Questions and Answers

Don Williams

Why is this issue so important?

May observers, “For generations, psychologists thought that virtually all self-defeating behavior was caused by repression. I have now come to believe that addiction is a separate and even more self-defeating force that abuses our freedom and makes us do things we really do not want to do.

“While repression stifles desire, addiction attaches desire, bonds and enslaves the energy of desire to certain specific behaviors, things or people. These objects of attachment then become preoccupations and obsessions; they come to rule our lives.” (p.3)

“To be alive is to be addicted, and to be alive and addicted is to stand in need of grace.” (p.11)

Dr. Drew Pinsky of MTV’s Loveline adds:

“To me addiction is the predominant health issue of our time.”

 
“Abuse, neglect and abandonment – all are actions that interrupt the healthy development of an individual. These are the problems that affect the whole society…which include not only [chemical] addiction but domestic violence, crime, homelessness, rising health care costs, and above all else individual emptiness.” (In Cracked, p.159)

 
What is codependence and where does it fit into this?

“Codependence” means literally to share an addictive dependence. As an alcoholic is addicted to alcohol, so a codependent is addicted to the alcoholic.

Dr. John Bradshaw writes:

“All addictions are rooted in codependence and codependence is a symptom of abandonment. We are codependent because we have lost ourselves… Co-dependents try to make themselves indispensable by taking care of others. They are willing to do whatever it takes to be loved or worthwhile. Co-dependents often choose professions of caretaking and financial achievement, throwing themselves into their work to the point of workaholism and burnout. Codependence is core addiction. It is a diseased form of life. Once a person believes that his [or her] identity lies outside of himself in a substance, activity or another person, he has found a new god, sold his soul and become a slave.” (in Bradshaw on the Family, p. 172)

What is the basis of addiction?

Back to the brain:

 
Setting: God’s creation in Genesis 1-2 is good. He has created us with unconscious drives deep within the brain’s core, which give us life. They include:

• To eat (hunger drive – Genesis 1:29 -30; 2:16 -17)

• Not to be eaten (security drive, “herd instinct,” need for relationships– Genesis 1:27 ; 2:18 -25)

• Sex (to reproduce the race – Genesis 1:28 )

Creation is now corrupted (Genesis 3). After the Fall our unconscious drives are perverted survival instincts. Our brain’s neurochemicals are unbalanced – resulting in a “craving brain.”

• To eat: We suffer food addictions: overweight, obesity, starvation, bingeing. purging, anorexia nervosa, gluttony, etc.

• Not to be eaten: Our survival instincts result in identity crises, fear, anxiety, loss of self, absorption into others, codependency, aggression, violence, revenge, control, domination, etc

• Sex: our perverted sex drives lead to promiscuity, adultery, pornography, affairs, serial-sex, compulsive masturbation, prostitution, homosexuality, pedophilia, polygamy, eroticizing relationships or things, dark fantasy life, etc.

Dr. Drew Pinsky writes that addiction has its roots in biology. It is “…a biological disorder with a genetic basis, plus progressive use in the face of adverse consequences and denial of a problem.” More recent findings have focused “on the relationship between addiction and the drives in the deepest brain structures that are outside conscious volitional control.” (in Cracked, p.53, 55)

How do childhood experiences promote our addictions?

Our brain is like a seashore, continually landscaped by the waves and storms that hit it. These include:

 
- Childhood trauma (abuse): verbal, physical, and sexual.

Dr. Drew Pinsky writes, “Generally,…overwhelming emotions are related to childhood traumas – pain, abuse, neglect, abandonment, and overall feelings of powerlessness.” “These are the first hot buttons of trauma – abandonment, helplessness, the rupture of attachment with someone they love and idealize.” “Traumas…leave imprints on parts of the brain that don’t have a sense of time, the memory gives the sense that the trauma is always happening.” (in Cracked, p.38)

 
Dr. Alice Millar adds:

 
“We are all nice people once beaten.” (in For Your Own Good, p.ix.)

 
“If the child is prevented from reacting in hi sown way because the parents cannot tolerate his reactions (crying, sadness, rage) and forbid them, then the child will learn to be silent.” This is the root of a disintegrated personality.

 
The methods used on children to suppress vital spontaneity include: “…laying traps, lying, duplicity, subterfuge, manipulation, scare tactics, withdrawal of love, isolation, distrust, humiliating and disgracing the child, scorn, ridicule and coercion even to the point of torture.” (p.7) This results in the disintegration of the child’s inner life, “the psychic murder of the child.” (p. 87)

How does our life-experience in adolescence promote addictions?

Adolescent trauma: