{"id":18355,"date":"2019-10-09T09:00:52","date_gmt":"2019-10-09T16:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=18355"},"modified":"2019-10-09T11:56:16","modified_gmt":"2019-10-09T18:56:16","slug":"freedom-from-addiction-learning-to-recover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2019\/10\/09\/freedom-from-addiction-learning-to-recover\/","title":{"rendered":"Freedom from Addiction<\/em>: Learning to recover"},"content":{"rendered":"

What drives addiction? Exploring this question is essential if we are to change our lives for the better and recover the person we were meant to be\u2014the person we are <\/i>beneath our dysfunctional patterns and behaviours. This person can be recovered\u2014that\u2019s why it is called \u201caddiction recovery.\u201d<\/p>\n

I believe that what drives addiction is a desire to love and to be loved. I believe as well that this desire comes in part from trauma in childhood.<\/p>\n

Not being loved properly as a child\u2014or not being able to love others due to their unavailability\u2014creates a cavernous void and an insatiable hunger to experience love. Gabor Mat\u00e9 once said that one of his patients described the feeling of doing heroin as the feeling of a loving embrace. A cookie, too, can feel like love for a moment. A beer, a text message, or being in love can act as a soothing balm for the pain of emotional hunger, albeit temporarily.<\/p>\n

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Freedom from Addiction<\/em> is a column exploring issues relating to addiction (photo by Katie Mondey\/Nexus<\/em>).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

However, it\u2019s not the drive behind addiction that\u2019s wrong. It\u2019s understandable to want to feel good. The problem is that the methods we use are never enough and are\u2014sooner or later, to a greater or lesser extent\u2014damaging to our lives. Looking for love through any external means to find relief from pain always results in more pain. Maybe not right away, but it always does.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Addiction\u2014compulsive, unhealthy thought patterns and behaviours\u2014keeps us trapped in a cycle of pain. When we look for relief this way, we are doomed to find ourselves experiencing the same shame, despair, and all-pervasive feeling of being not good enough over and over again.<\/p>\n

Step one in any 12-step program is about recognizing that we have a problem and that our attempts to solve it are not working.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve come back to step one many times, as the path to recovery is not linear and we humans do not heal perfectly or seamlessly. But I know as a sex and love addict that my attempts to fix my internal world through relationships or sex are not only futile, they have proven to be dangerous and damaging. Addiction, I now know, has the power to rob me of my true calling: work that I love, relationships with people I truly love, and the discovery of my true self and all that I am capable of. Indeed, my true self and my life\u2019s purpose exist beneath my alter ego, the addict.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Do you feel trapped in pain? Do you feel that your attempts at happiness simply do not work? Whether or not you would label yourself an addict, consider that perhaps your liberation from suffering comes not through wilful effort, but through humility, honesty, and surrender to a power greater than yourself, a power that\u2019s found within yourself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What drives addiction? Exploring this question is essential if we are to change our lives for the better and recover the person we were meant to be\u2014the person we are beneath our dysfunctional patterns and behaviours. This person can be recovered\u2014that\u2019s why it is called \u201caddiction recovery.\u201d I believe that what drives addiction is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18168,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,241],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-october-9-2019"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18355"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18357,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18355\/revisions\/18357"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}