Addiction recovery is not easy. Ask anyone who has tried. It’s true for substance and behavioral addictions (known as process addiction) like porn, sex, and gambling. People don’t just decide to stop. If that were the case there would be no need for addictions counselors, support groups, and addiction medicine. Does addiction involve choice at some level? It does. However, it is more complicated than choosing to wear an orange or yellow t-shirt today.

There are conscious and underlying unconscious drives for all compulsive behaviors. Because of this sobriety is not the same as recovery. If it were, all that would be needed to treat addiction would be hospitals, detox centers, and 30-day rehabs. For nearly a decade I worked closely with a detox center. It was clear that going through withdrawal and achieving sobriety was not enough. I encountered many men and women who logged dozens of stays in the facility. They would check out and return a few days later. Sobriety was not the issue and addiction was a symptom of something deeper going on. 

In the depths of ourselves we are trying to survive. From day one of life we encounter an uncomfortable world that wounds us. One of the signs of health that the doctor looks for in our birth is whether or not we cry in the new any uncomfortable environment we have just arrived in. The longer we are alive, the more we find ourselves in situations that cause pain and reveal the brokenness of the world we inhabit. One of our critical tasks in growing up is to learn how to navigate this. Addictive behavior develops in part because of its ability to impact emotions and experiences. It is super effective in meeting our needs at the moment. For the people who become addicted, it takes hold because of the impact it has on the world under the surface of life. Addiction is not skin deep. The deeper emotions might be worry, insecurity, loneliness, anger, disappointment, or any number of others. These are the things they flee from. Soon enough the main emotion is no longer the only irritation to which the substance is applied, but it spills over into any unpleasant experience. The brain is trained to crave it whenever something touches on a feeling from any context that connects to former experiences. It could be a time of year, a time of day, a certain facial expression, a location like your driveway or basement, or even a smell. Once addictions take hold they will find any reason they can to activate. 

A pillar of addiction counseling is identifying these contexts. This is a step toward recovery, but it is not recovery in the fullest sense and is only an early step down that path. This is because is not healing the wounds that drive it. The contexts are clues to the more significant story in which the addiction was activated. As mentioned above, we all carry wounds and we all find ways to anesthetize them and “control” our experience. Alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, porn, sex, Netflix, exercise, or even work are all seductive worlds of experience control. Some are socially acceptable while others draw scorn. Each of them can eventually become destructive on a multitude of levels — financial, interpersonal, work, family, physical, and so on. 

Lasting recovery is found in the space beneath white-knuckled sobriety. The first step of stopping use allows you to ask and process deeper questions. These are questions that look at our story and stretch backward to a time before the beginning of the addiction. There is richness in this space. It is likely more than just about an event — though an event can be quite significant — but a whole host of shaping elements within the environment and our upbringing. It was where the first agreements with evil occurred. It's where we said, “I am not enough and I don’t have what it takes.” It was the time in life when shame became active and began working to move us toward hiding and isolation. This is the space where addiction thrives. We have to dismantle it if we are to experience a resurrection of life.