"The world remains the same; the anxieties are there waiting for you, increasing, not decreasing, because as time moves they will increase. Your problems remain the same, even become more complicated. While you are unconscious, everything is growing: it doesn't wait for your consciousness to be there. Your misery is growing, your anguish is growing, waiting for you. You are unconscious so you are not aware. Whenever you come to consciousness again, you will have to face all the problems you had escaped.

"Pleasure is escape. That's why pleasure is not worth it. In fact it is not pleasure, it is a sort of suicide. You escape from the problems, you put your back to the problems, but this is no way to solve them. You will have to come back, because once you have become conscious, unconsciousness cannot be a permanent state of affairs. You can have a dive into unconsciousness, but how long can you remain underwater? For a second – and then you are back again to the surface. You cannot remain unconscious for long. Alcohol or drugs or sex or anything in which you become unconscious, in which you lose for a moment all your worries, forget about them – it is a forgetfulness, but forgetfulness cannot be a permanent state.

"So this is not helping in any way, pleasure doesn't help. You have to come back again and again – and then it becomes a vicious circle. When you come back and you find the anguish is waiting, the anxiety, all the problems – rather, they have increased – you become afraid, you become nervous. Your whole being trembles and becomes fear; then you have to escape again and again. The more you escape, the more problems increase. The more problems you face, the more alcohol is needed. And then the quantity of the intoxicant has to be increased continuously because you become attuned to it. You take a certain quantity of a drug: the first day you feel unconscious. After a few days you are not unconscious; you are still conscious, worries are still there knocking at the door, you can hear – you need a greater quantity. The greater quantity will also become less."