Eckhart Tolle explains why people use substances: they temporarily quiet the mind's constant sense of insufficiency. But alcohol and other drugs can activate the pain body, lowering consciousness further than normal and trapping users in a worse state than before.
I talked about transcending a sense of self through taking in a substance. It frees you for a moment from this sense of insufficiency. The rebel feels a little bit better and has taken something and, you know, doesn't think about his problems anymore. Ah! It doesn't always work because sometimes it can awaken the pain body. Certain substances like alcohol can awaken your pain body. In which case, because it lowers your level of consciousness to an even lower level than your normal level— I'm not talking to you personally— it lowers your level when you drink, lowers your level of consciousness to an even lower than the normal level, and then this gives the pain body an opportunity to completely take you over. But with other people, they become temporarily quite happy when they're When they drink or take other substances, you can smoke, it slows down your mind. It goes, ah, and it feels so good. Your problem, the whole superstructure of problems begins to subside because you're not thinking about the problems, therefore they disappear. Ah. So there you have glimpses of self-transcendence, and that's why people feel drawn to it, because without knowing it, people are longing to become free of themselves.
Why alcohol feels like relief, and what it is really giving you | Eckhart Tolle
