A hopeless state of mind and body.
Have you ever had an obsession all but cut you to ribbons? We start by fashioning it.
-Bill Wilson paraphrased
Fashioning has multiple definitions:
Present participle of fashion: To adapt or change something to make it suitable for a new use or situation. For example, "The ex-governor seems to be fashioning his political beliefs to win favor with a more conservative national electorate".
The act of something coming to be: For example, "The fashioning of pots and pans". Synonyms include devising and making.
To give a particular shape or form to: For example, "The cavemen fashioned tools from stones".
To accommodate, adjust, or adapt: For example, "Doctrines fashioned to the varying hour".
An obsession is not the buzzing of some mental bee, to obsess is to be stung, and to have an alergic reaction to this sting. A compulsion is the response needed to sooth the alergic reaction.
Thoughts of Power, Property, or Prestige, or the lack thereof, mixed with fear seem to be the primary source of all obsessing. And a continual assessment of our security the root. That is an assessment of my place in the world around me. To be seamlessly apart of is to be secure. Insecurity is the catalyst for the obsessing mind. Untreated insecurity agitates the mental allergy*. The greater the mental allergy the more complex the compensatory soothing reaction.
This relationship is fashioned over time. And if left untreated this fashioning can cause a severe maladaption to life.
The paradoxical saving Grace is that it is through the very nature of this severe maladaption to life itself that liberation can behad.
That is to say that one can find a God of his very own understanding that will resolve this very maladaption to life itself. However we must 1st concede that the cycle exists and that we are caught in its grasp. And 2nd concede that any attempt in the past on our part to separate ourselves from it under our own unguided will, usually resulted in a worsening of the compulsion, this to our great demoralization. If we are humbled by this demoralization, then we are in fertile territory. If anything else happens the cycle of deterioration will continue until insanity or death. The only hope during this downward spiral is a spontaneous moment of awareness of the grave nature of our state during a new moment of demoralization, coupled by a willingness to reach out for help.
*Note: a continuing untreated agitation of any allergy can lead to a resentment towards that which impedes the use of the compensatory soothing response, including a resentment towards loved ones. That is to say once the mental allergy metastasizes it is practically impossible by shear force of will to stop the destructive cycle from worsening. As a matter of fact it tends to worsen to a degree that increases the sense of hopelessness, rather than a sense of hopefulness.