Addictions
"Life consists of putting my fingers in the biggest leaks in the damn."
– Martin Seligman
Life is hard. Sometimes, life is more than hard. It’s understandable to want to avoid the pain, difficulty, and near constant struggle. Especially since the pain often runs even deeper than our conscious minds can even recognize.
I think of an addiction as any behavior one compulsively engages in to avoid their feelings and thus their inner world. Most people are so thorough when it comes to avoiding themselves, they don’t even realize they’re doing it. This is why the difficult first step to addressing any addiction is awareness that one in fact has an addiction.
Addictions include behaviors that readily come to mind when we hear the term, such as unhealthy relationships with drugs or alcohol. But, when done compulsively, working, playing video games, cell-phone use, internet use, shopping, sex, pornography, worrying, hypochondria, working out, shopping, unhealthy eating, chronic pain, paranoia, productivity, fixating on other people, rescuing, self-abuse, anxiety, anger, hatred, fantasizing, worrying, and countless other examples are techniques our brains use to distract us from our deeper feelings.
I’m not saying all addictions are equal. If you have an addictive personality, compulsively exercising is definitely a big step up from heavy drug use. As famed psychologist Martin Seligman suggested, we have to plug the biggest leaks in the dam first. I applaud taking steps in a healthier direction, should one have the strength to do so. Nevertheless, in order to get to the real root of the problem, it is necessary to examine the underlying reason why one has an addictive personality, even if their addiction of choice is something that society sees as positive, such as being addicted to feeling productive, work, or exercise. Our subconscious is pulling the old magician’s trick, trying to get us to look over there so we don’t look over here.
We find ways to avoid ourselves because we are avoiding our unpleasant buried thoughts and feelings. Very often the most challenging thing is to experience your feelings. As Martin Gabel put it, “Don’t just do something, sit there.”
Acting on our addictions may provide some surface-level relief or distraction, but it won’t satisfy our deeper underlying needs. A sex addict may really be longing for love, affection, control or validation; their addiction gives them the illusion of getting these needs met, but it is not real, lasting, nor satisfying in the deep, lasting way they crave. A substance addict may really be longing for connection, dignity, meaning, or acceptance. A workaholic may long for purpose, self-acceptance, peace, or safety. Someone addicted to an unhealthy person may be trying to try to fulfill their own need to feel needed, for love, self-love, or connection. Someone addicted to compulsively worrying may have a need for safety and control; their worrying provides only the illusion of doing something constructive. A rageaholic may in fact be using anger as an unconscious technique to avoid their feelings of insecurity, and their deep-seated fears of abandonment and not being enough. Someone addicted to self-abuse may have a need to feel seen, for empathy, or compassion; however, they’re unconscious is saying horrible things to distract their mind from deeper pain that they are too afraid to face. By turning to addictions, our brains mean well and are trying to protect us. However, in the end they’re harming us. We can never really meet our needs though our addictions.
People often wonder, what else is there to do when you’re feeling bad besides get high, space out, or find another way to avoid the pain? The answer is, feel it. Don’t avoid your pain, head towards it. Get as close to the monster that is your pain as you can, and try to love the problem itself. Feel the feelings, and then feel the feelings underneath the feelings. I know this can be an intensely terrifying thought, which is exactly why it requires so much courage. It is only by feeling our feelings that we realize they will not kill us. If one bravely lets themself feel their feelings, those feelings can pass – in fact, that’s the only way the feelings will ever really pass. Ultimately it is true that we can’t heal what we can’t feel. In contrast, addictive behavior is like a stopgap, ultimately serving to bottle and intensify the underlying emotion.
Throughout my life, I have used alcohol, other people, rescuing, workaholism, self-abuse, fatty and sugary foods, anger, shopping, sex, pornography, and likely some other addictions I was unaware of as unconscious attempts to avoid my painful feelings. All the while, I was clueless about my real emotional needs. However, the more I am able to tune into my feelings when these desires surface, the less I am drawn to my addictions and the more I am able to take care of myself and my needs in ways that actually help to get my emotional needs met.
You can even go deeper than feeling the feelings, and try to find out what painful thoughts you’re trying to avoid. Then you can work on adjusting those thoughts. In fact, that’s what much of the journey of these letters has been, so I already applaud you for the bravery of your journey. This is by no means an easy task. The ideas may sound simple, but again we see the need to not confuse what is simple with what is easy.
You may discover deeply ingrained fears and pains. You may discover you don’t love or accept yourself. You may not even really like yourself. And since you’re stuck with yourself all the time, it’s understandable that you might want to escape that. But what if we could feel, accept, challenge, and ultimately change such thoughts rather than seek to avoid them?
Our addictions may have served us well for years. They’ve helped us to avoid a lot of pain and difficult reality. It’s excruciating to no longer pick up the bottle, use an unhealthy person or their problems to distract us, or even to avoid engaging in workaholism. At first, the thought of living without our addictions may seem as foreign as living on another planet. Gradually over time, we can form a new, healthier version of ourselves. Feeling our feelings is perhaps the most difficult but beneficial task any of us can accomplish.
As always, it’s important to note that no one does any of this perfectly. Yes, everyone engages in escapes. Even the most enlightened person simply does the best they can. If you’re connected to your emotions 1% of the time today and 5% of the time twelve months from now, that’s incredible progress.
When it comes to addictions, you’ll often hear the phrase “everything in moderation.” For some addictions, the stakes are high and a relapse can mean life or death. In those cases, moderation might not be enough. You may need a strict regimen of abstinence, which is going to take a lot of work and support (according to most addiction recovery research, people are almost never successful when they go at it alone, and there’s little pride or wisdom in attempting to do so). Abstinence can be excruciating, but it often helps us get better more quickly as we learn we are able to live without our vice. It can be the difference between getting punched day after day over a long period of time, versus getting one big ass beating over with. Personally, I’d choose ripping the Band-Aid off quick and taking my pain in a large lump sum upfront, rather than spreading it out. So I do see the value in abstinence.
However, in man cases you can combat your addictions with a moderation approach. After all, if you’re addicted to food, no one would suggest quitting entirely. The goal becomes a healthier relationship with food, a relationship based on moderation. This thinking can be applied to a lot of addictions. The questions to continually ask yourself are, “Am I using this compulsively to try to get my emotional needs met? Is it working for me on a deep, meaningful level?” and, “Am I harming myself?” It’s important to try to be brutally honest when answering these questions. Something like a work addiction may seem harmless, but I have seen people work themselves to the point of developing serious medical conditions. Only when their workaholism actually became life-and-death were they able to admit that they had been harming themselves all along.
In some cases, abstinence might progress into moderation. If you are a love addict or codependent, it might be helpful to go without romantic relationships for a while. That doesn’t mean you stop needing connection. Your needs for affection, sexual expression, stimulation and intimacy continue to be valid. Once you have gained strength and grown, you can begin to approach new relationships with a healthier attitude and do so while you keep an eye on your addiction.
If you occasionally mess up and slip back into your addiction, it’s important to remember that it's about progress not perfection. One step back does not negate ten steps forward. I don’t believe that because you fell off the wagon and had one beer, fuck it, you might as well have ten. Give yourself some credit for the work you’ve done and do your best to continue walking the path. You don’t need to know the final destination. You merely need to know what direction you want to head in, and keep walking. Strive to do the best you can and accept it.
If you have no clue how you’re going to do it, that’s great. Most people don’t know how they’re going to accomplish something when they first set out to achieve a goal. The Wright Brothers didn’t know how they were going to fly when they set out to be first in flight; they just knew what they wanted to do and started working towards their goal. Thomas Edison famously said, “I failed my way to success.” The point is to start trying and understand that no one knows where the path is going, but the unpredictable places are very often the best parts of the journey.
I suggest taking a self-loving approach should you choose to work on an addiction. In my experience, beating yourself up for an addiction ultimately creates a sense of helplessness and shame that is likely to drive you right back to the very behavior you were trying to avoid. Accordingly, thinking of an addiction as a disease can be very helpful. This lets us take a more self-compassionate rather than self-blaming mindset. However, this is a disease that we can progressively treat. Again, by “treat,” I am talking about progress not perfection. We can make amazing progress if we are willing to look at our addiction’s deeper causes. I find one danger of the “disease” mindset is that it often prevents people from examining the underlying causes of why they became addicts in the first place. It can be easy to say, “Well, I have a disease” and stop there as if it is the root of the problem. Beware of using “I have a disease” as a means of avoiding introspection. The underlying emotional causes of the disease are as important as self-compassion.
If one chooses to embark on such a path, there is an even deeper goal than stopping or replacing an addiction. That is a wonderful short-term (and very often life-saving) goal. However, long-term healing comes from looking at the root causes that made us want to take up an addiction in the first place. What are we avoiding? How can we correct and heal the underlying thoughts and feelings we are trying so hard to escape? Then we can be truly free.
Ask Yourself:
What might I be using to avoid my deeper feelings?
As a start, can I admit that I might have an addiction?
Who can help me in my goal (this should be more than one person)?
Even if I don't know how I'll achieve my goal, what is one small step I can take in the right direction?
Could I try being kinder to myself as I walk the path to the very best of my ability, albeit imperfectly?
Next Letter: Mind Games