In today’s blog I am going to discuss addiction, some of the behaviour traits associated with addiction and what we need to start doing as a society to support people whom suffer with addiction.
When I use the term Addiction I use it generically because I believe addiction is the same regardless, it is the substance and our reasons for misusing substances that are different. I think it is worth mentioning here that some addictions don’t involve a physical substance at all for example, gambling, sex, or self-harm. (self-harm is often described as a coping mechanism rather than addiction but I believe they are similar along with the behaviours associated with it.) More recently I would say social media use is becoming addictive with the average person giving 45 minutes of their life a day to facebook.
Addiction is rarely met with open arms, it is often hidden away from others to great extremes. The media scorn and shame it making those that suffer from it, hide it for fear of being cut off from society. The thing is, problematic addiction happens too many of us and goes unnoticed because the symptoms that make addiction problematic are contained. To make this clearer an example of this could be someone who’s alcohol consumption is high but they are still functioning within society ie, going to work daily and paying their bills.
Substance misuse often only gets to addiction services when the substance misuse hits another problem like when someone gets violent to their partner when they are under the influence, or someone can’t afford to pay for their substance of choice so they have to cope with the anxiety that goes with that. They could go to the extremes of stealing to pay for their substance of choice which could end in criminal proceedings therefore making their substance misuse problematic.
This I believe means there are many people out there whom do have addiction concerns but because it is not problematic to others it remains a stone left unturned. This is also where the ideology comes from that unless somebody wants to stop consuming substances they wont. Addiction is a very self-centred by its nature and whilst if you are reading this as a person with a substance misuse problem then I don’t want this to be a challenge but the point I am making is we don’t misuse substances for someone else once we are addicted. In the early stages of course we may start to fit in or because that is what is socially accepted within a certain group of friends.
Constant consumption of a substance becomes a rather lonely affair because of the self-centred nature of the addiction. Even amongst a circle of misusing friends addictive behaviour sees even the closest of friends see their own needs met before others. This further enforces the loneliness of addiction. This is something that needs to be addressed within addiction the ultimate loneliness of it, whilst I believe many of us are born with addictive traits, our reasons for substance misuse rarely match that of another.
The addiction is the same but the reasons for it are not and what I mean by that is the behaviours that go with addiction are the same. The prickliness of the mood of an addict who is figuring out where his next substance of choice is going to come from, the deceit to the people around him or her, the denial.
The reasons for the addiction are our attempt to hide our pain from our selves whatever the cause of that pain may be it could be loss, it could be rejection, it could be shame, it could be our childhood, and it could be our past. It could be any number of things and each would be completely alien to the varying people with addiction because that is what the pain is completely unique to the individual. This is often where the confusion comes from when a human who is trying to block out their pain is being figured out by someone that does not understand their pain.
It is for these reasons as a society we need people to be able to talk more openly about their addiction without fear of stigmatisation. Addiction needs to be considered an illness an attempt to hide pain from the user, instead of something to ridicule and derive shame.
In order to understand someone’s pain you have to build a picture of what that person’s life is and attempt to understand it in the shoes and socks of that person in their world. Only then can you begin to recognise what that pain feels like and get close to imagining what you would do to stop that pain if it was yours. I think this is where communication breaks down between the people around the person with the addiction ‘I don’t know why they do it!’ is often a phrase you will hear. This is why professional help is needed to start unravelling that pain because the person with the addiction may not want to burden a loved one with the pain or have shame for that pain and therefore will not want to share it.
Counselling can be a place to release some of the hurt that keeps someone in addiction as it is a non-judgmental place. A place where hurt, shame or rejection can be explored without fear of burden or fear of contradiction of understanding because in counselling the only vetted interests are in that of the client.
Are you concerned about your own addictive behaviours?
Is there something you feel uncomfortable about when you don’t have it?
Do you find yourself constantly planning your next binge/fix?
“Do you feel anxious or uncomfortable if you cannot do it or if you think about not doing it? One way to gauge how important these things have become to you is to consider doing without them. Your initial emotional and physical response can be highly instructive. The higher the level of panic and pain you anticipate, the stronger the hold it has on you.” (Psychologytoday.com)
Do you often plan to stop and then cant, finding all the reasons under the sun to not stop?
If any of this sounds like you or maybe you are the spouse or you know somebody with addictive behaviours that you are concerned about and you would like support with this. Visit brighter-pathways.co.uk and contact to see if we can support you without judgement.