Why Am I Addicted?
Addiction gets a bad wrap these days. Those who struggle with addiction are often treated as outsiders, lesser than those who look like they have their lives together. And while the persecution of the addict today is not as severe as in yesteryear, there is still a stigma around the addiction community. But why is this? Doesn’t everyone struggle with addiction?
I can hear the religious community and those in the social upper crust complaining now … “I am not like them!” I beg to differ. We all struggle with something. Why is this statement true? Because we live in a broken world. We were raised by broken parents who wounded us and caused us to seek unhealthy means to cope with life. We were abused in our innocence by the people we trusted to care for us and keep us safe. These unhealthy coping mechanisms can be legal or illegal, acceptable or unacceptable. The woman who struggles with alcohol is no different than the man who struggles with sex or the teenager who struggles with acceptance. But it is not just our parents’ or abusers’ fault. We traumatized ourselves by the choices we make. We come to believe that we are not good enough because we struggle to be the idealized version of ourselves we believe we should be. We are all addicts, who have been wounded and wound others. If you doubt this truth, just talk to the people you live with. If they are honest with you, they will tell you how broken you really are.
I do not sit on a soap box preaching this theme to others — I own it myself. I am broken. I struggle every day. I know that I run to distractions, bad habits, addictions and idols to soothe the pain of a wounded heart. While I did not cause these wounds, I have learned broken ways to medicate them. There is no one to blame … no one to shame. The only path forward is to tell the truth about how I got here and walk back these harms with truth, patience and intentionality. I have had to have hard conversations with both of my parents, telling them the truth about how they emotionally abused me. My parents did not mean to hurt me … they did the best they could. But they wounded me all the same. I did not understand these wounds in my youth. That was just how life was. But as I grew older and experienced more and more dissociation, I had to face the reality. There were underlying reasons beneath my unwanted behavior. I had to ask myself, “Why am I addicted?”
Asking “Why?” is one of the hardest things I have ever done. It meant digging through the discomfort of childhood trauma. There was the work of exposing these wounds to the light in the presence of others who care. Then I had to sit with the things I saw, embracing their discomfort and finding a way to love myself in spite of my self-contempt. In the mist of my abhorrent behaviors, I was able to find something to love. Not to excuse the unhealthy habits, but to become curious about them, and after time, allowing them to pass away like the unnecessary habits of a forlorn youth. As an addict, I was not ‘bad’ for trying to sooth my wounds, only mistaken. I knew no other way to care for myself than to indulge my addiction. But as I have walked my journey of recovery, I have learned to love myself anew. I can now care for both the wounded little boy and jaded teenage addict. They are both me — and they both need to be freed. By sitting with the question, “Why am I addicted?” I can embrace both my brokenness and love myself into the freedom the lay ahead.
Loving ourselves through the process of owning our story is the bravest thing we’ll ever do.
Brene’ Brown
