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 Health & Beauty | On Addiction | January 2005 
Addictions: Your Questions Answered
 excerpts from The Element Guide by Deirdre Boyd
 We are an addictive society. Everyone will feel some of the symptoms described in this to some degree. It does not necessarily mean that you are addicted: it is to what degree it affects your life that is important.
But recovering from addiction means a new and fulfilling way of life. It is usually a much happier one. The trials of everyday life must still be dealt with, but our attitude to them can change: crises can happen around us, not to us.
If this happier, more fulfilling way of life can be achieved by addicts who were once spiralling to total destruction, it can hold some excellent lessons for others who, even though not so addicted, want to improve their own lives with some of that happiness and fulfilment.
The Common Features
First of all, a definition of what addiction is not. It is nothing to do with lack of will-power or intelligence. In fact, if you are an addict, you probably have above-normal rations of both will-power and intelligence.
Addiction is probably the only disease in the world which you must understand in order to recover from. There are many paradoxes. For example, whether you are addicted to a "substance" or to a behaviour, you are looking for an escape from pain of which you may no longer be aware or from memories which you may no longer consciously remember.
Addicts have low self-esteem. They can hate themselves, even though they can present a successful mask to the world (and gamblers can feel a sense of overconfidence, power and control). They often feel ashamed, and that they deserve to be punished. They can be lonely, perhaps especially so when surrounded by friends.
Addicts' thoughts are preoccupied with their substance or behaviour. You can spend large chunks of time not only "using" (ie, using your addiction) but also thinking about using or giving it up, trying to fund the addiction, getting into activities which help you to use, and trying to make up for the consequences of a bad bout of using.
Addicts are drawn to acquaintances of similar habits, so that their own behaviour does not look too bad beside them.
If you are an addict, you have probably already noticed that you are overly concerned with the approval of others. Despite your downward spiral, you are usually a perfectionist.
Most addicts are cut off - dissociated - from their feelings and their bodies, so much so that they don't even know it. When an addict is asked how he or she feels, they inevitably start their reply with "I think..." The reaction comes from the intellect, not the body. For instance, have you scared people with your rage, then denied you were angry - and meant it? When someone has commented that you looked sad, have you denied the evidence of their eyes, and believed that you told the truth?
Sadly, addicts are not cut off from every feeling. If you are reading this, you will have felt the most intense: fear, shame, loneliness, desperation and and increasing despair. The only euphoric feeling has probably come from excitement, an adrenalin buzz. This is why the search for excitement can be both an addiction in itself and be a spur in other addictions.
All addicts need more and more of their addiction to achieve the same level of initial euphoria or intoxication; you get less and less satisfaction from the same 'volume' of addiction. Almost every addict has tried to control, reduce or stop using but has managed to succeed for limited periods only, if at all, despite best intentions and efforts. But if you do not tell anyone about your problem, if you do not hear of others with similar - even worse - problems, how can you learn about a solution? That lies in the experience of others who have been through what you are going through.
You, or someone close to you, might also have jeopardised or lost close relationships, educational opportunities and jobs. You or they might have engaged in "bailout" behaviour, turning to family or others for help with financial or other problems - but not with the addiction itself.
You or they might have asserted something on the lines of "If you had my problems, you would drink/drug/use, too." This is called denial. It is the addiction which causes the problems in the first place.
In reading this, it may become obvious that addicts have neurotic behaviour. This is good, as neurotics tend to be over-responsible and this can be turned into an asset: neurotic people are very likely to take responsibility for their recovery, once started.
An outside observer will notice a pattern to addiction: preoccupation, denial, craving and relapse into the addiction and its accompanying behaviour, all getting progressively worse.
Internally, I believe that one vital ingredient in addiction is a grief which was not allowed to be expressed in childhood so that it intensified, ignored, over decades. This grief can be from emotional, physical or sexual abuse or the loss of a loved one through death, divorce or separation. Tracing the source and grieving in recovery is a sure sign of good progress.
Codependency
I have never known an addict who was not also codependent. Codependency - the "in" word of the 1980s - is the addiction to looking elsewhere. This can include substances or behaviours but is mainly taken to mean codependency on other people, which goes hand in hand with addiction and can lead to relapse in other addictions.
There is a joke which defines it very well: "A codependent is someone who finds out how you are before they can tell you how they are." Another descriptive joke is that "When a codependent is about to die, someone else's life flashes before their eyes." A codependent will have a match/lighter ready before someone even knows they want a cigarette.
In other words, if you are codependent, people's reactions matter so much to you that, if you cannot handle them, you can turn to addiction instead.
Codependents act as though they have extra-sensory perception. In other words, you guess what other people are feeling or might feel towards a particular situation, then you alter all your actions around that potential reaction so as "not to upset anyone." But you do not ask and discover anyone's true feelings in the first place, so often end up with the very reaction you do not want.
You can also inadvertently irritate people because they cannot sense what you want or need. One small example: have you ever felt disappointed because people cannot tell what you would like for a birthday present? Codependents cannot express their wants and needs because they do not know what they are, being used to subjugating them to others. This can lead to mental and physical illnesses.
Extreme dependence - emotionally, socially and sometimes physically - on another person or object affects all other relationships. In Co-Dependence: Healing The Human Condition, Dr Charles Whitfield sees it as a personality disorder based on a need to control despite adverse results, neglecting your own needs, intense pain through intimacy/separation, getting involved with people who are not good for you, and other signs such as "denial, constricted feelings, depression and stress-related medical illness."
You can become addicted not only to people who are close to your heart but even to people you do not like, such as a nuisance neighbour. You can become as preoccupied with that bad neighbour and their unneighbourly actions as a love addict is with their partner.
Below are some of the questions Dr Whitfield uses to diagnose codependency:
Do you seek approval and affirmation?
Do you fail to recognise your accomplishments?
Do you fear criticism?
Do you have a need for perfection?
Are you uneasy when your life is going smoothly? Do you continually anticipate problems?
Do you care for others easily, but find it hard to care for yourself?
Do you attract/seek people who tend to be compulsive?
Do you cling to relationships?
Is it hard for you to relax and have fun?
Do you have an over-developed sense of responsibility?
Do you have a tendency towards chronic fatigue, aches and pains?
Do you have difficulty asking for what you want from others?
Codependency can leave you feeling so empty that you try to fill that emptiness in unhealthy ways which lead to emotional and physical illness. |
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