Tag: addiction

Trauma and addiction make us vulnerable to believing lies. 

What kind of lies? Lies about ourselves, mostly. 

Trauma makes it very easy to believe that we are worthless. 

That we are powerless. 

That we are helpless. Hopeless. 

Addiction makes it very easy to believe that we have few, or no, options. 

Addiction makes it very easy to believe we “have” to do certain things or consume certain things, in response to certain thoughts or feeling states. 

People talk about trauma as if it’s something that happened “in the past”— but many trauma survivors don’t experience it that way. 

Yes, trauma is something that happened in the past, or it might also be happening in the present— but the trauma responses we struggle with are a reflection of how what happened to us wormed its way into our beliefs and reflexes. 

People talk about addiction as if it’s this “character flaw”— but, in my view, this isn’t a particularly accurate or useful way to think about it. 

Yes, addiction has to do with our decisions and values— what may be said to define our “character”— but the addiction cravings and patterns we struggle with are a reflection of how the experience of addiction has wormed its way into our beliefs and reflexes. 

I’m sometimes asked why I so often discuss trauma and addiction in many of the same terms— and the answer is not just, “because I struggle with both.” 

The real reason is, I have never, ever, seen a case of complex trauma that has not also had significant symptomatology of addiction— and I have really never, ever seen a case of addiction that has not been fundamentally rooted in trauma. 

Trauma and addiction conditioning are entwined with each other. They mirror and feed and enable and support each other— especially when it comes to the lies both tell us about ourselves. 

The truth is, almost none of whet trauma or addiction condition us to believe about ourselves is true— but it all feels very, very true. 

Trauma and addiction make us very vulnerable to what cognitive therapists call “emotional reasoning”— the belief that if something FEELS very true, it “must” be true. 

Most of us hear that and are like, I mean, of course it’s not true that something “must” be true just because it FEELS true— but when it comes to things trauma and addiction whisper into our ear? We are complete suckers for it. 

We often can’t even imagine challenging the sh*t trauma and addiction tell us, in our own head, all day— because, well, it just FEELS true. 

Emotional reasoning. It’s sneaky, and it’s sticky. 

The reason why neither trauma nor addiction recovery is simple or straightforward is because it’s more than just “don’t do that.” 

Trauma and addiction beliefs are constantly gnawing at our self-esteem, our relationships, our motivation, and even our physical health. If we could just “choose” to “opt out” of them, we would— but that’s not how beliefs change. 

Beliefs only change when they are consistently, effortfully challenged and reality checked. 

Beliefs change when we construct and reinforce an alternative set of beliefs— in this case, recovery beliefs— to swap out for them. 

Beliefs change when we finally wrap out head around ideas like “acceptance” and “surrender” as tools of change— not staying stuck. 

Make no mistake: trauma and addiction are some of the most panful things that human beings experience— and recovery from trauma and addiction is one of the hardest projects many humans ever attempt. 

(Ask me how I know.) 

And but also: meaningful, sustainable recovery from both trauma and addiction is absolutely possible— if we prioritize recognizing and effectively challenging the lies our conditioning tells us every day to keep us hating and harming ourselves. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

There’s no denying it— trauma and addiction recovery can be incredibly lonely. 

They’re not lonely because we somehow don’t “deserve” support— we do deserve support. 

They’re not lonely because we are unlovable or unlikeable— although Trauma Brain will definitely try to tell us exactly that. 

No, trauma and addiction recovery tend to be lonely because trauma and addiction tend to be lonely. 

It’s ironic— the experiences of both trauma and addiction are incredibly common. More unbelievably common than many people reading this would even believe. 

And yet, both trauma and addiction are extremely private, individual experiences— no two trauma survivors or addicts have exactly the same experience, the same wounds, the same needs.

Trauma and addiction are, by definition, painful— and no two humans carry quite the same pain. 

Consequently, no two survivors or addicts require the same recovery resources. There is no “one size fits all” approach to trauma or addiction recovery. 

(This is one of the main reasons I do not offer super specific advice or recovery programs on my social media— because for the hundreds of thousands of survivors reading my content, every single one needs and deserves an individualized path that I could not mass produce if I wanted to.)

This means we’re functionally doing recovery on our own— even if we do happen to have the support of a therapist, sponsor, or community behind us. 

Trauma and addiction recovery are among the most private— and, subsequently, most lonely— things we’ll ever attempt. 

And make no mistake: that loneliness can get to us. 

There are times when we’re going to feel as if we’re the only survivor or addict on the planet carrying the pain we’re carrying or working the recovery we’re working— and, in a sense, that’s true. 

No one IS carrying our specific pain, or called to work our specific recovery. 

That can be lonely. 

But it does not mean we’re alone. 

No one knows our specific pain, and no one is working exactly the recovery we need to work to stay safe and stable— but there are literally millions who feel just as alone and just as overwhelmed as we do, in any given moment. 

Throughout history, there have been hundreds of millions— literally!— of survivors and addicts who have also believed they, too, were all alone in their pain and in their struggle. 

Trauma Brain and the Addiction Beast have this way of convincing us that we are the first, last, or only person in the history of the universe to struggle with this loneliness— but it just isn’t true. 

History is full of survivors and addicts who have worked successful recoveries. 

Trauma survivors and addicts in recovery have been figuring out how to take back their lives, survive and thrive, long before there was a mental health field. 

I predict that trauma survivors and addicts in recovery will be figuring out how to take back their lives, survive, and thrive, long after the mental health field is no longer a thing, too. 

Even if you are lonely in this fight— you are not alone. 

You are part of a tradition and siblinghood of survivors and addicts in recovery that reaches across the globe, back into history, and far into the future. 

You are one of us. 

Your pain and your recovery needs are unquestionably unique— but you are one of us. 

And it’s because you’re one of us that I can confidently say: you can do this. No matter what Trauma Brain or the Addiction Beast are telling you at this second: you can do this. 

Yes, recovery is a lonely project. 

But you are never alone. 

One of my biggest struggles in both trauma and addiction recovery has been my reluctance to feel like a beginner. 

Because, spoiler: in any flavor of recovery, all of us are going to feel like a beginner— and not just in the beginning of our journey. 

Trauma and addiction recovery is one of the most intense, ongoing learning experiences known to humans. 

Recovery requires a level of honesty and openness that most humans never have to think about. And don’t get me wrong— I’m very glad that many humans don’t need to think about the things we survivors in recovery need to think about every day. 

Recovery requires that level of honesty and openness explicitly and emphatically. We can’t half-ass either the honesty or the openness. Recovery simply does not work otherwise. 

Why is honesty so important to recovery? Simply put: trauma and addiction lie. 

They lie most frequently to us, about us. 

Trauma and addiction lie to us about who we are, what we’re all about, and what we “deserve.” 

Trauma and addiction lie to is about what w can and can’t do, and about whether we are worth the hassle that goes along with working a recovery. 

The only true antidote to the caliber and consistency of lies trauma and addiction tell us, is radical, uncompromising truth. Self-honesty. 

Self-honesty can be really hard for trauma survivors, because it means admitting that we were, and are, helpless at certain points— and we hate, hate, hate feeling helpless. 

Most of the lies trauma survivors and addicts tell ourselves, in fact, are to avoid feeling helpless. 

We would MUCH rather feel guilty or “bad” than feel helpless— so we tell ourselves stories about how all of this is our fault, and we “deserve” to suffer, and we “can’t” recover anyway, and we’re “the exception” to the rule that all humans deserve safety and dignity…and..and..and…

It’s all BS. Belief Systems. But also, you know. Bullsh*t. 

Why is openness so important to trauma and addiction recovery? 

Because so much of what we have to say to ourselves, focus on, and do in trauma recovery is going to feel wildly unfamiliar. 

We have been conditioned to NOT say fair, realistic, supportive things to ourselves. We have been conditioned to NOT focus on strengths and possibilities and solutions. We have been conditioned to NOT do things that will support our safety and stability. 

Thus, doing the recovery stuff is gong to feel awkward. We’re barely going to know how to even do it, and we’re sure as hell not going to feel comfortable and competent doing it. 

That is: we’re constantly going to feel like a beginner. Especially after we’ve relapsed and we’re ending to pivot back to our recovery path. 

That’s been my hang-up. I HATE feeling like a beginner. I want to feel like a Jedi, not a padawan. Like a master, not a novice. 

Here’s the thing I’ve learned, though: masters BECOME masters not despite, but because, of their willingness to embrace being students. Beginners. 

Stuff we avoid because we don’t feel competent at, we’ll NEVER get competent at. We don’t get competent through avoidance. 

I can tell you something I’ve definitively learned, as someone with a reasonable amount of experience in recovery, and reasonable experience running marathons: the most advanced people you meet in recovery and the most fit runners you meet out on the course are never, ever impressed with their own level of skill. 

I’ve come to understand that getting up in my own head about my supposed “expertise” is a huge red flag for my recovery. 

If we’re doing recovery right, we’re always going to feel like a beginner— and we’ll come to understand that as the good news. 

Honesty and openness are not luxuries in trauma recovery. They are the price of admission. 

And it’s a price that is emphatically worth it. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

A common experience for trauma survivors working our recovery is, this is taking a lot longer than we thought. 

Mind you, we’re never quite sure how long we figured this was “supposed” to take. No one gave us a user’s manual for recovery. Or life, for that matter. 

All we know is, often we have the feeling that we’ve been grinding away at this “recovery” thing for f*ckin’ ever— and some days we’re not entirely sure we’ve made any progress at all. 

I’ve definitely been there. So has literally every survivor who has ever worked a recovery. 

The thing about recovery is, it’s not an “event” that “happens.” 

It’s not even an “accomplishment” we “earn,” although we do work plenty hard to design, execute, and support our recovery, much like we did when we were “earning” other “accomplishments.” 

What trauma recovery is, is a lifestyle. It’s a frame. 

It’s a set of tools, skills, and philosophies that we engage and develop so we can do all the OTHER in our life that matters to us. 

The reason recovery can feel like it’s going slow or taking forever is because, if we’re doing it right, aspects of recovery touch every other thing we do or think about. 

It’s not taking forever because we’re doing it wrong— it’s feeling extended because we continue to exist. And as long as we continue to exist, we’re going to be in recovery. 

And that’s actually the good news. 

Trauma recovery is a project, yes, but it’s not a project we do for its own sake. 

Nobody’s handing out medals— or demerits, for that matter— for trauma recovery. It’s not a competition. 

The best analogy I can think of when it comes to the experience of trauma recovery is, it’s like a philosophical or religious conversion. 

Recovery is not “religious” in the sense that we become devotees, or even congregants— but it’s similar to religion insofar as it is designed to help us understand and process the rest of our life. 

(Of note, recovery is significantly unlike religion insofar as there is absolutely no moral connotations to struggling with it. Nobody is going to hell for making recovery inconsistent decisions. Doing well in recovery doesn’t make us a “good” person. And the rewards of recovery show themselves in our day to day life, over time— not any kind of afterlife in which we’’ll be judged.)

Recovery can also be likened to a fitness regimen. It entails skills we must learn and endurance we must develop— but the real benefit of recovery, much like the benefit of fitness or athletic training, is in our increased day to day functionality. 

When you adopt a new religion or philosophy, or you embark upon a new, fitness-conscious lifestyle, you don’t think of it as “taking forever.” You think of it as a thing you do now— and a thing you’ll keep doing, as long as it continues to work for you. 

I completely understand that feeling of, “this is taking forever.” We want to see major difference in how we feel and function sooner, rather than later. 

We’ve been struggling for so long, and we’re f*cking sick of it. We don’t want to take on another thing in recovery with which we’ll continue to struggle. 

This is when it’s useful to shift our perspective. 

Trauma recovery isn’t a puzzle we have to solve or a competition we have to win— it’s a set of mental and behavioral tools that will help us solve every OTHER puzzle in our life, help us win every OTHER competition in our life. 

Recovery is not taking forever. Recovery is there to support us for as long as we need it. 

Recovery is friend. 

You can do this. 

The biggest scam trauma and addiction play on us is convincing us we have to avoid. 

They tell us we have to avoid certain memories, feelings, or situations, “or else.” 

They tell us, if we “have” to be exposed to those memories, feelings or situations, we also “have” to harm ourselves or dissociate. 

Trauma and addiction play on our fear and our pain to make us believe what they say is true. 

It works— not because we’re stupid, but because we’re tired and hurting and scared. 

It is not our fault that we are so susceptible to the lies trauma and addiction are constantly telling us. 

The temptation is going to be to blame and shame ourselves for believing those lies— which, actually, is another part of why the trauma and addiction strategy to make us feel like sh*t is so ingenious: it works on multiple levels. 

We believe their lies, and feel like sh*t; then we feel like sh*t for believing their lies. 

It’s really, really hard to not blame and shame ourselves when trauma and addiction are f*cking with our head. 

It’s real important we remember: this is what trauma and addiction do. They f*ck with our head.

We could be doing everything in our life perfectly, and trauma and addiction would STILL find a way to f*ck with our head. 

The things trauma and addiction tell us have virtually NOTHING to do with us. Not really.

The things trauma and addiction tell us we “have” to do have NOTHING to do with ANYTHING we actually “have” to do. Not really. 

There is no denying that certain memories, feelings, and situations are highly triggering. They’re awful. Nobody WANTS to endure them. 

Every human being, if given the choice, would avoid those memories, feelings, and situations if they could. We are not weirdos for wanting to stay away from them at all costs. 

The thing is: if those memories, feelings, and situations are part of our experience, we don’t actually have the choice to avoid them. Not totally. 

Trauma and addiction, however, will lie to us and tell us we CAN effectively avoid them, or at least avoid awareness of them, by self-harming, dissociating, or relapsing. 

Believe me when I tell you: none of those options are actual mechanisms of avoidance.

They may seem like they allow us to avoid certain memories, feelings, and situations— but in the end, that avoidance is temporary and costly. 

If we want to recover, really recover, from either trauma or addiction, we need to get real about our relationship with avoidance. 

This was, and is, one of the hardest things for me, personally, in my own trauma and addiction recovery. 

I really, really want to avoid certain memories, feelings, and situations— and I am as susceptible as anyone (if not more susceptible!) to the lies trauma and addiction tell me about what I “have” to do to either avoid or tolerate exposure to those things. 

I, just like every survivor reading this, have to remember and remind myself, over and over and over again: there are absolutely zero circumstances in which I “have” to relapse. 

There are absolutely zero circumstances in which I “have” to harm myself. 

There are absolutely zero circumstances in which I “have” to avoid certain memories, feelings, or situations, “or else.” 

That is not to say tolerating these memories, feelings, or situations, is easy. It’s not. It’s the furthest thing FROM easy. If ANY of this was easy, we wouldn’t have to think about ANY of this, ever. 

But trauma and addiction were feeding me lies about my ability to withstand certain memories, feelings, and situations— which was impacting my willingness to try to withstand certain memories, feelings, and situations. 

It took me a long time, but I woke up. I was blind, but now I see. 

Trauma and addiction are never going to trick me into trying to un-see their bullsh*t, ever again.