Recently, I had a client of mine reenter rehab. I hadn’t known this client long, so I had minimal context to determine his process in making this decision for himself. However, I am always pleased to hear a client tending to their needs and acting out of autonomy. Addiction is a specific area of my field that I have grown to love, and upon hearing the news from my client, I began to reflect on how addicts view themselves in society. Often, we hear the classic tale that addiction is a disease that needs to be "cured" or tended to through 12-step programs, and it requires the addict to admit to themselves and others the things that were done during addiction. 12-step programs have been used since AA was created in the 1930s, and the same model has been used in different areas since, including NA (Narcotics Anonymous), SLAA (Sex and Love Addictions Anonymous), and MAA (Marijuana Addiction Anonymous). The list continues as we now see addiction groups for things like video games, phones, workaholics, and eating disorders. As the list grows, so does our understanding of addictions, and what we see behaviorally is that we all find addiction in some form as human beings.

Some people most certainly will experience addictive behavior as a theme for their lives more so than others. They may resolve alcohol concerns, but find they now have trouble with cannabis addiction. That becomes resolved, but they now have shopping addictions that arise as new concerns, and the cycle may continue until the root cause is identified. When we see someone addicted to alcohol, however, it is met with a very different response from society than someone would receive who is addicted to shopping or food. Someone with an eating disorder is usually approached with more compassion because we have a basic understanding that if someone is over or under-eating, they must be in pain, but someone with alcohol dependency is labeled so quickly as a diseased addict and often does not get approached with the same perspective.

The truth about addiction is that, in all forms, it will be used as a method to distract and shut down our most wounded parts. Those who struggle with addiction have usually experienced trauma in their lives that has led to this mode of expression and release. The polarized perspectives taken on substance abuse could be partially due to the bias held that most of those with addiction (particularly alcohol addiction) are men. Little boys were taught that being masculine meant diluting vulnerability. The message that society gives men, “Man up, get it together,” is the same message being sent to the addict, “admit that you messed up and fix the problem.” Both of these statements convey the same sentiment, which is, “This problem is your fault, and you have to solve it alone.”

My point in writing this today is to share an alternative message. In the book No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz, he speaks about his model called Internal Family Systems (IFS). We are all familiar with phrases like, “part of myself really wants to, but another part of me doesn’t”  IFS uses this language and expounds on it, describing our internal world as being made of different parts that interact with one another. Schwartz asserts that we can access these different parts and communicate with them directly as a means of understanding what need is asking to be filled. For example, he highlights how addiction is a protective part that is being upheld because the other wounded parts are not safe to exist authentically. Below is an excerpt from the book and chart explaining the “personalities” outlined in the theory.

“Jonathan Van Ness tried and failed at drug rehab several times.
“Growing up around so much 12-Step, and seeing so much abstinence
preached in rehab and in church, I started to take on an idea that healing had
to be all or nothing, which has really not been my truth. I was trying to
untangle sexual abuse, drug abuse, and PTSD, and it was something that for
me wasn’t conducive to a never-ever-smoking-weed-again approach.... I
don’t believe that once an addict, always an addict. I don’t believe that
addiction is a disease that warrants a life sentence.... If you ever mess up or
can’t string a couple of months together without a slipup, you’re not
ruined.” There are 12-Step approaches that aren’t so locked in to the rigid beliefs
that Van Ness encountered, and the groups can be a wonderful context for
people to be vulnerable and receive support. Also, the 12-Step admonition to
give everything up to a higher power can often help inner drill instructors
lighten up or even surrender. The larger point I want to make here is that any
approach that increases your inner drill sergeant’s impulse to shame you into
behaving (and make you feel like a failure if you can’t) will do no better in
internal families than it does in external ones in which parents adopt
shaming tactics to control their children.
Don’t think that this critique of willpower reveals that there’s no room
for inner discipline in IFS. Like children in external families, we each have
parts that want things that aren’t good for them or for the rest of the system.
The difference here is that the Self says no to impulsive parts firmly but
from a place of love and patience, in just the same way an ideal parent
would. Additionally, in IFS, when parts do take over, we don’t shame them.
Instead, we get curious and use the part’s impulse as a trailhead to find what
is driving it that needs to be healed.”

Dayna Johnson, AMFT is now accepting new clients. Call 619-272-6858 to schedule an appointment or email us at info@anxietytraumatherapy.com