The Addict

Detached, Entranced, Delusional

The important question isn’t why the addiction, but why the pain? Gabor Mate

 

The Addict has lost his electric high. In his own mind, he is a King, and he can still seem exotic to his citizenry. From the outside, he may be a figure of legend, powerful because so unpredictable, so crazed and grandiose, an over-developed subpersonality, a magician with magical skills at Self-deception. A Trickster that tricks himself.

In this visual portrayal—the “high” has dissipated, the elation gone. He feels lifeless, devitalized, anything but still powerful, slumbering on his throne, remembering idealized times carved into the limbic tree.

His abuse has become dependency; dependency has become a restraint, a coiled serpent silently threatening to squeeze him tighter.

To his family, he has been a figure staring down from a strange height, a superhuman force, larger than anyone else in their world, and so family members have adopted roles, adaptations to survive his insanity. The familiar roles in a chemically dependent family—Enabler, Scapegoat, Hero or Golden Child, or Lost Child, or the Clown etc.—are like planets revolving around a crazed Sun in a cosmos full of lies and deceit.

Why this painting?

The Worker believes he freely and openly gives his best efforts to meet external demands, and often is fine showing off his industriousness, while the Addict defiantly believes he must steal away to pursue his drug and hide his pleasurable distractions; but they both are driven to avoid Pain. In fact, they, as characters in drama, often find a way to assist each other, become a tag team; the Worker is diligent until he is worn out and cannot take another step; the Addict then strolls on stage, making this appearance in reaction to exhaustion and anxiety. He points to “medication” that will provide a break or will ease the impact of the perpetual circus and so allow it all to continue. Wink, wink. “Oh, you must be worn out. Let me carry you from here!”

In addiction treatment, recovering people are often trained to recognize the Addict. He may be called a disease, a genetic disorder, or depicted as a subcortical activation, a brain state. Whatever the label, he triggers arousing, euphoric memories—the romanticized high—reminding us of how good it feels to use (just a little, just this once) and moving us to obsess on how the preferred drug will give us “freedom.”

Idealized memories of substance use can become a super-normal stimulus, an attractor state, an irresistible neuro-gravitational pull of Self-deception, all mixed up with a host of pleasures, sex, some semblance of human connection, the excitement in playing cops and robbers, the exhilaration of risk and relief in the escape. Perhaps the conceptual mind has no interest in using and abusing, but the limbic brain has another thought (eventually just one thought), until it overwhelms any other objections, until suddenly, or in a slow triggering way, off we go again. Rinse. Repeat. As the King deflates, collapsing into madness.

Inside Out:

If your True Self is just a rumor, or a balanced life seems to be part of some suspicious religious cult, then you are lost or well on your way, and your splintered psyche has already constructed damaged actors to manage day to day. The subpersonalities will figure out how to get by. To put one food in front of the other. And will get sneakier so you don’t attract unwanted attention. Finding and regularly pursuing a quick relief from emotional turmoil is a desperate version of Working for Love. However easy any “remedy” comes at first, eventually it demands more and more effort to maintain. Addiction takes up a lot of time. Obsessing, planning, pursuing, using, recovering. All this consumes life and eventually it is work, slave labor in fact.

Unconsciously, or semiconsciously, both the Worker and the King have answered the existential questions posed early in life with the answers posited in the deepest circuits of their nervous system. The world is not a safe and loving place. And I am unlovable, and I am not worthy nor capable of authentic action. Both the Worker and the Addict are adaptations born from these dreadful conclusions. It is all we deserve.

Upside down:

There are endless ways to be addicted in this Upside-down society. Addiction to banana cream pie and drugs and alcohol and food are the ingested addictions But, there are the actions and distractions, work addictions, addiction to sick or dramatic relationships, the obsessive craving for new acquisitions, the addiction to the chemicals of grandiosity and rage. All of these in the Fallen World seem to be “normal.”

Speaking as a therapist, I do believe the Worker and the Addict can provide ways of meeting a variety of humans needs, but never in a manner that satisfies or sustains us; in fact, these characters always cause more problems than they solve. Of course, the sensible thing to do when behavior creates a problem is to deal with it, to be accountable, at least explore alternatives and to make changes. But these Fallen energy forms are incapable of such awareness and so they continue their insanity.

To add to the dilemma, any attempt to abruptly stop their craziness worsens symptoms. This can be called a rebound, the phenomenon where symptoms that were previously managed by medications return more intensely when the treatment is stopped. For the Worker it can be painful to take a vacation or a night off. For the Addict, their attempts to cut down on their primary drug leads to restlessness and despair. When they stop their drug, emotionally it is like watching an ice cube melt, as the unfaced Pain bubbles up from below.

I doubt I am telling you anything you do not already understand. All of us know an Addict and a Worker whistling past the cremation factory. Because they are unconscious personalities, they have no clear center of gravity, and are prone to shapeshifting, seemingly mercurial, presenting in one communication style, posture, and emotional display (angry, helpless, pseudo-intellectual, confused), then abruptly sliding into another. This can be disorienting if you love them.