Addiction Isn’t About Substances
Here’s what it really is
The descent into substance use disorder is a lonely path to a dark place of isolation, disconnection and desperation. Words cannot accurately capture, convey or contain the level of pain felt by those of us so afflicted.
It can be easy to look at someone with a substance use disorder and make a snap judgment that their maladaptive overconsumption of substances is the source of all of their problems.
What many don’t realize is that substance use is often just a presenting symptom.
Presenting symptom of what? Pick a card, any card.
It could be an ever-churning molten soup of intrusive anxiety and worries about the future.
It could be the heavy, crushing pressure of hate turned inward (also known as depression).
Possibly, the constriction of our future to a narrow frame of the hopeless misery we see before us.
Maybe a harsh internal self-critic convincing us we are never enough.
Often, it’s deep, festering wounds of trauma, abuse and invalidation that travel with us everywhere we go — always waiting to be activated by others.
