Last night in our group we began an important week which I will share with you. The journey for the week is “how did we get where we are?” and secondly, “what do I need to do to get back to a normal life?” Like any other illness, the disease of addiction has symptoms that we need to understand. This is the context of what we studied last night. Tomorrow night we will begin to look at the behaviors we need to identify that we adopted during our drinking and using and how we can begin the process of changing them. The following is an excerpt from our Recovery Video, Finding Hope.
The word “addiction” is not a word we need to fear. It’s a word we need to understood. Understanding leads to the elimination of fear and it is the fear that keeps us from doing something about the problem. If we’re not afraid of what’s wrong with us we will do something about it! You’ve heard of people who have chest pains but are too afraid to go to their doctor to find out what the problem is until it’s too late.
So, let’s improve our understanding of the word Addiction. I have a definition that I use with my patients that may help.
It says:
Addiction is the need to fill your inner emptiness,
By using something outside yourself,
To provide a sense of inner satisfaction.
It will become Desperate, Repetitive, and Automatic
The first phrase of the definition says:
“We need to fill an inner emptiness”
That means we have lost our ability to deal with certain events in life and they have, and continue to, produces pain, hurt, and disappointment. These are real symptoms. We feel them in our heart and our mind. The emotional pain – the inner emptiness - is real and painful.
The second phrase says:
“We find something outside of ourselves”
This is where alcohol and drugs come into the picture. When did we learn to use alcohol or drugs to bring relief to the pain we feel? I believe that we began, perhaps, at an early age, not with any intent to solve a problem, but perhaps as a youth, exposed to peer pressure, we went out and for no reason other than to be “stupid” we drank that first beer or smoked that first joint. Never intending to use again. But our brain did create a memory. It was a memory of relaxation, of euphoria, and a sense that “life was cool”. Maybe the next time we drank or used it was for the same purpose. Not to solve a problem or situation. But again, our brain created the memory of pleasure and euphoria for later use. Then one day perhaps we had an argument with our parents, or were put down by another kid, maybe we lost out on being on a sports team or were rejected by a person we were romantically interested in. Perhaps our family was in turmoil, going through a divorce, a job loss or a death. At that point the emotional pain set in, and we reached deep inside ourselves to find a skill to deal with the hurt – but it wasn’t there. So our brain, our memory, found a solution to the problem for us. In our hurt, in our despair, we found a solution in a can of beer or a joint of marijuana. For a moment the pain was gone and we were at peace. You may have been raised in an abusive or addictive family, or might be living in an abusive relationship now, and, as is the case with many, there is a history of trauma that may include sexual or physical abuse as a child or an adult, or perhaps a member of our armed services returning from battle and suffering from post traumatic stress - and alcohol or drugs serve as a means of mitigating this horror.
Whatever the reason, our brain makes the connection between the pain we are feeling and the pleasurable and euphoric feeling we get from using alcohol or drugs, and it is at this moment that a solution is created that gives us:
“A sense of inner satisfaction”
The solution is, of course, not real. It only provides a “sense” of inner satisfaction. Real solutions produce visible and lasting results.
Finally the definition concludes by saying “this behavior will become”:
“Desperate, repetitive, and automatic”
It becomes desperate because we do it when we know that it is neither healthy nor productive. We do it repetitively because the feelings don’t go away and it is the only solution we know, and finally it becomes automatic because we have done it so many times we just do it without giving much thought to it. We just do it!
So, “addiction” is finding something to solve our problems in life and that “something” we have found is alcohol or drugs. This brings us back to the most important concept we need to understand:
Alcohol or drugs are not the problem!
Alcohol and drugs are the Solution.
They are the solution to the problems we have in life – That’s right, the solution!
And we need a better solution!
Tomorrow we will begin the job of finding better solutions. Tune in, want you to find that which you are hoping for and praying for in your life.
Please give me your thought and feedback, we only heal by the knowledge of our collective experiences.Dr. FredPublish Post
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