you will survive in this world and then more importantly in the Hereafter, so long as you value it properly and hold on to it. In fact, the Quran says in very clear terms, this is something I want you to go home with waha lulo could Nana smell Elena filou, macoun efeitos hivis area photography will be done by him. So can the US have is salaried.

And they said if we would have just listened

I will not update or reason we would not have been among the people of the fire. And so everything we are talking about in the conference these next two nights are factors that hinder your ability to listen to the truth to reality. So Allah's invitation to listen, and to reason, the ability to see straight to see right from wrong.

And so that is why all of these are chiffons greatest ploy that he gets you to over indulge until you get hooked on something and then he drags you further where you're not even substance abusing anymore or like over indulging in something anymore. You're not even using it anymore. Whatever your issue is, it starts using you. You've just been dragged into excess you got into this slippery slope, and now you can't get your footing anymore. That's a an age old shavon trick satanic trick a lot as dogen says in Alamo V and I kind of Aquinas shellene. Certainly the the wasters those who go into excess are the brethren, because they resemble they are the brethren of the devils. And so this

is something shavon seeks out from you, to get you to taste to get you to try to get you to think this is a good escape mechanism. That's really the ploy. xS, si, even psychologists mentioned, they say access is a sign of frustration. And you're looking for an escape looking for an escape mechanism. But when you actually give into it, it actually shackles you it doesn't free you it doesn't liberate you. So shaitan puts us under the impression that these things

and giving into them will free us when in reality they will only tie us further. And so when you give in to the temptation your heart gives into it, you start falling in love with it because your heart is so sensitive. That's the

First thing you lose, your heart becomes tempted. And then you start giving into it. So you don't want to believe it's wrong anymore. And then that's when you lose your sensibility. So you lose your heart, and you lose your mind.

And the people of the fire said, What if we would have just listened, they heard the sounds of the Quran, but they weren't listening at heart.

They were hearing the volume, they weren't hearing the message. It wasn't staring anything where it was supposed to stare it, they weren't listening with their hearts, and they were no longer able to use their minds benefits from their minds. Quickly now, what time is it?

I have a I have a

an addictive device? 651. Okay, I got like five minutes left.

The second thing is,

even from a psychiatric perspective, when studies were made, why do people become addicts? Okay, why do people get attached to things? It's an escape mechanism, okay, we got that. The presumption or assumption that it's going to free you, it's going to relieve you, it's fine.

They said it is always as it was made me Lord Himself, He showed us even from personal experience, it is the result of their environments, and their relationships being conducive being pushing them towards that unfortunate route of an unhealthy attachment. Okay. So,

for example, the vast majority of people with addictions, faith, they will, they will face some sort of trauma or very vicious cycles in their upbringing, in their education in their homes, broken families, divorces, that these types of things, they face some sort of negligence, abuse trauma, and that's why they try to escape from it.

And then why do they stay addicted? This is important as well. So why do they get addicted, they're trying to run away, you know, even

I forget the name of behind most of these studies. But there was a physician once doing studies on people that were food binge eating, that's an important disclaimer as well, addiction, a drug can be anything, not just the hardcore drugs, right, you could be no longer able to resist the foods you love. And it could for some factor that's already inside you like depression gets so bad that it strips you of your willpower to resist anything. And then you start accepting things that you never thought you would actually get into. Because this was That's why they call it a gateway drug. So technically, even food, even sugar can be an addiction. And it could be a gateway to you giving in

not resisting, far more dangerous things down the line.

So people that used to binge on food, oh, one of his case studies, he speaks about his little girl that was extremely obese. And she would just eat nonstop. It wasn't just a slow metabolism, she would binge on food. So he put her on a particular regimen.

And she lost tons of weight something like 100 pounds or 60 pounds in very fast time. And then just as he's like, you know, happy with his end product that he was able to cope, get her past her addiction. She gained all the weight back.

And then he investigated like what made you give up the like trust the system? Let's just follow the president No, no, I don't want I don't care. I don't want I'm I'm out of here. So when he probed further, he found that somebody hit on her in the streets. Like someone like wooed her regarding her body, right, just I guess, praised her physique. And so he's like, I don't get it. Like that's supposed to make you feel good. It's not supposed to like sending you back into your there. And so he realized that the reason why she went down that route in the first place is because she was molested as a child. So she did not want to look like someone who is physically appealing. And so

many people who fall into these things, there is a background behind it. And so you need to always ask yourself, instead of what's wrong with these people say, Well hold up.

What happened to these people? Because that's gonna do two things. Number one, help you find a solution for them. And number two, stop your arrogance dead in your tracks. Because you didn't choose the situation you grew up in. This is not to equip anybody. Everybody has the responsibility in front of a lot, right? But you did not choose the circumstances you could have been in a similar circumstance and fallen much faster than the person you're looking at. So they are they are a bundle of experiences and factors that cause them to be this way. Get yourself out of the mold of what's wrong with this person, as if they are nothing but their mistake. And this is by the way, something

our Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam alluded to when they cursed him and that kept getting caught drinking alcohol time and time again. They said how kurset He is like this guy is just a lost cause is always doing it over and over again. No matter how many times times we try to help him no matter how many times he gets caught. What did the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam say? Let me know

Hola Hola. Hola. Hola. Hola solo, don't curse this person, because perhaps he loves a lot His Messenger meaning how do you know he doesn't love a lot His Messenger,

maybe there was something else that caused him to have this particular weakness. So that's extremely important. And then we can work towards that with them on how he changed their environment, get them into the massages, fill their void busy them with good things. There are tons of stories about this, but I'll share with you just two very quickly.

The first of them is that, you know, case studies were held regarding It was called the Vietnam study that I heard from very good friend of mine who read up on it, that 25% of the US soldiers that came back from Vietnam came back with heroin addictions, 25% of them from everything they saw over there. But the amazing thing is, as soon as they got back to the US without intervention, almost every single one of them stopped doing heroin.

Because it was the environments and what they were facing of experiences that pushed them there. And of what reinforces this theory. And this is very important to think about busying yourself and visiting your children, putting yourself in the right place, and putting yourself around healthy relationships, don't do it alone. And don't choose wrong company, Don't sell yourself short. And don't do that with whoever family members are struggling that you know about. The other study was called the rather famous rat experiment. And so you're probably going to hear a lot in this conference about dopamine about like the happy hormone that happens many times when you give in to

your addictions.

In the 30s, and 40s. They put these rats through experiments where like they give them a bottle of water and a bottle of water laced with heroin. And naturally, they kept going back to the one

everybody's asleep with the lights are out with heroin, okay?

Don't worry, it's a non judgement space, it's okay to say heroin.

And so they said, okay, because of like the chemical feedback loop, they're gonna go back to what gives them that thrill, the dopamine, you know, start secreting, so they're gonna go back to the heroin. And so that was like in the 30s and 40s. Apparently, about 40 years later, some other scientists said, No, no, there has to be more to the story than just the chemical like recruitment come back chemical hook. And so he said, Let's repeat the experiment with put these rats with other rats. Give them some sort of like social element, give them a family. And let's fill the rat maze. Make make the rat box amaze, like six flags. But for rats, yes.

When they did, that, the rats, even those of them that tasted the heroin never went back to it. Because the experience was different. They didn't feel like they were all alone. They didn't feel like there was nothing to do. And so them doing simply exercise and seeing more of their kind. And the social fabric that they felt in there was enough to pull them out. And that's why many times when you spend so much money, by the way, on rehab and all these things, but then you come back to the same that trees where we used to smoke and that room is where I used to get on that website that by itself triggers everything again, it's not just the chemical barakallahu li walakum. I just want

to keep it in time so we don't take away from Professor Susie's presentation. And there are lots of panels out to make this a transformative weekend for us in you