Pain as a Motivator
As already pointed out, the role of pain in our life is to motivate us to do something different. Pain lets us know that what we are doing is not working by signaling that we are moving further away from happiness. It is a warning system that tells us when something is wrong or when something needs attention. Remember the formula from Chapter 1, A {MISSING SYMBOL Wide-headed rightwards arrow} B? This formula is not rocket science so why do we keep doing the same things over and over expecting a different outcome each time? The easiest answer to that question is because we don’t know what else to do. We are all doing our best to achieve that one ultimate goal in life, to be happy. Perhaps happiness eludes us due to the progressively dysfunctional methods we unwittingly rely upon to feel better. Soon the best we can hope for is comfort and relief.
We don’t like pain and when we encounter it, we are compelled to seek comfort and relief. Growing up with all of this woundedness is painful. So where do we find comfort and relief? We cannot generate any good feelings on the inside because we can’t even go there, it is too painful. So, we must look to things outside of us for comfort and relief. Since we are all genetically and psychologically “wired” a little differently, we will find one or two things that “really does it” for us. Some of us are wired for alcohol or other drugs, others for excessive working, spending, drama, risk-taking, sexing, gambling, eating, and others for addictive relationships. These are only a few of the distractions available to us in this candy store we call America. [Fig. 9]
Emotional Attachments
When we find the object or event that “really does it for us” then we attach to it on an emotional level because we love what it does for us. It provides us with a very powerful, instantaneous, although short-lived feeling. Soon we begin to trust the object or event because it does what it is supposed to do (make us feel better) very quickly, very powerfully; in a way no one and nothing else can– every single time we ask it to. So, we attach to the object or event on an emotional level.
Figure 10: Comfort and Relief
Love and trust are the main ingredients for a primary relationship. This emotional attachment signals the beginning of a serious problem because we are not supposed to have primary relationships with objects and events. Our primary relationships are supposed to be with people who are important to us. Craig Nakken defines addiction in his book, The Addictive Personality. According to Nakken, addiction is, “a pathological relationship with an object or event that produces a desired mood swing.” This is, in my opinion, the best definition of addiction I have heard. I do, however, take the liberty of making one minor distinction for the benefit of my clients. I define addiction as “an unhealthy primary relationship with an object or event that produces a desired mood swing.” I make this distinction for a couple of reasons. First of all, “pathological” seems to produce more stigma than “unhealthy” even though they mean the same thing. Secondly, “primary” highlights why the relationship is unhealthy.
Most people don’t realize and will, in fact, initially deny that they have such a strong emotional attachment to their addiction of choice. In both treatment groups and individual sessions, I have asked my addicted clients the following question for the past several years, always with the same results: “What is the most important relationship in your life?” They will respond with “My wife, my kids, my mom, my boyfriend or girlfriend.” I always just shake my head and say “Wrong answer.” They initially get a little indignant that I would be so presumptuous to assume I know what is more important to them than they do themselves. Then all I have to say is “When was the last time you lied to your mom about …, broke a promise to your kids about …, broke up with a girlfriend over… etc.” There is rarely an argument. I close this discussion with “Maybe in your heart, they are most important to you, but in your life the reality is that the addiction trumps everything else.”
Let’s look for a moment at the implications of this emotional attachment to an object or event. First of all, the question of “choice” frequently comes up. For example, “He chose to start; he can choose to stop!” This attachment is a love and trust relationship just like any other love and trust relationship. When was the last time you “chose” to fall in love with someone? How easy is it to end a relationship with someone you love, even when you know it is for the best? When you do end such a relationship you can expect to grieve. Since this is one of the most important relationships in your life the grief process kicks in full-steam when one decides to get help and give up their addiction. This is manageable if we have the internal coping skills and external support network to manage the pain of this “letting-go” process. However, if we have this unhealthy primary relationship in the first place that implies that we have neither the skills nor the support necessary to manage the pain associated with this loss. So we fall back on the object or activity that we trust the most. This is precisely why people relapse into their addiction and precisely how they eventually lose their “choice” to “just quit.” To make matters worse, in some cases, there is the physical pain of withdrawal to contend with as well.
The comfort we achieve through this relationship with an object or event is an illusion. Remember, the wounds we must relieve in order to be happy is emotional in nature. Therefore, we need emotional comfort and relief, such as the kind we get when our basic needs are met, in order to heal and be healthy. The “comfort and relief” we achieve through the use of our object or event of choice is not emotional but physiological or physical in nature. In other words, we learn to mask our emotional pain with “medicine.” That means any time we have a feeling we don’t like, we medicate it rather than listen to it, understand it, and respond to it. This just pushes the feeling back down inside to accumulate with the pain that is already there. Using a chemical to medicate our emotional pain is tantamount to masking a serious back injury with painkillers while we go on working. We keep doing more and more damage without realizing it because our “warning system” (pain) was taken out of the way. Thus we continue to do things to increase our shame, guilt, contempt, and remorse. We prove it over and over again, that “we can’t do anything right”. We eventually abandon our money, our families, our cars, our pride, our careers, our dreams, our goals, ourselves, etc. As our pain increases, so does our need for “comfort and relief” [Fig. 10].
Sooner or later we will crash and “hit bottom” [Fig. 11]. This happens when we have accumulated so much pain that there is not enough “comfort and relief” to offset it anymore. The “coping skill” that used to work instantly now only barely works. This is when we are using just to feel normal. Some addictions get us there faster than others. Some addictions are too easy to hide. For instance, if we are addicted to alcohol, we can get a DWI or DUI, but if we have an addiction to work, we get a bonus.
Figure 11: Hitting Bottom
Hitting Bottom
A major obstacle to hitting bottom are the well-intentioned others who enable us by interfering with the A {MISSING SYMBOL Wide-headed rightwards arrow} B formula mentioned earlier. People who love and care about us want to help when we are in trouble. For example, when we do “A” (spend our rent money on alcohol) we should receive “B” (have to deal with it ourselves–i.e., take on extra work to pay the rent or be evicted). However, when someone steps in and gives us “C” (pays our rent for us “this time”) instead of letting us experience “B” then they have become our enabler. “Enablers” helps maintain our addiction a little longer by reducing or eliminating our pain. Remember pain is a motivator and teacher. “Tough Love” means stepping out of the way and letting us experience “B.” Often times our chief enabler is just as wounded as we are, so we have become their external focus. Think about it, what better way to distract from our own problems than to find a “problem person” to focus on. We tend to choose people on an unconscious as well as a conscious level. This explains how many people end up getting out of one bad relationship only to find that they are right back in another. Such people have an excessive need to be needed. They are Internalizers who find comfort and relief from becoming important to others. You will often hear other people say about them, “What a saint of a woman! Look at all she goes through, and still she sticks with him!” The masks they wear include the Martyr, The Rescuer, and the Victim.
Until we do get our wake-up call, unconscious psychological defenses block acceptance of the reality and extent of our addiction. Examples are: Rationalization (Excuse making, justifying); Projection (Blaming anything and anyone except the real problem); Minimizing (It’s not that bad, I can quit anytime I want); Diversion Tactics (debating, arguing, withdrawing, and changing the subject); Disarming (That’s just the way I am), Hostility (Intimidating others who try to talk about it); etc.
When the “call” does come, we are likely to reach out for help. The irony of this is that many people who reach out for help with their pain don’t really want to know what’s bothering them because their denial is still intact. They just know they want comfort and relief. For those readers who need help, I hope that this book will raise your bottom to the point you get it sooner than later. Unfortunately, some have a very high tolerance for pain, and they wait too long and some tragedy strikes. You don’t have to wait until that happens. It is not easy, but with honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness you can recover!