Addiction: Dancing Between Worlds

By: Dr. Denise Renye

In the well over two decades that I’ve worked with folx who have addictions and addictive tendencies, I’ve noticed some overlaps and patterns among them. Typically, people who have lived experience of addiction dance between two worlds – the external world where they’re trying to fit in (be it with their family, friends, or community) and the internal world where they have their own vivid thoughts and feelings that may not jive with the demands of the external.

Sometimes a person may grow up in a family that is not supportive, functional, or healthy. The person feels different, maybe like an outsider. They have an intuitive knowing that something is off, that maybe there’s something wrong with dad sleeping (or passing out)  or mom yelling all the time. When this feeling that something is awry arises, the child gets a sense they don’t belong in the family. That’s because they don’t.

They don’t belong because the child knows on some level there’s a healthier way of existing, that there’s another way to show up in the world and live, even if they’re not quite sure what that looks like. For a child who perpetually feels like an outsider in their own home, or an adult who feels untethered to anyone, this can lead to numerous symptoms, including addiction and addictive tendencies.

Children who don’t feel like they belong, even in their own family, may start gaslighting themselves to fit in with the version of reality the adults around them are verbalizing. If they do gaslight themselves, they do so as a protection mechanism. Voicing the truth may not be safe in the family because doing so may result in some sort of punishment either physically (a slap for “talking back”) or emotionally (stonewalling, withdrawing, etc.). So instead, the child, and later the adult, may start lying to feel comfortable or to fit in first with the family and later with a group. The person may manipulate themselves in order to fit in because the external situation isn’t changeable or doesn’t feel changeable so the person “changes” themselves. They become who someone else wants them to be. Belonging is hugely important for human beings as I mentioned in a previous blog so we often do whatever it takes to fit in with a group.

However, there’s still the internal world, the inner knowing, the place where truth resides. Because of this incongruency, the person learns to dance between worlds. They may alter their frame of mind to fit into a situation or group because they don’t want to be different. They don’t want to be an individual, to stick out, or to rock the boat too much. For if they do, there is typically severe psychological punishment for it. That means a part of the person goes into hiding, so to speak, in order to protect themselves. We can understand this as the shadow. And if they do it often enough – subjugate themselves in order to fit in – the behavior becomes second nature.

It's not only lying to themselves and others that becomes second nature, there’s also the use of substances or behaviors in a compulsive way in order to deal with the pain of incongruency. Not being your whole, authentic, integrated self hurts and in a situation where you feel like your self is not allowed, you might use food, sex, drugs, alcohol, etc., to cope. What separates an addict or a person with addictive tendencies from someone who occasionally uses food, sex, drugs, alcohol, etc. to cope is a person with addictive tendencies uses this coping strategy frequently. So frequently the person feels powerless over the drug or behavior.  

While the internal self may have gone into hiding, it’s not dead and buried. The more the true identity (if you will) is accessed, the less a person has to dance between worlds because the inner and outer world mirror each other. Instead of drinking alcohol to drown the pain of an unhappy marriage, the person admits they’re unhappy in their relationship and perhaps does something about it. They no longer deny their truth. Sometimes the impetus to drink goes away when the truth is expressed, but sometimes the addictive behavior is so ingrained, so second nature, the person could use more support. Either way is fine. Everyone is on their own journey to become a more integrated person.

Addiction Recovery Meditation is available here.  

Journal Prompts

·      When I close my eyes and imagine a life with integrity (integration of all of me), what are the parts that feel most challenging to let out into the light?

·      What aspects of myself do I feel shameful about? What do  I work hard to not let other people see?

·      If I could take a magic wand and wave it so that I could feel a deep sense of freedom in my life, how would my life be different than it is now?

Suggested reading

Robert Johnson. Owning Your Own Shadow  

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