Transforming Addiction part 2

Originally written - July 29th, 2015 by White Wolf
 
From my own experience with the severity of trauma is that a person adapts severe survival instincts and actions based upon the energy of the trauma. These actions and instincts are of course created of necessity in response to the continual life threatening and thus traumatic situations, especially in children who have not yet developed the brain capacity for logic and reason to in anyway successfully deal with the traumatic events. These new and enhanced instincts become part of the psyche and morph into whatever area of life the brain feels they are required. But this is from a brain that was deprived of a balanced experience set for proper development. Therefore the brain can develop a logic not based upon a “safe and normal” lifestyle, but rather a violent, dangerous and highly traumatic one.

In time these instincts and “odd logic” find they do not fit into a new and more peaceful life. However, since they are so deeply rooted in the primal areas of the brain, they do not just go away. When the cycles of reliving trauma rise from whatever triggering may have occurred, the old survival instincts also raise. But for some they no longer come out in the same format. One thing I taught on the island last weekend, I said everything we do not deal with gets sunk in the blackness of our depths. And in time under extreme pressure can mutate into something else. Sometimes these things will mutate into addictions and when they surface the suppressed energy will act out in the form of an addiction.

I have noticed the addiction many times in its own unique way mimics the trauma, which is the addictions origin. For example, and these are just possible examples of an addiction and their possible origin:

• Smoking – poisons the lungs directly and dulls the stress felt in the brain, also harms other people around the smoker
  • Child being yelled at constantly, smothered with low level communication, creating dissociation, numbness and feelings of guilt and self punishment
  • Such things can lead to unhealthy acts of self punishment dealing with smothering one’s self and numbing the stress in the process, stealing the vital energy so there is not enough to analyze the past unresolved issues…
• Gambling – the chance of life, need to win, beat the odds or lose all
  • Child being exposed to life threatening situations, being given ultimatums for reward or punishment, a child being raised in a highly competitive atmosphere
  • Such a child could grow up with the unhealthy addiction to tempting Madame Fate on many levels and could even gain stress relief from such activities, but the underlying stress could be unresolved childhood issues…
• Alcohol – distraction and distortion from reality, poisoning the liver which is the organ of new beginnings, spring, childhood and upward growth
  • Child feeling they are being drowned in overbearing emotions, being suppressed in the natural human growth and expansion processes, feeling like all the anger in the world is being directed at them…
  • The grown adult or teen could fall prey to alcohol which congests the liver, stunts growth on all levels, suppresses desire, breeds internal anger, distorts their reality, helps them escape the internal pain, literally drowns their sorrows…
• Sex – elevation of mood, release of endorphins and other “feel good” chemicals, numbs pain, giver/receiver roles, makes one forget about just about everything else
  • Child who was in some way sexually abused or felt sexually vulnerable, inadequate, sexually dumped upon…
  • Teen or adult can use the power-trip to become the aggressor of their childhood as away to release the unresolved stresses, or can become the opposite and continually reenact the victim also to self punish because the sexual abuse can release a complex mix of chemical hormones that confuse the brain and body (pain, stress, fear, pleasurable sensations and a whole lot more), the teen or adult can seek the pleasure/punishment cycle of confusion to dissociate and escape the unresolved issues lurking inside…

Now of course there is no one answer or right answer or cause for addictions. The reasons can be very simple or quite literally mind-boggling and complex. They can be from trauma, chemical imbalances, environmental conditions, genetic make-ups, simple childhood exposure, side-effects from prescription drugs and on and on and on the list goes.

The point is that addictions always have deeper underlying reasons and causes. They do not just pop out of nowhere for no reason. They can be a direct view of an underlying cause that is exactly the same; a father was a compulsive gambler and perhaps won a lot, the child sees this over and over and later in life adapts the habit. Or they can be very convoluted and dark based reasons; a child was sexually abused in cult style ritual fashions and not only endured abuse but brainwashing, torture and perhaps witnessed murder and so on. This deep and powerful trauma can split the personality and create new levels to endure new traumas of which create a labyrinth of complex spider web imbalances in personalities that can bleed in very direct or subtle ways throughout the individual’s life.

If you have an addiction or if you know someone who does, it is what lies beneath that is the issue; the addiction is only the superficial surface crying out for help. Some various ways one could go about exploring what is underneath can be found in my PTSD, living with the beast, a personal story e-book, basic techniques found in my first Transforming Addiction article and countless self help books easily available on-line. In-short, there is help everywhere IF you want it. Nobody can transform an addiction unless they want to. Some people can literally do it overnight and others may work with the healing process for many years, yet everyone is susceptible to relapses. Life can be stressful, disappointing, traumatic and the brain looks for ways to cope and the only solid resources it has to fall back on in times of severe stress are the primal ones created in childhood when the brain was still developing. This is why I find removing one’s self as much as possible from stress and lifestyles exposing one to high levels of stress are a vital part of successful healing and brain rewiring. It is very hard to heal and rewire the brain when the external situations continue to tug and dredge the subconscious into survival mode.

For me I have found helpful:

• First identifying and acknowledging you have an addiction
• Identify the addiction
• Begin researching as much as you can about the addiction
• Use the techniques to start the self discovery in my Transforming Addictions article
• Rely upon your strong, reliable support group to help you (family, friend’s counselor…)
• Focus on the techniques in my PTSD e-book
• Remind yourself daily that it is not your fault
• Remind yourself daily that you are NOT the addiction and thus you can wash yourself of it
• Look for ways to reduce stress in your life and anything you know to be a trigger for past issues of trauma

​Again this is mainly for informational purposes, but I do hope people will be able to uses some of these things to assist them in successfully transforming their addictions and traumas into something more beneficially productive.