Why is it that the closer I get to awakening (non-attachment, impersonal consciousness etc) my addiction relapses get worse, nostalgic feelings heighten and I further entrench myself in my identity? How can I stop my ego from delaying enlightenment?

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Spirituality is hardcore therapy, done by your subconscious, which is not a trained therapist. A trained therapist will keep progress to a pace that probably won’t backlash against you. Therapy, done right, is work. It’s not fun.

Spirituality, done by most people, is driven by the common human need for novelty. Pain or boredom turn the mind inward, and inward is where the demons lie.

In therapy, there’s the concept of catharsis. There are things, aspects, traumas that the mind builds walls around because that’s what it had to do to function at some point. Then the walls stick around because there’s a fear to take them down.

Addiction relapses, nostalgic feelings, identity retrenchment, are just the mind tearing down the walls. The walls being torn down let the demons loose, and then you seek chemical and emotional salvation. The salvation just dulls the pain though and the walls stick around.

Before enlightenment can make sense, the walls must be able to come down without the use of artificial crutches that build them back up again. This means being able to exist inside the pain, to stay with it rather than immediately seek to shut if off. A trained therapist can bring you close to the edge, close to the point where you would, by yourself, self-medicate, but gently keep you in the moment, providing for a release that helps the mind realize it doesn’t need the walls so much.

Spirituality is an important component of healing. But it must augment the process, not replace it. One reason for techniques and learning, what the Buddhists call dharma, is to keep the mind from turning against itself in this fashion. And an important reason why Christians insist on a personal god, to the Buddhist’s impersonal theology, is to humanize the process.

If you want to enjoy a clean house, then you need to actually clean it first.