The mental essence of addiction is self-consciousness, and the answer to addiction is God-consciousness. Several years ago the Wittenberg Door interviewed writer-priest Brennan Manning, who commented: The only lasting freedom from self-consciousness comes from a profound awareness that God loves me as I am and not as I should be, that He loves me beyond worthiness and unworthiness, beyond fidelity and infidelity, that He loves me in the morning sun and the evening rain without caution, regret, boundary