Addiction and coping strategies...unshaming the ways we soothe ourselves
In some of the settings where I work, I support those who need help around their recovery from addiction, using a trauma-informed approach. I believe that most people have experienced some type of trauma, whether through a particularly difficult event, or perhaps simply from not getting their needs met, time and again, for too long. Or from being exposed to something a little too overwhelming, one too many times. In my therapeutic work, I have seen the ways that we all, as humans, attempt to self-soothe and cope, when life and our relationships have hurt and wounded us. Some may use substances, like alcohol, cigarettes, prescription or even illegal drugs, to help them numb and suppress their pain. Others may lean into gambling, online shopping, disturbed eating patterns, or lose themselves within unhealthy relationships, that enable them to avoid, deny, numb or distract themselves. It is true that these strategies can cause harm, both to the person themselves, and those around them. However, our society can often shame and vilify those whose coping strategies it labels as 'bad', 'wrong', or 'not normal'. I have found that this blaming and dehumanizing merely serves to further isolate the person, and those who care for them, increasing their feeling of being somehow 'broken' or unwanted. Instead, I attempt to meet them where they are, from a place of compassion and humanity, seeing these behaviours and ways of being as simply the human and understandable symptom of the pain they have experienced. A desperate way of expressing and releasing what must be expressed and released, because their voices were taken away or disregarded, in the past. I have seen that, in time, by simply acknowledging the hurt, and the need, beneath, we can begin to provide enough safety, containment and hope that new, less harmful ways of being can emerge, which can help to rebuild a persons' sense of self in amazing and surprising ways.