Addiction is not really something one overcomes, in my opinion. Addiction is something to be healed, because its roots lie in trauma, grief, and certain unmet needs.
Addiction is a mental-health issue, but it’s also a totally reasonable response to not having our needs met. Bruce K. Alexander’s famous Rat Park study beautifully and tragically showed us that isolation breeds addiction, and connection alleviates addiction.
For humans (and rats), connection to others is not a luxury, it’s a requirement.
This study implies that what is needed to recover from addiction is to be surrounded by others, and perhaps have some time and space to play and be merry, like the rats who stopped using hard drugs—voluntarily—once they were moved out of their lonely little cages into the bustling rat park.
But, more than just being surrounded by others, we also need to be willing and able to connect with others. Many people have experienced being in close proximity to many others (physically or virtually), but lacking the skills and conditioning needed to have close, healthy, and satisfying relationships and interactions.
The roots of addiction—the wounds of our past—impair our ability to have meaningful, healthy relationships with others, which is arguably why one turns to addiction in the first place. This is a sad state of affairs for so many people. I believe virtually everyone is trapped in addiction to a greater or lesser degree, and a lot of people suffer in silent shame and growing anxiety with addiction to porn, shopping, alcohol, video games, sex, abusive or unavailable partners, and so on.
It’s worth becoming willing to heal our pasts and learning new ways of communicating and connecting. We will have to open up, be vulnerable, and take a risk—if we don’t, we remain isolated and stuck.
Perhaps now more than ever it is important to recognize the important implications of Rat Park—that connection to others is essential in order to be free from harmful addictions. Moreover, we might need to learn how to connect with others, if we realize we are at a loss. If we are codependent, we can learn to rely more on ourselves and be more self-contained so as not to suffocate our relationships. If we are avoidant and tend to push people away, we can learn to open up and trust others.
For your own sake, and for the sake of others, make healthy, meaningful connection with others a priority. Perhaps we can help our world to increasingly resemble a proverbial Rat Park, even if it must be virtual for now.