Today I am incredibly grateful that the only thoughts occupying my mind when I wake in the morning, is the day ahead and the health of my children and loved ones. It seems like a distant memory, but I do remember a time in my life when the first thing I thought about moments after waking, was when was I going to have a drink?
I had rules and regulations on when and how much I drank, but none the less it occupied my waking thoughts. Part of me now feels sad that I needed to know that I had a drink waiting for me at the end of each day, but now years later, I know why.
Having a drink became part of my default thinking. It became my mistaken goal and it allowed me to tackle and take in my stride whatever the world threw at me. I was happily married but alcohol had become my mistress. Today I no longer drink any alcohol or smoke. I stopped both on the same day and I carry my human rawness into every situation. I recognise now that my drinking had a purpose, it slowed my ever racing mind and it was protecting me from a part of me I had divorced many years previous. It anesthetised my emotions, it dampened my anxiety and it soothed my low sense of self-esteem.
Having had my own complicated and intimate relationship with alcohol for the best part of 20 years, it has allowed me work with many people in their “private internal civil war” as they struggle to regain a sense of normality in the world without either the substance or the behaviour to save them.
During the last five years I have worked with hundreds of individuals over thousands of hours as they struggle with either a substance or behaviour addiction. I have worked with some of the most chronically addicted in society and some of the most perceived privileged in society.
In my blogs for A Lust for Life, I have been tasked to humanise how addiction is perceived in our modern Irish society and it is my intention to meet this honourable task. I have walked my own walk in addiction and as a therapist and addiction coach, I support people from every part of society as they slip, trip and fall on their personal journey to find “normality”. Addiction is one of the most emotional and physically draining areas we can practice in as carers, but it can be one of the most beautiful transformations to witness in a person.
Substance addiction can range from crack cocaine to sugar and behavioural addictions can range from sex and pornography, to a work addiction. As an addiction coach I see addiction quite practically. I see it as an attempt to cope and it has been my job to help my clients find what it is that the substance or behaviour that is dismantling their daily lives is attempting to help them cope with.
With every client I have worked with as an addiction coach, abuse in some shape or form has been a part of their past, combined with a dysfunctional and critical relationship with themselves in the present. Gabor Mate is an international influencer in working with and understanding addiction, in his book “In the realm of hungry ghosts” he describes his first question to his client as “Not why the addiction, but why the pain?”
Research has shown that the same part of the brain lights up when we experience physical and emotional pain. Many addictive substances are pain killers but could that be killing emotional pain too?
Many professionals have called addiction a disease, through my work I disagree. I see it as dis-ease within ourselves and the addictive behaviour or substance we reach for is the attempt to escape this dis-ease, the psychological and emotional pain.
I often start working with clients who are truly perplexed to whether they have a problem or not. “I only drink 5 beers (every night)”, “I only do Cocaine at the weekends”, “Sure isn’t everybody working more hours than they would like?”
I have found that proposing the following scenario helps with their perplexity. I ask them to slowly close their eyes and feel for answers, not think the answer to the following suggestion. I ask them to imagine that they would never again in this lifetime take another pill, have a drink, place a bet, eat a bar of chocolate, do a line of cocaine or watch another minute of porn.
I have bared witness to many of their answers but every time when the client approaches the answer openly and honestly and from an emotional perspective, it has allowed for deep unresolved responses of anxiety, sadness, guilt and fear to seep to the surface. As a therapist my approach is to assist them to navigate these complex human emotions. As a coach I assist them to develop self-devised adaptive coping mechanisms for life- all easier said than done.
Support Our Campaign
We rely on the generosity of the public to fund our work and so far together we have achieved great things! Please do continue to support us so we can provide future generations in Ireland with the resources to recognise and talk about their emotions, and equip them to navigate the ever-changing world around them as they grow
