Addiction: Substance Abuse and Codependency
We come into the world reliant on others; specifically our families or early caregivers to nurture and protect us, set healthy limits, and teach us how to communicate and express our feelings in relationships with confidence. We are intrinsically codependent upon one another for survival.
But in many families, particularly where trauma, substance abuse, addiction or patterns of denial of any kind is present, you may have learned to question your feelings and needs in order to feel safe, avoid conflict – stay connected. This becomes an unspoken and often unconscious adaptive pattern of behavior that can heighten feelings of shame, isolation, and loss of faith .
Becoming addicted to the idea that you are not enough – that you need someone or something beyond yourself to diminish unmanageable feelings, be more creative or likable may also lead to seeking relief in substances, work, food, people or other sources to quell an underlying loss of confidence, safety, and connection with yourself, in relationships, and within the community at large.
There are many approaches to working with addiction and most involve the 12 step recovery process that Bill W. developed through collaboration and consultation with the father of depth psychology, Carl. G. Jung. He believed that recovery begins primarily by undertaking an interactive, step-by-step approach to engaging and rebuilding the relationship with yourself and your faith through communicating and sharing with others. Clinicians like Gabor Maté have found that unresolved trauma underlies most all addictive behaviors. And beneath most trauma we find shame and the inability to move beyond it.
Body centered talk therapy is a highly effective approach to Recovery which focuses on recognizing how unmanageable triggers can highjack the nervous system and lead to automatic harmful patterns of behavior. Together we will discover new tools for interrupting patterns of self-sabotage and increasing your ability to recognize how the body responds to stressors on an internal as well as an external level. In a step by step way we will work to cultivate self-trust, identify healthy boundaries and needs, and empower you to make choices in alignment with your whole sense of self.