THE ROOT CAUSE AND LINK BETWEEN TRAUMA AND ADDICTION: A HOLISTIC VIEW ON RECOVERY

I’ve been there myself. Looking back, I spent most of my life riddled with unresolved trauma and then found myself caught in patterns of addictive behaviour in an attempt to heal and feel better. I’ll save the details of that for another blog post, but even though it took me 16 years of daily consistency to address it, I can say that healing is possible. I’m going to explain.

Two of the most common challenges people are faced with today are unresolved trauma and addiction. Sometimes people can see these two things as separate, but in reality they’re not. They’re like dominos in a line next to each other. The question is, which domino starts it all off?

Often times the addiction comes about as an unconscious attempt to heal the wound the traumatic event or scenario inflicted on our psyche, cutting up and making our internal landscape bleed and hurt.

Dr Keith Witt, Integral Psychotherapist, and a personal hero of mine, said that “all addiction is the use of an external modality to heal an internal issue”. What he means by internal issue and external modality can be explained through Ken Wilber’s (another personal hero) four quadrant model.

What we see here on the left are internal quadrants or aspects of being human, and on the right, the external. A human being is comprised of all four quadrants simultaneously. The internal are the intangible parts of us, and the external are the tangible, objectively measurable parts of our existence.

When it comes to trauma and addiction, often times the traumatic event happened in our internal quadrants, either through a painful story we have told ourselves, or due to someone abusing us. Sometimes both, for example we’re abused and then we start telling ourselves a story that “we’re worthless and unwanted”.

That internal hurt needs healing, but as it’s an ‘internal wound’, we need an internal modality to heal it fully. There are many different types, and the right one needed needs to be specified to the individual, but some common forms are shadow work, inner child connection, meditation (such as Mindfulness and or Tonglen), personal story analysis, soul connection to name a few.

This is where we come to one of Dr Keith Witt’s other quotes, which is “it’s hard to get enough of something that almost works”, and that’s what addiction is. It’s hard to get enough of the external stuff, such as drugs, alcohol, sex, toxic productivity, because it always just ‘kind of’ works. It feels good for a bit, but then the feeling fades and doesn’t last.

It’s the attempt to use something external, something tangibly measurable, to heal the internal feeling of “I’m wounded and in pain”. Anything can be used in an addictive manner, however common ones that are more immediately self destructive that we all know about are drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, junk food, and then other more subtle ones because a bit can be positive, but they can be viewed as totally good even when done to excess. These things are productivity and achievement, social media validation, perfectionism, exercise, and sex.

Below is a short video I made detailing this ‘line of dominos’, and briefly commenting on how one can optimally start to heal.

What’s optimal in terms of the first step towards lasting healing, is to re-establish a connection to the divine. And what I mean by that is your deepest self. That deep soulful part of you that is an expression of the universe. That part of you knows what you’re here to do, your purpose on earth. Are you here to be a painter? A musician? An athlete? A mother? A businessman? A comedian? Connecting to that purpose, that dream, your life legacy and Dr Happiness, as we say in the C.H.E.K Institute, gives you a reason to heal. It gives you a reason to be alive and to thrive, a reason bigger and beyond the pain. It gives you something to strive for and lets you know that you are not just a prisoner to that wound or hurt.

When we feel that love for ourselves and our life-force and enthusiasm (which comes from the root word ‘entheos’ in Greek meaning ‘the God within’) flow in again, we can start to let go of any held resentment towards those who hurt us, which is the primary binding chain that holds us in place stopping us from moving forward with our lives and healing effectively.

Healing trauma and from addiction is not a fast process, and nor should it be if we want to have lasting results where we have effectively re-wired ‘the software and upgraded the hardware’. The nervous system itself and the physical body must heal in concert with the internal aspects, so this must be spread out effectively under proper guidance so other aspects such as diet, rest, and proper movement are all addressed in the right way.

I hope that has provided a good starting understanding of the link between trauma and addiction and the first step to healing.

For those who are currently dealing with trauma and addiction and need some guidance, feel free to reach out to me