Should misery addiction properly be called an addiction? You bet.
There are three easy tests to see if something is an addiction. Here’s the oldest.
If you remove the substance or activity, does the person experience withdrawal? Do the symptoms of withdrawal disappear when the substance or activity is reintroduced? Then when you remove it a second time, does withdrawal reoccur?
Symptoms of withdrawal—disorientation, mood swings, sudden bursts of anger or rage, a change in sleeping patterns, a change in appetite—are all indicative of the brain having a fit, of neurons missing chemicals they are used to receiving. Withdrawal occurs in a predictable pattern for a predictable number of days, depending on the substance or activities involved.
Do misery addicts experience withdrawal? Hoo boy! Here at our retreat center we call it Hell Week.
Remember, one characteristic of misery addiction is using a constellation of tool addictions that, while temporarily soothing the misery, actually increase it. When a misery addict is separated from all of her addictions and is unable to sabotage herself, it isn’t pretty.
What makes a misery addict feel better? Let him be on his own for a weekend, making all of his own decisions. He’ll get right back into his comfortable groove of sabotaging himself—and all the withdrawal will go away.
Something is an addiction if
Misery addiction passes this test with flying colors. Self-sabotaging actions can be many and varied. Whatever set of these behaviors a misery addict uses, the need for them is so great that she can’t stop herself from doing them. Even in the midst of a very pleasant, healthy activity, a craving for the familiar self-sabotage will begin to intrude on her experience.
A misery addict suffers losses in his health, relationships, finances, time, and career. Yet despite knowing that self-sabotaging actions will mess up things, he keeps doing them.
There is one other way to identify addiction: does recovery fix it? Do the methods that emancipate alcoholics, drug addicts, gamblers, and food addicts work for misery addicts too?
Yes, indeed. Misery addiction responds well to the principles and practices of traditional recovery programs. The same type of recovery program that rescues the lives of other addicts rescues misery addicts as well.
The corollary to the above question is: does therapy alone not fix it?
For most addictions, even the best therapy doesn’t separate the user from her drug. A food addict will still seek sugar and a smoker will still smoke. Excellent therapy can heal the influence of the past, but it doesn’t fix the physiological alterations the body has made due to the addiction.
Misery addiction also passes this test. Therapy alone does not reverse it.
Misery addiction is an addiction to avoidance, to self-sabotage, and to a system of survival that results in a loss of joy, intimacy, and potential. Recovery is also a system. The recovery process gives the misery addict a new, different, and healthier system to substitute for the old one.
In recent years, the technology for studying the human brain has advanced remarkably, yielding information previously only dreamed of.
Each year we come closer to identifying the specific mechanisms of addiction. For the traditional addictions—alcohol, drugs, sugar, and so on—we are discovering ever more about the neurotransmitters involved and the specific physical locations triggered within the brain. Research into activity addictions such as gambling, sex addiction, workaholism, and caretaking is not as advanced, but I believe strongly that soon we will be able to pinpoint how these mechanisms work in the brain as well.
Lastly, we are now beginning to identify physical correlates of trauma, often a precondition for addiction. Remember, most misery addicts are trauma survivors.