Addiction & Trauma

Many people with addictions report a traumatic event or period.

For too many people, this trauma happened in their early childhoods.While physical, emotional or sexual abuse are often reported, the trauma of being neglected, physically and emotionally, is sometimes overlooked. People say “That’s just how it was back then”, but that doesn’t acknowledge the impact of such neglect on a vulnerable, developing child.

Children find many ways to cope with abuse and neglect from those who should care for them. They might become, quiet and withdrawn; learn to be compliant and pleasing; be naughty and rowdy; or find solace in food or any activities that keep them out of harm’s way.

These strategies often work – maybe for a number of years. Sometimes people genuinely seem to forget how difficult things were for them. Then something happens in their adult life that either triggers old feelings and memories or is just too overwhelming to cope with. They can’t use their old childhood strategies to soothe themselves and they were never taught healthy ways to deal with difficult feelings and stressful situations.

Understandably, they turn to more ‘adult’ ways to help them cope such as alcohol, drugs, food, gambling, pornography, shopping and internet use. These strategies do help them to feel better for a while. But when the good effects wear off, they are left with debts, shame, tattered relationships and other unwanted consequences that leave them feeling overwhelmed yet again. With no other ways of helping themselves, of course, they turn again to alcohol, gambling etc. These substances and behaviours are addictive specifically because they work so quickly and effectively to change how we feel. They activate our brain’s reward system so we just want to do it more often, in greater quantities or in more extreme forms.

Even for a person well cared for in childhood, if they have a traumatic event in adulthood that is so prolonged or intense that they felt helpless to save themselves, they may well suffer PTSD. The symptoms of which can feel so uncontrollable and without explanation that, understandably, people will do whatever is within their reach to help them feel better. This is likely to be something that quickly and dramatically changes how they feel – and this is inevitably something with a propensity to cause addiction. So if a person is struggling with both trauma and addiction, it is really important that we work on both at the same time, so that they can start to move towards a confident and enjoyable life.