Addiction provides temporary relief -- emotional regulation that was otherwise unavailable. It can make the addicted person feel temporarily "regular".
"... the child is often rebuked or punished for “complaining” or “making trouble” by drawing attention to his or her pain and despair. Such pain is dismissed, minimized or ignored. Thus to even acknowledge the pain of the abandonment or injury is “wrong,” since it rocks the boat, draws the risk of being exiled, perhaps forever.
Such terror makes an imprint on the nervous system that is hard to change; a traumatized child must develop maladaptive behaviors and beliefs to survive this dark and chaotic world, to avoid “burdening” those close to her with her very human developmental needs. Best if these needs just go away and never come back.
...they are an inseparable part of us... They demand soothing, and will find it, even unconsciously, via drugs or alcohol.
Thus drinking or using becomes a “provisional” relationship to fill in the psychic cavities left by these early traumas. The fractured, wounded person is able to satiate, soothe or stimulate himself to the point of finally feeling whole! This is the euphoria reported by those who learn to love booze or drugs, which become so much more reliable than anyone or anything else before. Finally, one is able to regulate and not feel so out of control, fractured or wounded.
...the strange paradox that the more a patient and I accept drugs or alcohol as providing some kind of essential emotional/relational function, rather than being simply “wrong”, the easier it is to give up.
The goal is to begin replacing the abuse/dependence on substances with actual human connections;
The tragedy for so many of my addicted patients is not that they live in isolation and both yearn and fear closeness to others; it’s that they’ve come to the conviction that this is the only way to proceed.
