101 - Addiction and "The Castle"
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We are created to live fully, and we do so through relationship with ourselves, others, and God, as we bring the true heart of feelings, needs, desire, longings and hope to relationships.
Relationship requires vulnerability.
If the ability to be “comfortable” with dependence is fractured in one’s earlier years of life, the result is a set up for that person to feel the need to “hide” his/her heart. Instead of remaining present and connected, he/she has a compulsion to perform in order to belong or matter.
Trauma is experienced when one’s ability to accept their need for dependence is fractured.
The need to suppress emotional pain in order to survive, belong, and matter is the foundation upon which addiction is built.
Addiction is a false fulfillment of how we are created to live.
Addiction is relationship with a substance or process that gives a sense of connection without having to be vulnerable; in other words, a person can distract or numb themselves from having to feel by using some form of avoidance of relationship with one’s self, others, and God.
Through addiction, a person can have the counterfeit experience of living fully while being able to “hang on” to defenses that block vulnerability.
Denial is a primary defense to block vulnerability.
Denial literally means to be blind to one’s inner truth as well as the reality of what is occurring in the outside world.
Denial has five characteristics:
I don’t see what is actually happening around me or in me.
If I don’t see, then I will not feel feelings I don’t want to have or don’t know how to handle.
If I don’t feel, I will not have to depend on others in ways that make me even more vulnerable than the exposure of feelings.
If I don’t feel or need, then I will not have to talk about issues that could get me in “trouble” or cause me to be humiliated.
If I don’t talk, I will not have to take the risk of trusting that someone would understand and help me. Trust is too dangerous.
Because genuine fulfillment requires dependence on others for the strength that connection brings, the “fracture” in dependency also reduces a person’s capacity to be resilient.
Survival mentality, denial, and invulnerability may look like resilience, they are not true strengths. They are actually defenses to avoid exposure of one’s own needs.
Suppression of true expression becomes the depression of truth telling and the inability to find genuine connection.
Suppression of Expression = Depression.
Because we are created to seek life and life to the full, if we cannot have our fulfillment in legitimate forms, we will seek fulfillment in illegitimate forms.
Addiction is an illegitimate way to get legitimate needs met.
No one wants to have an addiction.
Addiction is an outcome of unhealed trauma.
The fact that addiction originates in trauma does not excuse addiction, but it is the origin of it.
Recovery from addiction begins when denial is broken.
Through intervention, a person faces that they have a problem.
Abstinence from the substance or compulsive process is required before trauma can be addressed.
Otherwise, all attempts to resolve trauma before abstinence is addressed will only give the addicted person more “reason” to return to the ironic “comfort” of what is harming them.
When one’s capacity to connect is fractured, the result is undeveloped dependency resilience.
When a person dares to say, “I need help,” they have taken the first step to regaining life to the full, which can lead to a renewal of dependency resilience.
We have often been trained to believe that self-reliance is the greatest form of strength, when actually the ability to depend upon others and they upon you is the greatest form of strength.
Dr. Chip Dodd
Voice of the Heart Center