Substance-Use as a Substitute to Intimacy, Bonding & Attachment
I work in the world of trauma. I am afforded access to some of the deepest, darkest and most protected parts of individuals. It is a great privilege to be invited to these sacred places. These individuals are not only learning their true selves and re-wiring their nervous system via a healthy relationship, they are also providing me with empirical knowledge. I use this knowledge to distill education in written and verbal form so that a greater audience may learn and grow. The contents of this blog, especially the empirical data, come by virtue of my clients. I am hugely grateful to them for this precious gift.
Here are some stats I’ve pulled from my client base: In the beginning stages of committing to doing the inner work - which I called “existence-level work” - about 90 percent of my clients have acknowledged they are addicted to substance. Of this 90 percent, 40 percent are poly-users (alcohol and marijuana) and 60 percent are mono-users, split about 50 percent: alcohol or marijuana. The population that is 40+ tends towards alcohol, while the population 35 and under towards marijuana.
Through my private session interactions, I have concluded that nearly every “disorder” is a manifestation of a very early bonding and attachment rupture. Our mother is our first intimate relationship. This relationship establishes how we will ultimately interface with the world: through a filter of safety or a filter of threat. If her nervous system had the early experience of being nurtured and attuned to, she passed on to us the feeling of security; that the world is safe, caring, predictable and supportive. If her nervous system had unprocessed bonding and attachment ruptures, she passed on to us the hyper-viglience associated with feeling insecure and threatened. If there was physical, sexual and/or emotional abuse on top of that from either mom or dad, a recipe for a highly disgorganized and chaotic nervous system was imprinted into our nervous system.
As we are the most relational animal on the planet, we will always seek to have relationships; we will always desire bonding and attachment. But, when other humans have been the cause of our threat-based nervous system, we will seek that feeling outside of our Selves. This is where substance may come into the picture and begin to play a very dangerous substitute. What we ultimately sought from our mother during infancy was to have our life’s purpose (dharma) reflected back to us. When we would eye-gaze with her, we were asking her to teach us how to source our own being for answers to life’s fundamental experiential questions: Who am I? Why am I here? What is my purpose on this earth? Through the immense love only the feminine could provide - via soothing touch, caring eyes, presence, honoring, containment and fluidity - without words, she answered these questions.
What if we didn’t receive that from our mother? And what if our father was heavy handed and unpredictable in his discipline? What if the extended family member or family friend I loved, sexually abused me? Then, the world became a danger zone populated with supposed booby traps where I continually felt ambushed. Who does one turn to in such a war where it feels like constant subterfuge by way of one’s own subconscious? The answer becomes not who but what. And that “what” is easily fulfilled by substance. It eases the pain (instantly if smoked or injected), it allows me to breath deeper, to forget about the “war outside,” and to have a false sense of intimacy with my Self (and others if present), that I’ve been so deeply desiring.
What I have discovered via my clients, is that when one has an incoherent and dysregulated nervous system, this can become a very slippery slope. When substance-use becomes a substitute for real connection, intimacy and bonding, we are very close, if not already in, the throes of addiction. Here are some of the signs of using substance as a substitute for Intimacy, Bonding and Attachment:
All or most of my social activities involve substance use
I tend to avoid experiences and/or people who do not use
I am a poly-user - in the US, the two substances most used are alcohol and marijuana
It would be difficult or impossible to be partnered with someone who did not use substance
I have chosen to live a life where I can use on a regular basis over a deeply loving relationship (where my substance-use was an on-going point of conflict)
I have lied about my substance use and/or hid it from another
I have been on the wagon/off the wagon cycle multiple times in the last few years
I stop using to prove to myself that I can quit anytime and as justification to continue to use
I take it personally and/or become extremely defended over my preferred substance when someone speaks ill about it.
I search for reasons that’s it good for me to use, i.e., it promotes my creativity, I’m celebrating, so-and-so celebrity uses it, etc.
Despite it being a risk to my health, I continue to use. Ex: I have asthma and continue smoking
When I have gone sober in the past, it has negatively affected my relationships, i.e., I feel peer-pressure, I feel like I’m no longer part of “the tribe” when I’m not out in the lot smoking and/or drinking
I self-medicate using substance, i.e., when in distress I drink and/or smoke more; I turn towards substance instead of healthy habits.
I have created a relationship with my adult children that almost always involves substance use. I feel like my habitual use may have contributed to their habitual use.
The biggest sign that one is exchanging true intimacy for substance?
Anthropomorphism: applying and describing substance with human-like characteristics, i.e. “I looove smoking.” “Whiskey feels like a warm hug.” Those in the depths of a false intimate relationship with substance, will often give a proper name to substance, “I’m going to go out and spend a few moments with Mary.”
Professional disclaimer: I am not a drug and alcohol specialist. My speciality is trauma resolution with an emphasis on relational trauma, attachment and bonding ruptures - there is high co-morbidity rate with these elements and substance use/abuse.
I don’t promote or even suggest a sober lifestyle. I, myself, live a mostly sober life but not 100%. My private practice aims to foster higher levels of consciousness, freedom, sovereinty and choice in life; a life where one is free of attachments; where one is not weighted and tied to external dependences and addictions.
Regular and heavy substance can, and is often, a huge impediment to living this type of lifestyle. My clients come to me seeking to have a more intimate relationship with their Self so they can experience deeper and less conflicted relationships with others and the world at large. I work with individuals on the path to freedom by way of utilizing their own being to find coherence and regulation. Upon taking this path for an extended period of time, most people - in my experience - end up choosing a sober or mostly sober life as living as close to consciousness and the Divine breeds this type of decision.
Related blog: Emotional Incest