The Baron deigns to delineate a general mandala to help dredge the deeps of each signs addictive direction. Note: These are directions, not absolute predictions. They outline a faultline common to whatever force operates in the style suggested by the sign.
Aries: The Ram
Aries addiction is focused on a variety of subconscious barriers that prevent them from manifesting their real potential. This addiction to lazy-ness and time wasting generally focuses on indulging in premature experiences of potential realized instead of the painstaking work of trudging towards said potential. Potential is projected onto fictional characters and personal heroes who are kept separate from personal potential. Instead of providing a light house by which to guide personal development, instead, they define the limit of growth. Excessive consumption of anti-hero media and idolization of cartoon characters is symptom. Also, drugs taken to replicate a more advanced state than the Aries has actually attained is common, making for unstable performance and dependence on aids for proper manifestation.
Taurus: The Bull
For Taurus, the temptation to laziness and pleasure is easy to identify, though it is not so much a problem as much as danger of success. The real barrier to success in the case of many Tauruses stems from impatience, and the vestigial belief that all affairs and people can be muscled through. Though the Taurus has a somewhat placid surface, there is a tendency to push the people in their life around. This secret selfishness creates a tangle of half-conscious passive aggressive conflicts with people who feel bullied, but often don't exactly know why. This situation leads to escapism by creating a superficial peace via overconsumption of food, overindulgence in sex, and wallowing in chemical habits that erase the harsh lines of the underlying conflicts which stab upward into awareness.
Gemini: The Twins
For Gemini, what lurks beneath the conscious level is the earth itself. Gemini's ability to soar into self-created realms is juxtaposed by the chilling drops back to things-the-way-they-are. These flips from potency to imprisonment are easily understood by means of the myth of the twins, one dark and one light. These drops into the darkness of impotence create a fear that all that Gemini creates lasts only as long as the mania which powers it. This often sets up a deep insecurity regarding the value of the Gemini's work, as well as questions about the ability to follow through and complete anything. This set of fears often drives people with strong planets in Gemini to go to unhealthy lengths to stay aloft and hyper-energized. Addictions to stimulants, mind-enhancing chemicals of all types, and overconsumption of fast-food entertainment are common methods of avoiding the dreaded drops. These, however, prevent Gemini from reaching a state of integrated power by artificially widening the manic-depressive divide.
Cancer: The Cancer
For Cancer, the issues from which addiction springs are those of a divided heart-mind. The inherent urge to set down deep emotional roots (or tentacles) is problematized by a deep uncertainty about the object of attachment. This leads to a boiling subconscious sea of doubts and contradictory behavior. Attempts to avoid or quell these doubts artificially are often the type of addictive or self-imprisoning behavior. Chemicals or artificial experiences that return the Cancer to a simplified, emotionally oriented approach to life are typical. Alcohol and other downers are a good tool for this. These regressive experiences create a repressed set of contradictory motivations that sometimes boil over into quasi-psychotic behavior that destroys the very connections that they consciously nurture, sometimes by forming an opposing and exclusive set of connections, like having 2 families.
Leo: The Lion
For Leo, a fear of dependence is often the root issue behind self-destructive, self-imprisoning, and addictive behavior Beneath the sunshine of self-empowerment, Leo is often paralyzed by knowledge of its origins. The tender emergence from the childhood shell as well as all people and energy that go into making the successful Leo radiant is both a blind and soft spot. The dependence of the performer on the audience, and the dependence of nobility on the people ruled is the dependence that Leo often turns away from. This creates a false confidence, a insecure and therefore hungry egotism, and a destructive narcissicism. Leo's self-destructive behavior loop is to create a dramatized play of self-destruction, which they will perform in order to garner the support and care that they consciously deny that they need. Other, more self-controlled Leos may take a dictatorial role in relationships, "making" those close to them take care of them. The coercive nature of this dynamic prevents them from feeling dependent, since they "control" the support given to them.
Virgo: The Virgin
Virgo is a sign concerned with intelligent manipulation of the material environment, both internal and external, body and world. The constant act of self reconfiguration makes Virgo rather prone to addictive issues, but also wise in the ways of overcoming them. Virgo's sticking point is often self-esteem. Virgo is often so highly praised for function that become insecure about value of the central and target-less light of self. The resulting addiction to functionality and negligent self-respect is often the basis for issues. An exaggerated case takes drugs to become the perfect tool needed by their life, and then takes drugs to recover from that. They may also take drugs to avoid the mode of consciousness mandated by function. Missing the whole time is a relaxed acceptance of self. Virgo is the pill-popper of the zodiac, with a medicine bag and tool kit designed to chemically alter them into the proper tool for the occasion.
Libra: The Scales
Libra's self destructive behaviors are easy to recognize: laziness, excessive pleasure seeking, and over involvement in doomed relationships. The origin of this behavior is rarely the pleasure of the act, but often comes from a sincere desire to avoid any real work. A disdain for solitary, uninspired drudgery is paramount. This often includes careful work on any creation, most especially the self. There is often an unconscious belief that they do not have the capability to bring anything to completion. Editing and perfecting bring up this insecurity, and projects are abandoned in favor of something fun, something that does not bring up deep insecurities.
Scorpio: The Scorpion
For Scorpio, condemned behavior is reputed to be the norm. But taboo behavior is not the same as self-destructive behavior. Scorpio's direction is to unearth the pearls of wisdom buried within banned books and outlawed behaviors. Daliance with illegal substances is by no means the same as self-undoing. For Scorpio, the set of issues that turns flirting with death into heavy petting is usually loneliness. Being made to make its own way, Scorpio is equipped with the tools to ignore idiots and drive straight to the personal core of the matter, regardless of opinion. The very boldness that makes Scorpio what it is also drives others away and destroys social harmony. Scorpio's numerous unmet social needs deform their explorations. Bloating relationships with inappropriate intensity on one hand, and avoiding normal, balanced, relationships on the other hand is common. Alcohol is a Scorpio favorite, as it over-rides the excessive self-control that deforms their social patterns.
Sagittarius: The Archer
Sagittarius distributes its energy far and wide. Sagittarius primary function is to distribute the vision of its ideal as far and wide as possible. The rider stops just long enough to set fire to each house or heart before moving on. What is missing is a permanence of exchange, a depth and duration of intersection. This missing portion of life is partially responsible for the many Sagittarian excesses. Too many drugs and too much sex is a way for Sagittarians to temporarily overcome their knowledge that they must march onward and actually share an experience, rather than just providing a spectacle. This leads to a variety of bizarre attachments to people and places that only surface when Sagittarius loses conscious control. The revelry that may start in the name of good times often deepens into the surfacing of a deep and terrible need for human contact. Drugs that keep Sagittarius thinking that everything can be controlled and therefore do not expose them to this vulnerability are often favored (addiction to sobriety is possible). In other cases, obsession with the few experiences that create intimacy, however intimate, is also common.
Capricorn knows its way around tight spaces and narrowed choices. Its this very placement in space and time that disposes Capricorn to its style of self undoing. A sometimes too-acute sense of reality leads to complete reality-denial, with the same crusty foot-planted stance Capricorn takes on practical matters. This attitude often becomes a "I can do whatever I want" stubborn-ness that, in fact, means, "I can do exactly what I think is a terrible idea." Capricorn is big on using up material resources for unnecessary extravagance as a way of cutting the ground out from under themselves, and making their ambitions impossible to achieve. Gambling and a whole host of chemical abuses are preferred methods of autodeconstruction.
Aquarius: The Water Bearer
Aquarius' plunge into the personal abyss of self-undoing is often most evident in their material position. The constrained material position that cannot do justice to Aquarian ideas comes about for several reasons. First, it creates a situation where the experimental ideas that occur to Aquarius will never have to be tested for value, thus allowing the Aquarian to continue an unblemished connection to the theoretical purity of their ideal. A constrained situation is also a result of a deep misunderstanding of human organization. The stated Aquarian ideal of justice and equality is contradicted by a deeply alienated and aristocratic disposition, wherein one believes that other cannot possibly be like them. This leads to a bifurcation in self-esteem, where the self, not able to be equal, is assumed to be either inferior or superior to others. The ideal of quality is a fantasy wherein the painful question itself dissolves.
Pisces: The Fishes
Pisces rivals Virgo for King/Queen of self-defeating behavior. Pisces' quest to redeem the residents of the exotic and terrifying layers of the psyche makes them inherently vulnerable to them. The residents of these layers are the root of self-undoing behaviors, such as addictions. Pisces is fated to deal with these characters, either by consciously putting them to work or being lionized by them. When Pisces has accepted this facet of fate, they are prone to anything which will dull the often sharp edges of their exploration's emotional impact. When they are in denial of the ultimate necessity of blending the yin and yang of psychological life, addictive behavior becomes even worse. It is not dark or light that Pisces must choose between, but the choice between both or one. If Pisces picks dark, it loses its transformative power and drowns in lightless depths, whereas when they choose only to side with the light, they become the most irritating bible bangers, proselytizing their pseudo-salvation. Addiction for Pisces takes any and all forms, but the root is an addiction to a set of beliefs which deny the polarity and dynamism of their experience.
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