by Steve Rose | May 26, 2020 | Addiction and Recovery
On the go? Listen to the audio version of the article here:
Are you trying to help someone, but it is only enabling the problem to continue? This is a common question among persons trying to help someone with an addiction, but it also applies to other areas of life.
This article will help you understand whether or not your attempts to help are actually helpful, or if they are based in codependency, enabling boundary violations and perpetuating unwanted behavior.
In simple terms, when does helping become enabling?
Helping becomes enabling when you diminish someone else’s responsibility by not allowing them to experience the natural consequences of their behavior.
Helping allows someone to gain further responsibility, whereas enabling takes away pain in the short-term, making a problem worse in the long term.
Let’s take a deeper dive into this distinction.
The Difference Between Helping and Enabling
It is important to emphasize the similarity between the definition of addiction and the definition of enabling.
Addiction is a behavior resulting in short-term relief at a long term-cost. Enabling consists of the same process.
Consider the tiger metaphor I shared in my article on Why Responsibility is So Important:
Imagine you invited a tiger cub into your home. It is cute, cuddly, and harmless. You notice it begins to purr loudly, and the only way you can make it stop is to feed it red meat. Over the months and years, you keep doing this, but the tiger is now several hundred pounds, requiring whole sides of beef. Rather than a cute purr, the tiger roars ferociously for its meat. You are terrified, so you keep giving him the meat so he will leave you alone. The more you feed it, the larger it gets, and the more trapped you become.
Helping the tiger stay fed keeps it quiet in the short-term, but you soon realize you’re only enabling its growth. Eventually, you’re trapped with a huge roaring tiger, feeling like you have no choice but to “help” it.
Are you really “helping” the tiger? On one level, it looks helpful, but is this “helping” really about the tiger? Or is it about you.
Are you feeding the tiger out of genuine compassion? Or are you feeding the tiger based on your own fears and insecurities?
Are there safe boundaries between you and the tiger? Or are there no boundaries, leaving you at the mercy of its appetite?
Are you taking care of your own needs? Or is your eye always on the tiger, anticipating its next move?
If the tiger becoming dependant on you for food? Or are you allowing it to develop long-term independence in the wild?
As you have probably noticed by now, this is not really about tigers; it is about your relationship to other people who require your help.
Helping comes from a place of firm healthy boundaries, encouraging the other person to take further responsibility, allowing for long-term growth.
Enabling comes from a place of weak personal boundaries, encouraging the other person to continue sidestepping responsibility, preventing long-term growth.
Going beyond metaphor and theory, let’s take a look at what helping and enabling look like in the real world.
Enabling Someone With an Addiction
Enabling looks different in each circumstance, but common scenarios include the following:
- Lending money to someone with a gambling issue
- Making excuses for a partner who neglects family obligations due to substance use
- Treating repeated hangovers as merely being “sick”
- Taking on a partners portion of family obligations to keep everything together
- Paying for an adult son or daughter’s food and living expenses, when their funds are going to a substance or addictive behavior
- Turning a blind eye to red flags to avoid conflict
- Putting the needs of others before your own, causing severe self-neglect and potential loss of one’s own self-identity
- Attempting to gain self-esteem and respect through continually doing things for others or trying to be “the hero”
- Gradually building an underlying resentment toward persons one is trying to “help”
- Making empty threats after repeated boundary violations
- Feeling an underlying sense of needing to be needed, attempting to fill the void through several of the “helping” behaviors listed above
Enabling can look like helping, on the surface, but as you can see, there is a pattern in this list.
Enabling means doing things for someone when they can do it for themselves. This diminishes their responsibility due to the lack of natural consequences, leading to continued violations.
Enabling comes from a place of “good intentions” without healthy boundaries. At the extreme end, codependency keeps people trapped in destructive relationships due to their underlying unhealthy need to feel needed due to low self-esteem.
To learn more about healthy and unhealthy versions of this universal human need to be needed, check out my popular article: The Need to Be Needed.
Helping Someone With an Addiction
Helping consists of doing things someone can not do for themselves, leading to long-term growth and responsibility. Helping behaviors consist of the following:
- Listening to someone’s experience without judgment and assumptions
- Not overlooking red flags and holding someone accountable for their actions
- Setting clear and firm boundaries regarding responsibilities and expectations
- Collaborating on potential treatment options
- Seeking your own form of support
- Engaging in effective communication
To learn more about effective communication, check out my in-depth article: The Ultimate Guide to Helping Someone Change.
Helping is compassionate, not manipulative. It comes from a place of genuine giving rather than an attempt to receive external validation. Although it is giving, it comes from a place of firm personal boundaries, and one’s own needs are not being compromised in the process.
Helping is like a cast for a broken arm. It allows the bone to repair itself, simply by being there. Like a cast, helping becomes enabling when the cast is on too long. Rather than giving strength, the cast is now making the arm weaker as muscle tissue becomes depleted since it does not need to hold itself up.
Conclusion
Letting other people learn to hold themselves up is one of the greatest gifts we can give them. Enabling keeps a person dependent on you. Although enabling fuels underlying resentment in the “helper,” both parties in a codependent relationship are dependent on one another. The helper needs the person to stay in need of help to artificially fulfill their need to be needed.
Helping is collaborative and compassionate, but also careful. It comes from a place of genuine giving, while maintaining personal boundaries. It helps the other person build the strength to help themselves, fueling a sense of purpose, responsibility, and motivation for long-term change.
If you are interested in learning more about what causes people to change, I’ve written about the psychology of motivation in my article titled, What Causes People to Change?
If you’re frustrated, trying to help someone who refuses to change, that article explains why, giving a detailed account of what contributes to real lasting change.
by Steve Rose | May 23, 2020 | Addiction and Recovery
On the go? Listen to the audio version of the article here:
Working in a residential treatment program for behavioral addiction, meditation is an important part of daily programming. Despite meditation having powerful benefits for persons with an addiction, it is an area of programming clients often have difficulty getting into.
Many clients also underestimate the power of meditation, compared to other facets of addiction treatment. Meditation’s recent growth in popularity is more than merely a personal development trend, as researchers discover its surprising neurobiological benefit.
So what are the benefits of meditation for addiction?
Meditation can reduce symptoms of depression, anxiety, and improve emotional regulation, leading to improved coping skills for persons with addiction. This allows for increased behavioral control and spiritual development.
Let’s take a look at the science supporting the benefits of meditation for addiction treatment, then I will share an inspirational recovery story to illustrate the transformational power of meditation.
What is Meditation?
Meditation often congers up images of eastern mystics basking in sublime ecstasy while dwelling in solitude for years on end.
This is not what meditation looks like in the real world.
Although the practice was developed in eastern spiritual traditions, the field of psychology recently adopted secular versions of the practice. This means meditation can now be approached as simply a form of mental exercise. Like going to the gym, you don’t need to pledge allegiance to any particular faith tradition.
One of the most prominent figures who popularized a secular version of meditation is Jon Kabat-Zinn, a biomedical researcher, and founder of Mindfulness-based stress reduction. He defines mindfulness as the following:
“…awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgementally.”
So much of our daily lives are filled with operating on autopilot, inattention to the present, and judgment.
“What if I’m not good enough? What do they think of me? What if I didn’t do that report properly? What if I fail this class and don’t graduate on time? Am I a failure?”
These thoughts keep us trapped in our heads, mentally replaying catastrophic scenarios. This way of operating spikes cortisol, leaving you feeling stressed and anxious. As a result, many people turn to alcohol, substances, or addictive behaviors to escape the underlying tension.
Meditation is simply a mental exercise applying mindfulness, mantras, or focus on a particular emotion or intention. This psychological exercise builds mental resilience, leading to better coping strategies.
For the purpose of this article, I am generally referring to mindfulness, as defined above by Jon Kabat-Zinn.
Science on the Benefits of Meditation
In a meta-analysis on The Psychological Effects of Meditation, the researchers found meditation may serve two different purposes:
“…as a means for psychotherapy or/and for personal and spiritual advancement. Yet the boundary between these two purposes is not clear-cut, and we feel that it is perfectly all right to use meditation whenever it might have benefits.”
In addiction treatment, the psychological and spiritual realms are often interlaced, given the addiction field’s spiritual roots in 12-step programming. This does not mean one has to adopt any particular perspective; instead, the focus is on emphasizing whatever works for an individual.
A systematic review and meta-analysis on Meditation Programs for Psychological Stress and Well-being, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found:
“…meditation programs can reduce the negative dimensions of psychological stress. Mindfulness meditation programs, in particular, show small improvements in anxiety, depression, and pain with moderate evidence and small improvements in stress/distress and the mental health component of health-related quality of life….”
Despite the power of meditation, only 58% of treatment centers in a U.S. national sample used meditation as part of treatment for substance use. This compares to 91% of programs endorsing a twelve-step orientation. Although both can be effective, especially if combined, the power of meditation has yet to be fully recognized.
How Does Meditation Work for Addiction?
According to a study looking at The Role of Meditation in Addiction Recovery:
“…incorporating meditation into the lifestyle of individuals recovering from addiction provides a consistent means of preparing for inevitable, addiction‐related life challenges and a coping skill that can help maintain equilibrium in living with ever‐present peril.”
Meditation is one of many useful tools for persons in recovery, helping a person maintain a sense of control when faced with difficult thoughts or emotions.
One key area impacted by meditation is emotional regulation. Meditation strengthens parts of the brain associated with emotional control, allowing someone to respond to situations thoughtfully rather than simply reacting.
In a study titled, Mindfulness meditation improves emotion regulation and reduces drug abuse, the researchers analyzed the impact of a mindfulness practice called integrative body-mind training (IBMT). After only five days of practice, they found significant changes in the brain and hormonal activity among participants. They state:
“…short-term IBMT can significantly reduce craving (Tang et al., 2013). These results lead us to speculate that the increased ACC activity (related to self-control) suppressed craving even without the participants’ conscious intention. There are several routes through which mindfulness could influence addiction. IBMT reduced the amount and duration of cortisol to a stressful challenge (Tang et al., 2007), which may work to reduce addiction. Another possible explanation is based on the finding that mindfulness practice leads to a non-judgmental stance (awareness and acceptance) regarding addiction, which could reduce negative emotion, conflict, and stress, and thus lead to reduced smoking.”
Comparing the brains of smokers and non-smokers, the study goes on to show that the smokers had deficits in the pre-frontal cortex—the area of the brain associated with self-control. After the five days of mindfulness training, these deficits were improved. The study concluded that mindfulness is useful for both addiction treatment, as well as prevention.
An Inspirational Story of Recovery
To illustrate what the science of meditation means in human terms, I thought it would be helpful to share the experience of Jillian Leonard.
Experimenting with various substances since she was 14, Jillian spent roughly a decade trapped in the chaos of addiction. She developed addictions to opioids (morphine, Percocet, and oxycodone) anxiety medications (Ativan and Clonazepam), and stimulants (cocaine, ecstasy, and speed).
At the height of her addiction to speed, she states:
“I was taking 7 or 8 pills per day most days, awake typically 3 to 4 days straight, working full time and eating and drinking almost nothing.”
She was eventually hospitalized for psychosis and was at a crossroads. After being discharged from the hospital, she was left with no direction on how to cope with all of the racing thoughts about what she had just been through.
“The memories of the psychosis were at the forefront of every thought that I was having. I figured that maybe if I listened to calming music at night while I slept, it would be comforting enough to ease the anxiety and fear that I was experiencing. I began by searching YouTube for meditation music and found several that would play for 8 hours straight. For about two weeks I played them every night while I slept, and started noticing a drastic positive switch concerning my thought patterns. I was feeling calmer throughout the day. At that point I did my first sit down guided meditation and immediately was able to drop into a deep meditative state with periods of calm, peace, and bliss throughout the day afterward. Those peaceful states, brought on by the meditations, almost completely override the desire to cover up any negative emotions that I may be having with a substance.”
Her meditation practice did not take away the struggles that came with recovery. Instead, it made life easier to manage when those struggles were present. A major part of these struggles was the low self-esteem caused by severe bullying in middle school. Using substances became a way to escape the mental pain.
Her meditation practice started her on a spiritual journey, changing her perspective on the bullying she experienced and its impact on her self-esteem. She states:
“Throughout my spiritual journey, I have developed the belief that polarity in life experiences is there as a teacher. Without the negative experiences we are not able to fully appreciate the positive ones as much as we could. By having negative experiences with bullying, I am now able to appreciate the positive mental states I achieve by practicing meditation and mindfulness.”
Beyond appreciating the contrast of these positive mental states, meditation allowed her to gain distance from her negative thoughts and painful emotions, rather than identifying with them when they come up. Jillian states:
“It’s being able to view my past experiences through a state of observation as opposed to being immersed in the negative emotions caused by the memories. I am now able to have the negative memories of that time come up and not be sucked in by the emotions that typically come from the memories. As a result of these changes of perspective, I can now cope with low self-esteem issues by not identifying myself with them anymore. The thoughts and emotions of low self-esteem will still come up but I am able to separate from them.”
Meditation does not erase negative thoughts or stop painful emotions. Instead, it allows you to observe them, accept their existence, and keep living your life.
Like clouds in the sky, negative thoughts might roll in, but ultimately, you cannot control the clouds. You can notice them, but it is ultimately your decision to turn your attention to other things. Watching the clouds all day won’t change the weather. Instead, you can acknowledge they are there and focus on other things that matter, knowing the clouds will eventually part. Regarding her negative thoughts, Jillian states:
“I observe them, accept they are happening, and I do not attach my identity to them because I understand I am not my thoughts. Had I not developed the tools to distance myself from my thoughts, I am not sure I would be on the path I’m on today.”
Throughout her recovery, her perspective changed from being inwardly focused on medicating her low self-esteem to being outwardly focused on the impact of her behavior on others:
“My focus changed by elevated states of empathy brought on by meditation and learning about spirituality. I started to understand that my behaviors have a ripple effect onto others, whether I see it or not. I started to view other people through a lens of empathy and connection, considering their own personal states as opposed to being absorbed in my own. The way that it happened was by looking internally and asking myself if my own self-focus was the type of energy that I wanted to put out in the world or not. I then decided—emphasis on it being a decision—that I would rather live my life in a state of giving and understanding rather than self-centeredness.”
She attributes her ability to make this decision to the new perspective offered by meditation. Identifying with troubling thoughts keeps you trapped in negative, self-focused thought patterns. Jillian states:
“Once we start to observe instead of immerse, we start to see that we are not the identity of the thoughts, therefore, making it less of a challenge to create new thought patterns, such as the ability to identify whether or not we are in a state of self-focus or a state of empathy.”
Regarding the role of the ego, Jillian states:
“I feel like the ego has its place, but is the enemy when it runs the show. By bypassing the ego in any given situation and instead communicating from a place of love, authenticity, and empathy, that is how I believe the ego can be pushed aside and contained. Once the ego is running things, that is when it becomes the enemy and a person might find themselves in lower states of consciousness such as fear, guilt, and lack.”
Jillian began her meditation practice without any formal training, as an attempt to relax before bed. Throughout her journey, she discovered some helpful resources for persons interested in starting their own meditation practice:
“I find myself using guided meditations that are facilitated by a great practitioner named Lilian Eden. She has a YouTube channel with a wide variety of meditations geared towards different areas such as stress coping, sleep aid, sound healing, connection with spirit, the list goes on. I also use an app called Insight Timer. The app is full of meditations for whatever areas in life you might want to focus on. I attend sound healing group meditations occasionally and they are great for getting out of your own space and connecting with others while meditating in a group setting. I also recommend picking up books on spirituality. They can help a person understand the why question as to whether someone should start a meditation practice or not.”
If you are still skeptical about meditation, or have tried it and didn’t notice any results, Jillian has some words of encouragement:
“If a person is starting a meditation practice and finds themselves wondering why they are doing it and if there is actually any benefit, I can personally assure that there is. It takes time and practice but what you will eventually get from it is invaluable if you allow yourself to work on it.”
Jillian attributes all of her addiction recovery to meditation. She states that after leaving the hospital, she never took medication and never sought counseling:
“It has been the number one key for me personally… everything else followed.”
If you want to reach out to Jillian, you can connect with her on Facebook, here.
Interested in Learning More?
If you are interested in learning more about how to apply mindfulness training to your own recovery, I offer practical exercises in my article on How to Stop Living in Your Head.
My approach to mindfulness is based on the psychological principles of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), supported by over 330 clinical trials.
To read more of my writing on addiction, visit my Addiction and Recovery article page.
by Steve Rose | May 19, 2020 | Addiction and Recovery
As a course instructor in an addiction counseling program, I’ve had several students ask if you need to have experience with an addiction to become an addiction counselor.
The field of addiction recovery originally developed in 12-step circles throughout the twentieth century, and the vast majority entering this field had a history of addiction.
Today, the addiction counseling field has expanded beyond the 12-step model, integrating lessons from the field of psychology. With this shift, there has been an increasing number of professionals in the field who are not in recovery themselves.
Many people now wonder whether or not counselors without a history of addiction can be effective in treating addiction. This leads to the question: Do you have to be an addict to be an addiction counselor?
You do not need to have a history of addiction to be an effective addiction counselor. Also, there are both benefits and risks to entering the field after having personal experience with addiction.
Addiction counseling is one of the few professions where personal experience with the issue has often been conflated with competence in the role.
For example, psychologists can be effective without having experienced depression, personal trainers can be effective without ever having been unfit, and gynecologists can be effective without ever having been female.
This does not take away from the power of personal experience. Perhaps you may want to find a peer who has overcome depression, commiserate with a friend who also struggles with their fitness, or talk to another female who also struggles with similar gynecological issues.
Talking to someone who has been through a similar personal experience can be powerful, especially early on, but is not equivalent to seeking professional support. Professional competence in addiction counseling can be attained, independent of one’s personal background.
Let’s take a closer look at how this idea of experience being required for competence developed in the addiction field, then I will share my own unique path into the field.
History of the Addiction Field
The modern culture of addiction recovery began in the 1930s with the development of Alcoholics Anonymous. In 1954, Narcotics Anonymous was also founded, stating:
“The ultimate weapon for recovery is the recovering addict.”
These fellowships developed out of a sincere desire to reach out and help others who have been through similar experiences.
Throughout the early and mid-twentieth century, persons suffering from addiction were largely stigmatized and harshly judged as morally bankrupt and weak-willed. The mutual support, sense of open and honest connection, and the sense of direction provided by the Twelve Steps were—and continues to be—life-saving for persons with addiction.
The 12-step approach was likely far superior to psychological approaches throughout the early and mid-20th century when psychology had a crude and rudimentary approach to addiction treatment.
During the latter part of the 20th century, with the development of cognitive-behavioral therapy and motivational interviewing, the field of psychology became better equipped to effectively treat addiction, and the field became professionalized.
Now, the addiction recovery field exists as a hybrid between 12-step approaches and psychological approaches. Many residential treatment programs exist somewhere on the spectrum between these two frameworks.
Also, persons in recovery may seek support from a variety of different sources, often blending 12-step peer-support with the additional support of a psychologist, social worker, or addiction counselor.
Benefits of Being a Counselor in Recovery
Because of the 12th step’s focus on carrying the message of recovery to others, many persons who enter roles as addiction counselors have a history of addiction.
There are benefits and risks from becoming an addiction counselor while in recovery. A significant benefit includes being a personal role model that recovery is possible, offering hope and inspiration to persons feeling stuck.
Another benefit includes the ability to rapidly develop trust and reliability, allowing the other person to not feel alone in their experiences.
In addition, a person in recovery may be more familiar with the culture of substance use, allowing them to comfortably discuss usage, effects, and experiences.
There are moments when someone seeking recovery may want to talk to someone who has been through recovery themselves. Although they can pursue this kind of peer support without a counselor in 12-step programs, a counselor who also has this experience can be helpful during moments when this kind of support is required.
Risks of Being a Counselor in Recovery
Although having experience with addiction has its benefits, the experience alone does not necessarily make someone an effective counselor. Also, there are several risks involved when someone in recovery enters the professional addiction field.
According to a study titled, Recovered Addicts Working in the Addiction Field, important areas to consider, include the following:
“Potential risks for relapse… the ex-addict’s motivation for entering the addiction field, [one’s ability to anonomously seek] personal help from self-help groups… over involvement with clients, over involvement with work, over identification with clients, and the repercussions of relapse.”
Being stable in one’s own recovery is essential before entering the field to help others. Counseling conversations may put someone in early recovery at risk of relapse.
Another study titled, Former Substance Users Working as Counselors, looks at the subjective experiences of persons in recovery who entered the addiction field. They identified several areas to consider, including the limits of self-disclosure, the counselor’s objectivity, and the risk of losing credibility during a potential relapse. Regarding self-disclosure, they state:
“The issue is relevant for all kinds of professional and paraprofessional staff, but the therapeutic interventions of the paraprofessional staff will often be based on their own experiences into treatment and recovery (e.g., rock-bottom experiences).”
For any counselor, including persons in recovery, sharing one’s personal experiences should be focused on benefiting the other person and should not take the focus away from them. Distinct from an A.A. or N.A. meeting, self-disclosure in a counseling session is generally briefer and tailored to the specific situation.
Sharing one’s recovery story can have benefits, as previously described, so long as it does not distract from a client-centered focus.
Another risk for persons in recovery involves their experiences potentially distorting their view of the client’s situation. The previously cited article states this is:
“…[the ability] to interact with the client without letting his own experiences or perceptions distort his judgment and intervention. Counselors with a history of addiction often have a personal history, which in many ways is similar to the history of the client. This can impede the counselor’s ability to be objective in assessment and treatment planning, and there is a risk that the counselor may impose his own standards or criteria for success upon the client, omitting to evaluate the actual complaints.”
Any counselor—whether in recovery or not—who makes assumptions about a client and rigidly imposes their own standards sacrifices a productive therapeutic relationship, further alienating a client by making them feel misunderstood.
The article goes on to point out another risk persons in recovery may need to consider when entering the addiction field, regarding relapse:
…a counselor’s relapse is not a private matter as long as he or she is employed in a substance or alcohol-user treatment service—especially not when the counselor’s main qualification is a history of recovery.
I would disagree with the point that this is a person in recovery’s main qualification since counseling skills are independent of one’s background. Despite this, relapse does pose a genuine professional concern. The authors go on to state:
“A minimum of two years’ abstinence is usually requested prior to employment in substance or alcohol-user treatment services… [persons in recovery] represent a hope for a better future, and if they relapse, they risk losing their credibility as counselors. If the counselor’s recovery status is the core of the therapeutic relationship, relapse is a potent issue for clients, and the agency must deal with this reality…. Their personal success in maintaining recovery then determines their professional identity, and as a consequence, their ability to maintain a job and regular income.”
The article goes on to share the personal story of Charlottle who works in the addiction field and has a history with the Twelve Steps of A.A./N.A.:
“I am still linked with the Twelve Steps program. But I have also moved away from it—in the job that I have, and all my different kinds of colleagues. I’ve learned a lot from that. I have found out that I am not that different. . . the first few years [of being abstinent] you think you are so unique. And that it is only us [former substance users] who can’t manage.. . but mostly it’s things that everyone has a hard time handling. This has helped me not to feel different. I actually forget that I’m an ex-addict.”
This highlights the importance of seeing beyond whether or not someone has been through recovery themselves. Everyone experiences difficult thoughts and emotions and copes with these things differently. Rather than making in-groups and out-groups, it is important to evaluate a counselor by their abilities rather than their experiences.
My Own Story
The more extended version of my long and winding path into addiction counseling is shared here. For the purpose of this article, I can share a brief overview.
I have never experienced addiction, nor was I motivated to enter the field due to the experiences of family members. I fell into working in problem gambling prevention by accident since I needed an income to supplement my part-time teaching position at Eastern Michigan University.
In the problem gambling prevention role, I ended up learning quite a bit from the people I listened to. I also developed counseling skills from extensive training in motivational interviewing. Over time, I became increasingly passionate about the area and continued to grow through two of the most crucial counseling skills: empathy/understanding and meeting people where they are at.
Although I never experienced exactly what the other person is going through, no one else necessarily has either. Each person’s situation is unique, and the most effective thing I’ve found is to make no assumptions and stay curious. At its core, addiction is a way of coping with emotions that all of us experience. My role is to be with that person, collaboratively working through mental barriers.
I’ve learned a considerable amount of technical skill from books and training, but the human component can’t be learned from a book. It requires genuine humility and compassion. Working in the field, I’ve seen persons with a history of addiction and persons without a history of addiction make the exact same mistake: making assumptions and having too much of an ego. This results in an ineffective authoritarian interpersonal style, causing shame, alienation, and resistance.
Just as someone with a history of addiction may impose their experiences on others, a person who learned these skills from a book can impose a rigid theoretical structure onto their way of working with a client. This is something I’ve been working through over the past few years.
I had a great deal of practice working through this during my employment in a withdrawal facility. When I started, I immediately assumed everyone knew I didn’t have a background using substances. This insecurity soon faded away as I became swept up in the intensity of the role and the need to be completely client-focused.
I found myself doing a lot of listening and very little talking, noticing that clients rarely ever asked questions about me or my experiences. A few people had asked and were surprised I did not have experiences with substances, but the vast majority didn’t ask.
While in acute withdrawal, the clients generally only cared about what I could do for them and whether or not I cared. My personal life, my extensive educational background, and my complete lack of experience using substances seemed irrelevant. Some of the most in-depth interactions I had with clients ended with them knowing nothing about these things. Instead, I focused on keeping them as comfortable as possible, collaborating on a treatment plan, and listening more than talking.
Becoming an Effective Counselor
Let’s make a comparison to being a good salesperson. The experience of being sold can make you better at sales, but being sold doesn’t necessarily make you good at sales. You can be excellent at sales without drawing on your experiences of being sold to, but drawing on one’s personal experience can contribute to further growth.
If you are inspired to enter the addiction field, but have no personal experience with addiction, it is of course not advisable to go out and start a meth habit for “learning purposes”. Rather, draw on the emotions of transferable experiences.
Several emotions are involved in addiction, including shame, isolation, and dispair. Draw on moments when these emotions became overwhelming.
There are also several thoughts commonly involved in addiction, including the thought that you are not good enough, the thought that you’re a failure, and the thought that there is no way to get out. Draw on moments when these thoughts became overwhelming.
Listening to someone from a truly empathic place means accurately understanding what they are saying, logically and emotionally. In other words, listening with your head and your heart.
You don’t need to experience the exact issue someone else has experienced. Instead, you can pull from an experience that draws on the same emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. In terms of addiction, I haven’t experienced anything destructive, but I’ve dealt with something close to learning addiction where I tend to develop an obsessive focus on narrow areas, at the exclusion if other things. If not kept in check, it could for sure take over and become distractive.
Beyond listening from your head and your heart, I believe being an effective counselor requires both confidence and humility. Whether you have experience with an addiction or not, it is easy to feel like an imposter in the field. The “counselor” mask is a way to bolster yourself against insecurities, taking your focus off the client, and putting it on yourself. Clients can immediately sense this and shut down.
No matter your background, addiction counseling is an art. An effective counselor blends empathic understanding with carefully targeting the psychological processes that lead to change.
Now, teaching within an addiction counseling program at a local college, I’ve tried to share this same message. Since about a quarter of students don’t have a personal history of addiction, many of them wonder if they can be effective counselors.
Whether someone has personal experience with addiction or not doesn’t seem to make a difference in their potential to be an effective counselor. Either way, the barriers to human connection are the same. Here are a few barriers I’ve encountered that apply to anyone in the counseling field:
- Making assumptions
- Assuming you know what is best for someone
- Applying rigid recovery frameworks
- Seeking validation for your abilities/ professional identity
- Trying to “save” someone
- Not meeting someone where they are
- Doing things for someone rather than supporting their autonomy
- Too much talking and not enough listening
- Confrontation rather than collaboration
There are likely several more, but the point is that whether or not you are in recovery, these barriers are universal. Persons in recovery may be more likely to violate some of these, while persons who are not in recovery are more likely to violate others.
If you have any other suggestions for barriers to connection, I’d be happy to add them. Leave a comment below, and we can engage further!
If you are interested in reading my recent article on motivational interviewing—a foundational counseling skill—you can find it here: How Does Motivational Interviewing Work?
In that article, I take a detailed psychological look at the mechanics of this powerful technique, showing how and why it works.
Conclusion
Whether or not you have a history of addiction, you can become an effective counselor. Having a history of addiction has the benefit of offering a different type of connection and inspiration, but also has certain risks involved.
I’ve personally found that my background has not been relevant and have learned that counseling skills are independent of one’s own personal experience.
Although technical learning helps ground your approach in evidence-based practices, the most effective counseling skills cannot be learned in books. They must be developed from humility, compassion, and experience in client-centered interactions.
This has been something I have been thinking about for several years now, so hopefully, this article helps inspire others who are entering the field, wondering if personal experience with addiction is necessary.
by Steve Rose | May 16, 2020 | Addiction and Recovery
On the go? Listen to the audio version of the article here:
During my time working in a withdrawal facility, I quickly came to realize that crystal meth is likely the most dangerous drug.
Although crystal meth is not nearly as likely to cause an overdose compared to fentanyl, and the physical withdrawal symptoms are mild in comparison, crystal meth is the most psychologically dangerous drug in widespread use.
Crystal meth is probably the drug that is most likely to destroy your life in the shortest amount of time. Although users are more likely to stay alive, compared to opioids, many people describe it as feeling like they are dead, while still being alive.
This drug has the potential to cause rapid mental and physical deterioration, turning someone into a shell of their former selves.
So why is crystal meth so dangerous?
Crystal meth provides a dopamine spike more powerful than any other drug. This initially makes a person feel invincible, seducing them into centering their life around the drug, leading to extreme paranoia, hallucinations, and an inability to function in day-to-day life.
In order to understand why crystal meth is so dangerous from a first-hand perspective, I interviewed a fellow recovery advocate named Launa. Her experience using crystal meth powerfully illustrates why this drug is so destructive.
Here’s Launa’s story of addiction to crystal meth, in her own words.
Crystal Meth Is Psychologically Dangerous
From the first day, I smoked meth, I never went without it until the day I quit.
When I was using crack, there were days to weeks in between where I just took pills instead, but when I started using meth, it consumed my thoughts and I was just focused on getting more before it was gone. There were very few days that I didn’t have it, and nothing else appeased me.
I’m grateful that during my time using drugs, the fentanyl wasn’t popular, to my knowledge. Meth is harder to overdose on compared to other drugs, but I feel it is probably the worst drug I have done for my own safety because of the lost days and focus on things.
Crystal Meth Is Powerfully Seductive
When I first smoked meth, I felt on top of the world. I instantly labeled it my best friend and knew I would never go without it. I felt like everything in the world made sense. All my senses were enhanced. I felt smarter, like colors were brighter, and sounds were clearer.
As crazy as it sounds, I felt prettier, and I liked the person who looked me back in the mirror—in the beginning. Every other drug I did was on a different level, and I never felt any other drug was my best friend.
The world seemed like a greater place like a fog was lifted off my eyes, and all was beautiful. I had more energy and wanted to go out and do things, whereas other drugs had me wanting to hide and not be seen.
In the beginning, I was able to maintain all my responsibilities as a single mom. I would be on the go, cleaning, cooking, dropping my daughter off at daycare, taking her out to parks, walking everywhere, and reading her books.
I attended playdates and was full of energy. I enjoyed reading on many different subjects and felt that I was gaining much knowledge. I could sit and be completely focused on the topic of interest, often reading completely through the night and was able to be awake for my daughter when she awoke.
I would help people with their yard work or house cleaning and began cooking many different foods from different countries. It felt as though I could do everything everyone wanted me to do, fulfill all my obligations, as well as have the energy to do everything I wanted to do.
The lure of this short-lived top-of-the-world experience was insane, and I still feel it to this day.
The Downward Spiral of Crystal Meth
Sadly, this top-of-the-world phase was short-lived a couple months max. My activities soon became much more self-focused but it happened in such a way that I didn’t even realize it was happening.
I still maintained taking my child to her activities; however, when she was in school, I would try and force myself to sleep, and I couldn’t because I was high, and I became nervous people knew. I spent hours trying to make myself sleep or showering trying to not look high.
All the positives quickly became very negative high anxiety, total dependency, hearing voices. I would hide on myself in the closet and actually argue with myself.
It was a very steady progression into a living hell.
I would become paranoid people knew, but when my children’s aid worker would come by and didn’t notice, I felt no one knew and would actually begin conversing with myself from both sides.
In the moment, I didn’t realize that I was so crazy. I’m so grateful nothing horrible happened to my child at that time. I would drive her in the car to activities and didn’t realize at the time that it was unsafe. After I had given my daughter to a kin program, I began smoking an obscene amount and became completely different.
At one point, when I was on meth, I stopped paying bills and became homeless. It was like I didn’t even care.
Losing Track Of Time On Crystal Meth
I would spend hours that were lost, unaware of what I was doing. Sometimes I thought I had fallen asleep, only later to hear that I was literally standing by a tree, arguing with a squirrel who had stolen my pants, and well… there were no squirrels.
I found there were many time-lapses like this.
I would sit in front of a mirror and used knives to get out blackheads that I thought I saw, and hours later, I would still be doing it. I didn’t realize I had been doing it for that long, and in the end, I would have peeled off layers of skin.
I would also pick at an ingrown toenail until I had nothing but a nub of the nail left, causing a great deal of infection.
It’s horrible—the time-lapse and total deep focus on an activity that is quite destructive.
I fell out of any form of reality and didn’t realize that it had happened. With my daughter around, I was semi-coherent, but now that was gone, and I didn’t function in any realm of normalcy at all.
I would set out to clean, pulling apart everything and not seeming to comprehend how to get it back together.
This is where all the alter egos came in. I felt that I was three people in my brain. I had one that was fearless, wanting to drive fast, and do crazy things. We’d laugh and laugh. I also had the boss personality who was very mean, and I was always fearful it would come out. I felt like I was afraid of myself and this personality that wanted to hurt me and wanted me to hurt people.
The Sexual Allure of Crystal Meth
There was another alter personality that was childlike. As much as it was childlike, it seemed to act out inappropriate sexual activities that were done to me as a child. I wanted to reenact the traumas of my life.
I would lose hours in masturbation and would have hours-long sexual exploits with the guy I was with, and we reenacted the traumas.
In the moment, you don’t feel the time or intensity of the activity. I do know I was often frustrated that I was not reaching the ecstasy I was seeking when my partner was complete, and I would carry on until I felt complete.
The man I was with was clearly also using the drug and desired to help me reach my level of desired satisfaction with similar intensity and focused on that one outcome.
I can’t recall the exact number of hours it took; however, I recall watching the sun come up many times.
We also became crazy about having sexual experiences in public places. At night, we would smoke, have sex in parks, and in a car downtown Toronto.
Recovery From Crystal Meth Is Possible
I didn’t want my daughters to have my legacy of a dead mom because of her addictions.
I knew I was dying, and I had a 3-year-old. I figured the only way I could help her NOT be like me was to stop. I didn’t think I could stop, and I didn’t think anything could work since I thought I was too far gone.
I decided to try stopping one last time.
Several treatment centers turned me away, but Windsor Life Centre actually gave me a chance. I graduated from their 12-month treatment program and am now four years clean. I am now working full-time within this treatment centre, helping others like myself.
I want them to know there is a person inside that craziness they see. Also, no matter how bad things get, there is always a way out.
I started drugs at 8, taking my mom’s prescription painkillers. By 14, I was on cocaine. At 21, I went back to painkillers. At 35, I was on crack, and I got into Heroin at 40.
I started doing meth at 43, and this whole crazy downward spiral only took a year and a bit. Although it ruined my life fast, it actually quickened my recovery.
I was drugging my whole life, through pregnancies, college, and great jobs. Until I Started smoking meth, I never really felt despair. Before starting meth, I had been to prison, and it didn’t affect me like the depth of self-hatred and the demonic realm I felt with meth. I was never afraid of death, but I felt dead for the first time on meth.
Yet, if any drug was to suck me back in, meth would be it. That is the messed up thing. As much as I know the craziness, I can still remember the on top of the world feeling it first gave.
I won’t go back because I am way too stubborn, but sometimes the mind wants to remember and glorify that small window of time in the beginning.
Adjusting To Life After Crystal Meth
Sobriety is not exciting like drug life. I don’t have to live in constant high alert. I’m not chasing after a high or experiencing the thrill of the adrenaline rush of getting caught.
But now, I get to experience love and true joys. I find my own happiness, and I can look into my children’s eyes and love what I see looking back at me.
I laugh now and feel things that aren’t just negative feelings. I do miss the rush and the craziness at times, but I am experiencing many new and wonderful things now. I still love speed now, I just get it in a go-cart or as a passenger in a car.
It is hard to not live in chaos when that is all you have ever known. The excitement is definitely a hard thing to let go of. You just have to find within yourself ways to find the joys and embrace the change. Life is not meant to be a heartbeat away from a heart attack, and constant chaos, and turmoil.
My best comparison for someone who has never used drugs would be the COVID-19 lockdown. You go from the hustle and bustle to nothing. It’s quiet days at home, no traffic, no hustle, no bustle, and no excitement… just quiet.
You can sit in the quietness and feel sorry for yourself, or you can paint the house, learn to cook, and find enjoyment.
I love to tell women who feel hopeless that there is hope. Life is now what I make of it, and I don’t have to hate myself anymore.
If you want to reach out, you can connect with me on Instagram here, or on Facebook here.
by Steve Rose | May 13, 2020 | Addiction and Recovery
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In my previous article, What Does Addiction Feel Like, I shared Stephanie’s experience of addiction. Here, I want to share her story of recovery.
Her recovery was a six-year process. She spent two years continuing to use substances off and on, three years with an opioid substitute, and she will be one year off of the substitute in August.
I share her story of recovery to show that despite the extreme lows she faced, recovery is possible. See the previous article for more perspective on the depth of pain she encountered while trapped in addiction.
If you know someone struggling to recover from an addiction, I hope this article will help you better understand what they are going through and how to be supportive.
If you are struggling with an addiction, I hope this article helps you feel like you are not alone and recovery is possible.
Here is Stephanie’s story of addiction and recovery, in her own words.
Recovery Starts Before You Stop Using
You don’t just wake up and stop using.
Recovery starts before you actually get clean. It was the biggest mind war I ever went through. You know what your doing is hurting you but can’t stop. It’s like watching a bad movie you are the star of.
I was getting tired of chasing money and pills just to feel normal.
I started thinking about recovery when I had gotten an abscess and had to carry around a machine for five days. The whole time I was lying and telling everyone it was a spider bite.
You want to be clean but you’re not sure how or what that looks like. It takes planning and finding the right supports while still using.
I woke up for months saying, “today I will not use,” and be using by noon.
Recovery requires taking a leap of faith and reaching out for support, but not expecting perfection the first time. I would often miss counseling appointments because the dopeman showed up first. I then had the excuse that I couldn’t go to the appointment high because they would know I was using.
A Turning Point
Despite my using, I still cared about my kids and didn’t want my using to be the thing that took me away from them.
My oldest told me his biggest fear was Childen’s Aid Society coming in and taking them away. That hurt. He told me this while we were playing a board game called Nightmare where you have to share your biggest fear. I had to hold it together for the rest of the game.
It didn’t make me quit, but it made me work harder to hide my addiction.
What really pushed me over the edge was a story I saw on Facebook about a mother who overdosed in her home alone with her baby and the baby died of starvation. I had a toddler at the time, and all I could picture was him trying to wake me up and me not responding. I went to Dr. Farago the next day.
Recovery took a very intricate plan involving lots of pieces.
Having to Sever Destructive Social Ties
I had to cut my ex out in order for my recovery to work.
While I was living with my ex, he was in active addiction as well, so there was no chance I could stop with him there. He was my biggest trigger and would regularly bring drugs home. Three weeks after I got on suboxone, I had to use his addiction against him with the help of Childen’s Aid Society.
He then went on a meth bender, and I had grounds to put a protection order on him. That forced him to move out. Mind you, he is still homeless and using, so it took me a year and a half to get over the guilt. I still feel it sometimes.
He was broken, and I loved him. I felt like I was putting a baby out in the street in the cold and rain. I knew I was the only thing holding him together and that losing me would make it worse. But I also told him that if it came down to it and I had to choose between him or the kids, they would win.
I dropped a lot of friends that still used. My best friend used cocaine, and I had to distance from her, too.
No one ever wants to be alone, but the first bit of recovery is just that. It about tearing down the social network and rebuilding it with people that aren’t involved in that life
Adjusting to Social Life Outside Addiction
In addiction, your friends are the people you buy from and use with. You feel isolated from the normies. In recovery, you are trying to enter the normie world and be a part of that, but it is tough because you been in the underbelly for so long.
I couldn’t hold eye contact or a normal combo with someone when I first got into recovery. I felt awkward all the time, so I just muddled through it.
I had a really good counselor at House of Sophrosyne that really understood all of this, so she walked me through it. The social skills came when I started volunteering with the AIDS Committee of Windsor. I entered their peer program and attended their training series on active listening, public speaking, conflict resolution, and storytelling. These helped me to be able to speak about my experience and communicate effectively in other areas of my life.
They helped me build confidence. I’m still rough around the edges sometimes. The addiction world took away my ability to sugar coat things and gave me a very different perspective on the world I live in.
Dealing With Stigma
After finding out about my drug use, my family doctor treated me differently. He stopped taking me seriously, or at least that’s how I felt.
I had gone to several counselors at CMHA that had no knowledge of drugs and I found myself teaching drug 101 to them.
My family members would ask “how that drug thing was going” at family get-togethers, as well as monitor my drinking at these events. I was never an alcoholic but a social drinker.
Later on, in my working life, I was talking to a woman about the stigmatizing language she was using. When I told her I was in recovery, she instantly shut the conversation down and told my boss I had threatened to come to her home—none of which I said, and thank god my boss knew that. She was trying to get me fired from my job as an outreach worker.
Every time I posted on Facebook about my recovery, there would always be at least one person who made a stigmatizing comment or remark.
I have been told that “once a junkie always a junkie,” and have been called “junkie: more times then I’d like to say. A lot of people treated me like I was about to go off the deep end at any given second.
My dentist was the worst. She gave me shit because of the damage to my teeth and how much money my parents spent to get me braces and such. When I told her I couldn’t afford to fix them properly, she said I need to better manage my money and take care of my teeth. I changed dentists and have an awesome one now.
Generally, I was treated like I would relapse at any given second, so why have faith in me and try to build me up. I had to stop taking all that in and focus on the people that supported me, instead.
It’s taken years to get past all that and learn to navigate those that still have a stigmatizing opinion of me.
Finding Helpful Social Supports
I’m thankful for the friends and family that understood and still treated me like me. My mom knew nothing about addiction but has learned and listened to me and tried hard to understand.
My counselor at House of Sophrosyne didn’t require me to teach her, and she explained some of the stuff I was going through that I didn’t understand. She helped me find my worth and made me realize that relapse was not a failure but only a setback.
My addictions Doctor treated me like a person and emphasized that relapse is not a failure but a mental setback. He helped with other medical issues I was having as well but didn’t make my addiction a determining factor in my care. He gave me control over my program and let me do things when I was ready.
My counselor also met me where I was at and didn’t condemn me if I wasn’t ready to move to the next step. They both encouraged me to speak about my experience and helped me find the qualities that I didn’t know I had. They helped me educate my family so they could be a part of my support system rather than a hindrance.
I am super thankful to them today and still speak with both from time to time if I am having a hard time. Triggers still happen and sometimes I still want to use, but they help me to navigate that.
My counselor is the reason I want to become a counselor.
I also had some very supportive friends. My anxiety got really bad in those first months and my friends put up with me not going to birthday parties and Christmas parties because I couldn’t handle crowds. They understood and didn’t push me.
All of the supportive people in my recovery understood and met me where I was at. Those two things are the greatest things you can do for someone in recovery.
Learning New Coping Skills
Throughout recovery, I learned to navigate the feelings I was using substances to control.
I learned to not take everything personally. My counselor taught me I deserve a good life and that my past doesn’t define my future, but empowers it.
But most of all, I learned self-worth. They helped me see I was worth more than a life of drugs. That was a real turning point. Learning self-talk was helpful for this. At one point I would get up, look in the mirror, and just tell myself I was worth it.
Mindfulness was also helpful, but a bit harder for me since my mind doesn’t stop talking. The radio was my enemy at one point. I love music, but every song was linked to some memory of my ex, my substance use, or both. I would hear a song in Walmart and have to fight back tears. In some cases, I had to walk out.
I was able to “untrigger” some songs and items that used to trigger me by exposing myself to them in a safe situation. I started playing those songs while in a safe place with the support of my husband nearby and was able to change the memory attached to the stimulus. I’m still working on that but I have my radio back for the most part.
Breathing is also huge. When I get anxious I forget to breathe. Taking a minute to do that has greatly helped me process difficult feelings.
Learning to see the positive work I’m doing and not nitpick it apart is another challenge I’m working on.
Healing Family Wounds
I grew up in a home where being pushed to do better was how you were raised. I would get an A on a test and be asked why it wasn’t an A+. I felt like I was always just behind the ball and I lost motivation to try.
Once I was on my own, I struggled with housing stability and was always behind on my bills. This led me to believe I wouldn’t be able to handle life. The kids just blew that up for me because if I couldn’t take care of myself, how was I going to take care of these little people who relied on me for everything.
When using, all those thoughts stopped for a few minutes.
I’m lucky I have amazing kids, and today we are good, but in the beginning, my older three didn’t trust me. I had let so much bad go on around them. They had food, basic needs, love, and support, but the opiates damaged a lot. I couldn’t erase what they saw.
They never saw the drug use, but saw the people that came to our house and they saw us high. A program through House of Sophrosyne called “Mothers in Mind” helped me rebuild the relationship with them and earn back that trust as well as be able to talk to them about what they saw or felt.
My youngest was the worst off. When he was born it was probably the most chaotic time. I was using crack and was able to quit for eight months during the pregnancy, but in the last month, I relapsed. During that last month, I regularly used crack and occasionally used opiates. I even googled to find out what would happen to the baby if I used.
The ex was still using and bringing it home. I watched him use for eight months. I think I did pretty good going eight months at the time, since it was in front of me every day. A big part of my use was the thought, “if you can’t beat them join them.”
The day I had delivered him, I was using crack when I went into labor. This isn’t something I usually talk about.
During the pregnancy, I wasn’t connected to him like the others. He was “a thing” growing inside me. I didn’t want a baby at the time, but abortion was not an option. A program at Hiatus House specifically made for trauma damaged connections with babies helped me find that connection with him. He was about 2 when we went and now you would never know there was an issue.
Throughout this time, I wanted to stop, but couldn’t. I was in contemplation, trying to find ways to stop without having to get rid of the ex. I eventually stopped using crack, but relapsed and got hooked on opiates for two more years.
Relapse is a Normal Part of Recovery
In the beginning, I relapsed a lot, mostly with coke because the suboxone kept me off the opiates. Two years in, I went to a place I knew would have coke, thinking I could control it, but I couldn’t. I tried that experiment again three years into my recovery and had the same result.
I now know that certain places in the city are off-limits to me. Just because I’m in recovery doesn’t mean I can completely control my use. I’m always going to have that tendency to use. I have learned not to play with fire, so to speak. I stay away from people places and things that can trigger me and put me at risk
At my current job as a harm-reduction worker/peer engagement coordinator, I’m not tempted to use since I’m not around the actual drugs. I’m around paraphernalia. It can cause me to have fleeting thoughts about use, but I’m able to mentally squash the trigger by telling myself what happens if I relapse. It would be very different if I had a bag of coke and a needle.
What keeps me from relapsing is my children, my husband, and memories of what using did to me and the person I became.
My children are the biggest part though. I put them through enough already and I want to be the mom they need me to be. I can’t do that if I am using and I will lose them. I don’t have another stint in me. The next relapse will kill me. I’ll lose everything I have worked so hard for and I’ll have nothing left.
Becoming a Whole Person
During my substance use, I was a no one. I was just another substance user. Today, I’m a person.
Many people describe recovery as boring in comparison to using, but I love the boredom. I love the quiet. I don’t miss the drama. Sometimes I miss the party, but I don’t miss what comes with it.
I am happier today because every day something shows me I am worth being clean and that I have purpose like this.
I combat the boredom with things I never had in active use, such as friends, family, and my advocacy work. I am able to help people in a way that someone without my experience can’t. I have had some great experiences in recovery that showed me my voice was worth being heard.
Without being a counselor, I have helped others find recovery by telling them my story and letting them know they are not alone.
If you want to reach out, you can contact me on my personal Facebook page here.
by Steve Rose | May 6, 2020 | Addiction and Recovery
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Many people who haven’t experienced an addiction may wonder what addiction feels like. Also, if you are going through an addiction, you may wonder if you’re the only one feeling this way.
This article dives deep into the experience of addiction.
As a qualitative researcher and addiction counselor, my goal here is to help shed light on the experiences of persons suffering from this often stigmatized issue.
So what does addiction feel like?
Addiction feels like a chaotic loss of control, a sense of being worthless, hopeless, isolated, and lost, all while having an intense craving, and only feeling fleeting pleasure.
To help understand this feeling in more depth, I interviewed a fellow addiction advocate who is in recovery from an addiction to several substances. Her name is Stephanie, and she has given permission to use her identity here.
Although everyone experiences addiction differently, I believe her experience resonates with some universal features of addiction.
The Loss of Control
The loss of control is a universal feature of addiction. As Stephanie states:
The biggest thing I feel people don’t understand is the lack of control. They think we start and can stop at will. It’s not like that.
Telling someone to just stop their addiction is almost like telling someone to just stand up and get over a broken leg. Addiction takes away someone’s normal level of control over their lives, making them feel powerless. Stephanie describes this experience in the following metaphor:
Addiction feels like a war in your head. You know what your doing is hurting you but can’t stop. It’s like watching a bad movie you are the star of. You want to yell “stop” at the screen, but it does no good. It’s watching everything around you fall apart because of a simple action you can’t stop. It makes you hate yourself and the person you’ve become. You watch yourself do things you would never normally do and your mind justifies them for you.
Addiction has been historically moralized, and persons with addictions have been stigmatized by being viewed as merely making selfish decisions. As Stephanie states:
People think we want to be selfish and that we are only thinking of ourselves and not our families or children. We are thinking about them, but addiction has us think they are better off without us. We are worthless and wastes because we don’t have the will power society says we should. This is never a choice. It’s a maze or a trap we get stuck in, and we can only get out of it with love and support.
Stigma only serves to further isolate persons suffering from addiction, deepening the sense of self-loathing.
Isolation and Self-loathing
As described in my article on The Impact of Isolation on Addiction, isolation and addiction go hand-in-hand. Isolation causes addiction, and addiction causes isolation. As Stephanie describes:
We isolate because no one understands and thinks we are being selfish… addiction to me is being lost. Not knowing which way is up.
The experience of isolation is combined with the shame of self-loathing. She goes on to state:
When I was using, I didn’t want anyone to know because I couldn’t handle any more people’s hate. I hated myself enough already. The loneliness made me have time to think and the more time I had to think the more I wanted to use because all my thoughts were about using or the horrible person I had become while using.
Using substances becomes a way to cope with this downward spiral of isolation and self-loathing.
A Need-hate Relationship
As described in another article on how addiction feels, the need-hate relationship is a common feature of addiction. Stephanie shares a similar experience, stating:
There were many times while I was using, I would try to stop, but I would still make the call, and pick up to use. I would bawl my eyes out because I didn’t want to be using, and I knew it was hurting everyone around me but couldn’t stop. I hated myself for not having enough strength to stop. I hated the substance for what it did to me but still treated it like a friend.
Throughout her addiction, this internal battle played out like an out-of-body experience. She watched herself go through the motions, tortured by her inability to stop.
Fleeting Pleasure
As described in my article on The Most Neglected Aspect of Addiction Recovery, addiction is about much more than mere pleasure. Stephanie describes the role of pleasure in the following words:
The pleasure is actually short-lived. It happens when we use but only lasts a few minutes. We feel the warm hug or the rush the substance gives us, but 5 mins later, we feel nothing except the need/ want for another dose. We feel the self-hate, and that compels us to find the next dose to make that go away.
Addiction is more about escaping pain than enjoying pleasure. Persons with addiction are using the substance as a way to avoid short-term pain, but this comes at a long-term cost.
Although pleasure is a small part of the bigger picture, addiction still causes intense craving.
Intense Craving
Stephanie describes it as the following:
A craving is a thought that gnaws at your brain and won’t go away. It doesn’t let you sleep, you cant think about anything else, you go over every scenario in your head on how to get your next fix. It is like wanting to crawl out of your skin. Like sitting in a bathtub filled with red ants.
In everyday life, we often hear people say things like, “I’m really craving ice cream.” So I asked Stephanie how she would compare addictive cravings to your average sugar craving:
I get cravings for sugar now because of the opiates but its nothing like the cravings I got with opiates or coke. It’s like the craving takes over your whole person! Sugar is a hankering in comparison.
If you’ve ever felt powerless when faced with desserts, consider this feeling amplified to the level of addiction. This helps put the experience of control in perspective.
How Different Substances Feel
Since addiction is primarily focused on coping with mental pain, how do different substances affect this experience?
First, let’s consider stimulates. These include drugs like cocaine, amphetamines, and crystal-meth. As Stephanie states:
Stimulants make you feel ten feet tall and bulletproof. Nothing can be wrong cus you can take on the world and win.
Many people describe stimulants in these terms, crystal-meth being the most potent of the group. Despite the physical disintegration, users of this drug report feeling supremely self-confident in their appearance while using it.
Next, let’s consider the experience of depressants. These include substances like alcohol and benzodiazepines like Xanax. Stephanie states:
Depressants just numb you and all thought. You’re too messed up to think about all the issues around you.
This is why so many people use alcohol to relax, unwind, and “get out of their head.” This lack of care an impaired judgment is also what makes depressants so lethal while operating motor vehicles.
Lastly, let’s consider the experience of opiates. These include substances like heroin, oxycodone, and fentanyl. Stephanie states:
But opiates… opiates is the warm hug. The blanket that makes you feel safe and stops the pain in your chest. It helps stop your mind from feeling over and over again what’s wrong with you.
These substances are designed to mask physical pain, but they are also able to mask emotional pain, leading to this feeling of warmth.
It should be noted that these descriptions are not meant to glamorize the substances. These short-term benefits are fleeting, leading to far more severe costs in the long run.
Overall, the type of substance doesn’t necessarily matter as much as their ability to temporarily make the mental pain go away. Stephanie states:
I would have snorted drain cleaner at the time if you told me the pain would go away.
Conclusion
Addiction feels like chaos. It is an inability to control your life, leading to a sense of self-loathing, hopelessness, isolation, and being lost.
A person becomes trapped in a need-hate relationship with a substance or behavior that is having increasingly destructive consequences on every area of their life.
Despite the fleeting pleasure, addiction is mostly about escaping mental pain. Although each substance has a unique way of masking pain, they are all used as forms of short-term coping at a long-term cost.
Recovery requires community, connection, and the courage to reach out. Stephanie states:
The only time we can start to go up is when we ask for help. We can’t do it alone, and every failure we have when we try on our own makes it worse.
Stigma leads to shame and segregation. As Stephanie states:
When you see someone that is using, and your brain wants to think those horrible things about them, ask yourself what happened to them to make them use. What pain are they trapped in, trying to get out? And something as simple as a smile can mean the world to someone living in that dark place.
If you want to reach out to Stephanie, you can contact her on her personal Facebook page here.
Stephanie also works with a local anti-stigma campaign called Label Me Person.
All views expressed are hers and are not intended to represent any organization she is associated with.
