Sotāpanna and addiction

Ok lets get into a little bit more depth here. This post will have quotes from and be based on the Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sotāpanna

In Buddhism, a sotāpanna (Pali), srotāpanna (Sanskrit; Chinese: 入流; pinyin: rùliú, Tibetan: རྒྱུན་ཞུགས་, Wylie: rgyun zhugs[1]), "stream-winner",[2] or "stream-entrant"[3] is a person who has seen the Dharma and consequently, has dropped the first three fetters (saŋyojana) that bind a being to rebirth, namely self-view (sakkāya-ditthi), clinging to rites and rituals (sīlabbata-parāmāsa), and skeptical indecision (Vicikitsa).

The word sotāpanna literally means "one who entered (āpanna) the stream (sota)", after a metaphor which calls the noble eightfold path a stream which leads to nibbāna.[4] Entering the stream (sotāpatti) is the first of the four stages of enlightenment.[5]
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Now lets think what is rebirth? Repetition. What does addiction involve? Repetition ad infinitem, right?

Three fetters
In the Pali Canon, the qualities of a sotāpanna are described as:[23]


…those monks who have abandoned the three fetters, are all stream-winners, steadfast, never again destined for states of woe, headed for self-awakening. This is how the Dharma well-proclaimed by me is clear, open, evident, stripped of rags.


— Alagaddupama Sutta

The three fetters which the sotāpanna eradicates are:[24][25]

1. Self-view — The view of substance, or that what is compounded (sankhata) could be eternal in the five aggregates (form, feelings, perception, intentions, cognizance), and thus possessed or owned as 'I', 'me', or 'mine'. A sotāpanna doesn't actually have a view about self (sakkāya-ditthi), as that doctrine is proclaimed to be a subtle form of clinging.[26]
2. Clinging to rites and rituals - Eradication of the view that one becomes pure simply through performing rituals (animal sacrifices, ablutions, chanting, etc.) or adhering to rigid moralism or relying on a god for non-causal delivery (issara nimmāna). Rites and rituals now function more to obscure, than to support the right view of the sotāpanna's now opened dharma eye. The sotāpanna realizes that deliverance can be won only through the practice of the Noble Eightfold Path. It is the elimination of the notion that there are miracles, or shortcuts.
3. Skeptical doubt - Doubt about the Buddha, his teaching (Dharma), and his community (Sangha) is eradicated because the sotāpanna personally experiences the true nature of reality through insight, and this insight confirms the accuracy of the Buddha’s teaching. Seeing removes doubt, because the sight is a form of vision (dassana), that allows one to know (ñāṇa).

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Lets have a realistic look at what happens with recovery in view of these fetters. A lot of times we can hear from the way people share a lot of self-view, even if they are doing that "I'm teaching myself with recovery principles and trying to be better because I know better" thing, like sharing their frustration and subsequently stating their values and beliefs. Buddhism, specifically in its description of the stream entrant specifically says that is gone. It's as if masturbation is about having that self view then you stop fapping egoically. It doesn't mean talking about yourself as a useful convention doesn't happen, but the fixed view of a self becomes unrealistic.

Now clinging to rites and ritual - do we really even need to elaborate? When recovery is all about a rigid structure, that's very much still functioning from that kind of consciousness. But as it says there at a certain point it is more likely to obscure than anything. Indeed people become absorbed with the repetition of it, the rebirthing.

And of course it's not about belief because it is through direct experience, you SEE the truth of it rather than believe and try to "apply" it as a cognitive process or behavioral conformity.

Notice above in the first quote this is just the first of the four stages of enlightenment, so in the scheme of things it does not involve anything terribly grand - this is just getting your foot in the door, or the stream. BTW, if the first fetter isn't clear it doesn't say you don't have a functional ego structure in terms of having conditioning and so forth, it talks about self VIEW. The point is right or wise view. Again, not terribly grandiose.