Quitting addiction

- Teacher, please help me quit my addiction.
Teacher Trung looked at his pupil with pity. In the past this pupil, Linh, had been a good student, from a comfortable family, loved by his teachers and friends. After some time out of touch, he had become an addict, his face so gaunt it was unrecognisable. Linh also held Teacher Trung dear for the teacher's ethical way of life, yielding and sacrificing, so the two were close.

• Why did you become addicted? Why not go to a rehabilitation centre?
• Teacher, I was overconfident and conceited, then drifted into bad company, and they enticed me until I was addicted. I asked to enter a rehabilitation centre, but drugs were still smuggled in there. My parents suffer so much because of me, and being old they have little strength left. I want to quit and start my life over so I can earn money to support my parents.
• It is thanks to your filial heart that you have raised the resolve to quit.
• But I still can't quit, Teacher; so many times I have tried and failed. The strength of the craving is greater than my will.
• Then if you are resolved to quit this time, and you come here asking for my help, you must promise to follow my instructions wholeheartedly.
• Yes, I promise.
  Linh stayed at Teacher Trung's house. Teacher Trung took Linh to fill potholes in the road, took him to the countryside to plant forest trees on bare hills, helped farmers carry rice from the field up to the road onto the back of a tractor, and helped shovel sand and mix mortar to build houses for the villagers. Only when the craving was too strong did Linh slip off to a hidden spot for a dose.
  After nearly two months of public-service labour with Teacher Trung, Linh's spirit gradually grew stronger. When he judged it was good enough for the time being, Teacher Trung took Linh home and shut him in a room, put an electrolyte drip into his vein, pressed acupoints on his back, and encouraged Linh to endure the craving.
  This time it succeeded. Linh got through it and no longer needed the drug to satisfy the craving. After he had given up the drug, Teacher Trung went on taking Linh to do public-service work. Sometimes they went to dry roots and tubers for a traditional medicine producer, sometimes waded through paddy fields to pull weeds for farmers, sometimes plastered mortar to repair the village bridges across the irrigation ditches...
  Taking his leave of Teacher Trung, Linh embraced him in tears and said:
• I only knew you were gentle and ethical, Teacher, I never imagined you were as profound as a saint. I thank you so much. I will go back and work to support my parents properly, to repay you for the hardship you endured for me over all of these 6 months. ☀️

We become addicted because our spirit has declined. The reason for the decline is usually overconfidence and arrogance.
It is also not for no reason that we want to quit: some good, ethical thought has arisen to become merit in our heart and strength for our spirit. But that merit is not yet great enough to create an extremely strong will to defeat the craving for the drug.

The character of Teacher Trung took Linh to do public-service work to gain merit, and this merit would then create the will for him to defeat the craving. This is the formula of willpower: merit creates will. Let no one imagine that they simply want to and so have willpower. A will forced into being by oneself brings with it a sky-high arrogant ego. A will created by merit is gentle yet strong. So whoever wants extraordinary willpower must create extraordinary merit.

Rehabilitation trainees often fail because they do not know this formula. First of all, they cannot raise a kind, ethical thought. In the story above, the character Linh opened the road upward because he loved his parents. How many people know how to think ethically, with filial duty and responsibility towards their family, community, society and country, so as to begin to wish to quit? A rehabilitation camp must build in its trainees the ethical idea of living for others, and only then can the first door be opened.

Even with a door, they cannot take a step because the legs of will are still too weak. Trainees must be given public-service labour done with a willing and eager heart, so that merit can be added to their inner being. If they keep on eagerly doing public-service labour, the day will come when the trainee has the strength to give up the craving. Once there is enough merit to give up the craving, looking back they find the pleasant feeling produced by the drug disgusting. That feeling is despicable, dirty and dark.

There are many things in this world that make people addicted: games, sex, gambling, alcohol, so many. Every addiction comes from a spirit that has declined and merit that has diminished. To quit any addiction one must do public-service labour, which is at once physical activity, training of the will and creation of merit. The managers of rehabilitation camps must understand this principle, and doctors treating addiction must understand this principle: ethics is the root for having the goal of breaking free of addiction, and merit is the root for having the strength to break free. Other treatments are only the branches.