Addiction and what we can really do about it.

My sister died at the age of 45 with the primary cause of death listed as listed alcoholism.

She, like so many addicts, had gone to rehab.

She like so many addicts expressed a desire to quit but she did not know how.

Because of the depth of grief I experienced following her death, I vowed to figure out why rehab did not work

Long story, short, the reason is NOT, and I MEAN NOT, because she or the millions of other addicts don’t want to quit. They do. Our society has not figured out how to help them.

First, there is something we can all do and I will mention this at the end of this blog**.

The reason that rehab does not work is that most rehab centers do not get at the deeper reasons why a person uses substances that will eventually lead to their death.

The deeper reasons are this: the very nature of human experience is loss. There are over 40 different types of loss that we humans experience. Loss of a loved one, a loved pet, loss of friends, loss of one’s innocence and trust when abuse and trauma happens, loss of the “life the child knew”, when a move happens, and so on and so forth.

However, though loss is part and parcel of one’s human experience, dealing with and then healing from the effects of loss is not part of our human experience. Humans learn to deal with loss by not dealing with it. We humans deal with loss by stuffing the pain of the loss into our shadow( that part of our consciousness that contains disowned parts of ourselves and all of the feelings that go with loss, trauma, abuse and other difficult experiences that humans go through as they grow.

However, just because we have pushed the pain out of our conscious mind, does not mean that we are not affected by the loss. We are affected by it in big and small ways and so we medicate the pain in over a 100 ways. Humans can make anything, anybody, any behavior a “medicator” to ease the pain. That is, we all have ways to deal with the pain of issues that we have stuffed into the shadow of  our unconsciousness.

Addicts who  use drugs and alcohol have found these substances work the best to ease their pain. Other people may use cigarettes, or shopping or sex, or fantasy, or intellectualization or rage or being nice to deal with their pain.

The issue here is that the addicts who have died did not know what else to do other than medicate the pain. They tried to talk about it to friends, family, ministers and therapists but most people if they have not dealt with and healed the issues in their own shadow cannot be present to the pain and issues in another. So, these people to whom the addict has tried to express their pain to are shut down. These “listeners” often intellectualize the pain and  then give intellectual advise, like:  Well it is time you got beyond that, isn’t it? Or, Just be present in this moment, or, …………………..You can fill in your own answer that you have received when trying to express a hurt, pain or sadness to someone.

However,

There is something that we can all do:

We can be willing to deal with the pain from loss that exists in all of us. As each of us becomes conscious of and deals with the pain of loss that we did not know how to deal with the original incident occurred, we can then begin to help the addicts in our lives as well.

If I had known this, my sister might still be alive. If our society is willing to deal with this, then perhaps no more amazing actors will have to die.