![\"what-drives-addiction\"](\"https:\/\/bridgesofhopeblog.files.wordpress.com\/2015\/09\/what-drives-addiction.jpg\")
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Perhaps Lance Dodes, MD, a\u00a0Training and Supervising Analyst emeritus with the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, and Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, can explain. He has written and co-written many book chapters and journal articles about addiction, including the\u00a0groundbreaking books, The Heart of Addiction (HarperCollins, 2002), Breaking Addiction: A Seven-Step Handbook for Ending Any Addiction (HarperCollins, 2011) and The Sober Truth: Debunking the Bad Science Behind 12-Step Programs and the Rehab Industry (Beacon Press, 2014).<\/p>\n
According to Dodes, addiction must also be understood not only biologically but also psychologically. Addiction is caused by certain emotional triggers, and for John’s case, he felt trapped. For some reason, he knows he has to be there for his wife and family. However, he felt like he cannot just comply either. This dilemma felt uncomfortable and disturbing, and as always as before, he always feels like he has to do something to not feel what he is feeling. For him, that “something” has always been meth.<\/p>\n
Dodes cites the three psychological elements that drive addiction:<\/p>\n
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- Every addictive act is preceded by a feeling of helplessness or powerlessness<\/strong>.\u00a0 The issues that precipitate these overwhelmed states of helplessness are unique to each person (correspondingly, treatment must be individualized toward understanding these issues).\u00a0 Addictive behavior functions to repair this underlying feeling of helplessness<\/span>.\u00a0 It is able to do this because taking the addictive action (or even deciding to take this action) creates a sense of being empowered – of regaining control – over one\u2019s emotional experience and one\u2019s life.\u00a0 Drugs are particularly good for this purpose because altering (and thereby controlling) one\u2019s emotional state is just what they do.\u00a0 However, non-drug addictions can be shown to work in exactly the same way, since they are also acts that work to change (and therefore reassert power over) how one feels.\u00a0 The reversal of helplessness achieved by these addictive acts may be described as the psychological purpose<\/em> of addiction.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
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- States of overwhelming helplessness<\/strong>, such as the feelings that precipitate addictive acts, produce a feeling of rage.\u00a0 This rage is actually a normal response to the serious emotional injury of losing a sense that one is in control over oneself and one\u2019s life.\u00a0 This rage is the powerful drive<\/em> behind addiction<\/span>.\u00a0 And we know something about great anger at powerlessness: it has the capacity to overwhelm a person\u2019s judgment while he or she is in the throes of the rage.\u00a0 It is precisely the presence of this rage at helplessness that gives to addiction its most defining characteristics: great intensity with loss of usual judgment and seemingly irrational destructive behavior.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
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- In addiction, the rage at helplessness is always expressed via a substitute behavior (a displacement<\/em>)<\/strong>.\u00a0 If this feeling were expressed directly, there would be no addiction<\/span>.\u00a0 For example, if a man were flooded with feelings of intolerable helplessness when he was unfairly criticized by his boss (because the criticism touched on old sensitivities, for instance), and he then charged into his boss\u2019s office furiously complaining, there would be no addiction.\u00a0 But if he displaced<\/em> his need to reverse his helplessness, and instead of charging in to the boss\u2019s office he went home to drink, then his drinking would be driven by the same rage he would have expressed toward his boss.\u00a0 If drinking were the way he regularly dealt with states of overwhelming helplessness then he would have a repetitive, intensely-driven, apparently irrational drive to drink.\u00a0 We call such compulsive behavior an addiction.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/blockquote>\n
In John’s case, he\u00a0needed that\u00a0raise and the news was greatly saddening. He would have handled it well and thought of another way to augment his low income, or simply explain to his wife they have to be more stringent. Instead, he reacted with his typical emotional mechanism, which has time and again led him back to his addiction.<\/p>\n
\nDo you feel the same feelings of helplessness and powerlessness? Do you often feel trapped and therefore resort to your “easy way out,” your escape? Perhaps you need to talk to someone about this. We’re here to help you.<\/p>\n
Text 0917-509-8826 or Call 622-0193<\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"