Alcohol & Drug Abuse: Difficult Detours on the Road to Meaning
What is addiction? Addiction is a heartbreaking, constant pattern of engaging in a dangerous or unwanted behavior, BUT it is only a pattern. Patterns, while hard to break, are broken all the time. How? By learning different ways to cope. Some people might drink or use every day or night. Others might binge at weekly, monthly, or longer intervals. If you have behaviors with substances that are making you unhappy or uncomfortable, it is recommended that you learn more about them. If you try to stop drinking or using and cannot, you should probably read this so you can make an informed decision.
Who can become addicted to alcohol or drugs?
Anyone can become addicted. Over 30 years ago, I was at an AA meeting where a 12 year-old boy picked up a blue poker chip to celebrate five years of sobriety from alcohol. If you think that your children are too young to be in danger, subtract 5 from twelve. He had come to AA at the age of seven. At what age did he start to drink his parents’ vodka? We asked him. He did not remember.
Why do people become addicted to alcohol and/or drugs?
Some researchers believe that there is a biology of addiction; they believe that addictive substances can, over time, alter the behaviors of neurotransmitters, “messenger chemicals” produced and used by the brain: serotonin, norepinephrine, acetylcholine, glutamate, and gamma-amino butyric acid (GABA). This may be true. I read a great deal about their research; but it is not my focus. If you want to know more about the science of addiction, I encourage you to ask a medical researcher or a Healer who is an addiction specialist.
In Our Genes?
Some researchers write that addiction is a question of genes and that we “inherit” addiction from parents and even ancestors. This sounds possible, but a gene is like a toggle, an on-off switch; it must be turned “on” – probably by stress of some kind. Many people had alcoholic parents but did not activate that gene (if it exists). Furthermore, “inheritance” can be psychological as well as “genetic”. Imagine a child whose parents drink a great deal. They drink when they are sad; they drink to celebrate; they drink when they are tired; they drink because it’s the cocktail hour or because it’s Saturday night. Every occasion from baptisms to funerals calls for a drink. What ideas might that child “inherit” from those parents about how to deal with life?
Physical addiction can be treated by a Healer or a medical professional who is a specialist in addiction. He or she can prescribe medication that lessens an addicted person’s physical cravings while they are being detoxed and entering the first stages of therapy.
The Psychology of Addiction
The psychological aspects of addiction are often treated by a therapist who has experience in dealing with substance abuse and dependence. From a therapeutic point of view, I believe that addiction is a maladaptive coping mechanism. People who have not learned to manage stress and/or anger or grief or who find it difficult to identify and express other emotions might drink or use drugs to keep those scary emotions at bay. They “drink at” their anger and at their grief and at their fear. Psychotherapy helps them recognize and deal with the powerful, unexpressed thoughts and feelings that sustain their addiction. They learn to do their “Inner Work”.
I have also had Clients whose uncomfortable mental or emotional symptoms were not diagnosed in childhood and who began at a young age to use alcohol or drugs to feel better. Later, when their “self-medication” became addiction and they came into treatment, at the very moment when I would have expected them to feel much better, they instead felt much worse because their original pain had reappeared. They then had to be treated for combined cognitive/emotional symptoms and addiction. These are sometimes called “dual diagnosis” clients. It is my thought that most addicted persons are “dual diagnosis” and that when people heal mentally and emotionally, they will then heal the addiction.
Who can heal from an addiction?
Anyone who intends to heal can heal; but no one can create another person’s sobriety. One of the hardest tasks assigned to me during my internship at the Northside Hospital Recovery Center was answering and returning phone calls. Almost invariably, someone would say, “I’m calling about my son/daughter/wife”. After telling the caller how sorry I was for their pain, I had to say, “If your relative is over 18, we will have to wait until they make the correct decision about this. If they ever decide to get sober, please ask them to call us. In the meantime, get some help for yourself.”
Life Beyond Addiction
During my extremely painful twenty years of drinking too much alcohol, I vowed every Monday that I would never do that to my body again. Every Friday, I broke that promise to myself. How could this be happening to me? Why? I was an extraordinary student, athlete, and professional. When I finally and magically broke free, I was equally mystified. How did I do that? How did I walk out that door? Why did I have to go through that? I did not know the answer to those questions until the first day that I sat down to lead group at the Northside Hospital Recovery Center. Clients know instinctively if you understand them, and I understood them. Those “lost” twenty years came to have enormous Spiritual significance for my life.