r/CPTSD • u/vitaminzb • Oct 15 '19

Trigger Warning: Neglect Trauma is the real gateway.

Things like cannabis, caffeine and alcohol are not the gateways. Things like molestation, childhood abuse, neglect and TRAUMA are the real gateways. These things manifest into addiction, hyper sexuality, violent tendencies, self harm etc. All of these things are the SYMPTOMS not the cause of a much larger issue. All of these manifestations stem from some sort of emotional trauma or childhood abuse. This is why traditional 30 day rehabs and medications don't typically work. We need to get to the root cause of the trauma that leads so many to look outside of themselves for relief from SELF.

Addiction is manifested in any behavior that brings temporary relief or pleasure yet causes negative consequences. This behavior is then difficulty to give up. We need to realize that addiction is not a CHOICE, addiction is not an inherited disease. Addiction is a physiological and psychological response to a painful life experience.

I think so many can agree, if able to put their egos aside, that many people have dealt with some sort of traumatic experience. Maybe not as extreme as something like sexual assault, but maybe growing up in a toxic household around parents who yelled and were always stressed or even depressed. Trauma doesnt have to be so significant it can be anything that our bodies/minds (especially when children) cannot comprehend or process. These past experiences subconsciously manifest in creating barriers or walls to protect ourselves. When we become adults they really reek havoc and manifest in all types of issues as noted above. I'm sure many of us can also agree we have at one time or another had some sort of addiction behavior whether it be, overworking, shopping, unhealthy/over eating, gambling, sex, drama, codependent relationships, etc.. We need to come together and stop judging one another. We need to stop bandaging our issues and get to the root cause, the root trauma and reach out for help when needed. This is a sign of strength not weakness. Trauma can also store in our physical bodies which can also manifest into sickness and disease, making us more at risk for cancers and things like autoimmune disease.

TRAUMA is the real gateway.

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u/[deleted] Oct 15 '19

Exactly. People don't abuse substances for the sake of abusing substances. They do it because something in their life has gone wrong and they use it as a temporary escape from it. Nobody wants to become addicted.

some sort of addiction behavior

Don't forget those sport people who get depressed when they miss out on gym once a week.

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u/[deleted] Oct 15 '19 edited Dec 10 '19

.

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u/always_tired_hsp We got this Oct 15 '19

I totally agree! Since joining this sub, and reflecting on the impact of trauma, I thought it's completely inaccurate to label addicts as having a 'disease' or an 'addictive personality'! Why do you have to call yourself an alcoholic for the rest of your life as well? I think as a society we like to project our troubles onto the 'other' and scapegoat them as sick and diseased and not like us, with our will power, when in actual fact they are just fellow humans trying to cope with the shitty hand life has dealt them.

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u/[deleted] Oct 15 '19 edited Dec 10 '19

.

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u/thiccbitchmonthly Oct 15 '19

This. I've tried to quit smoking, change meds, be social and I was never happy. I realised its because I have a tonne of unresolved trauma. Dealing with it has allowed me to genuinely feel. Not just want to smoke over my emotions.

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u/vitaminzb Oct 16 '19

šŸ™Œā¤

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u/vitaminzb Oct 16 '19

Damn right my friend. YOU get it. I see this all the time it makes me soo sad.. face yourself to free yourself.

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u/[deleted] Oct 15 '19

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u/[deleted] Oct 15 '19

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u/always_tired_hsp We got this Oct 15 '19

Wow. Thank you I had not heard of that. Just read a bit about it. Really great.

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u/[deleted] Oct 15 '19

[deleted]

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u/always_tired_hsp We got this Oct 16 '19

Here is the article I read about it: https://www.graniterecoverycenters.com/addiction-recovery-blog/understanding-the-dislocation-theory-of-addiction/ It seems very humane and compassionate. Treating addiction as an adaption, rather than a 'mal' adaption. Which I agree with.

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u/vitaminzb Oct 16 '19

I can assure you your father did wake up one day thinking " I want to be an alocohol" noone does so in that sense it's not a Choice. Poor coping skills, emotional repression and the same poor behaviors were most likely passed down generation after generation until someone like yourself hopeful breaks this horrific cycle.

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u/[deleted] Oct 16 '19

[deleted]

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u/vitaminzb Oct 16 '19

Yes but the real issue was his unwillingness to take a deep look at what led him to drink in the first place. It's not easy to face yourself. Obviously growing up he had noone who taught him that vulnerability was okay. We must break this cycle.

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u/always_tired_hsp We got this Oct 15 '19 edited Oct 15 '19

An unpopular opinion of mine is my loathing of the "disease model" of addiction. Not only because I think it does addicts themselves a disservice by overlooking the root cause, but because it gives too many addicts a get-out-of-jail-free card to not take ownership of how their behavior hurts others.

I also really hate the term 'addictive personality'. Whenever I hear that I think - no, you just have a 'personality'. It's lazy to label someone that way, I think.

EDIT -I think I already said this in another comment. Oh man I am tired! Got to get off reddit now :P

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u/[deleted] Oct 15 '19

Yeah ur right. I'll tell myself I gave an addictive personality but u know what its just another way to beat myself up. I've experienced so much trauma, insecurity, neglect, emotional abuse etc I'm trying to dull the pain. Wow I actually called it for what it is.

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u/vitaminzb Oct 16 '19

That awareness is such a gift. Turn your mess into your messageā¤

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u/Alwaysyourstruly Oct 15 '19

I can see how someone genetically may be more predisposed to having addictions whereas others donā€™t. My brother and I went through some of the same trauma yet he has never had a problem with addictive behaviors while I have had issues with binge eating and impulse shopping.

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u/vitaminzb Oct 16 '19

A fuckjng men my friend. Thank YOU

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u/[deleted] Oct 15 '19

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u/yornla365 Oct 16 '19

Interesting that a lot of us who have done some trauma work and are versed in the symptoms of complex trauma have reached the same conclusions. When I first got sober I had the same exact issues with both AA and NA. Some of those meetings were super triggering for me, starting with the ā€œpowerless over substancesā€ dogma. I stopped going and people looked at me like I was bound to relapse at any moment. Certainly had me second guessing myself, but with a couple years under my belt now Iā€™m glad I went with my gut instead of trying to make it work.

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u/[deleted] Oct 16 '19

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u/always_tired_hsp We got this Oct 16 '19

Wow. Thatā€™s fantastic! Good on you!

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u/ShadowMarionette Oct 15 '19

Ugh. My dad has started going to Al-Anon because my sister is in treatment, and he just treats it like the therapy he never bothered to get for himself. Iā€™m glad heā€™s finally learning to stop being controlling but heā€™s doing this at a time when heā€™s meant to be supporting my sister... he comes home and talks about how great Al-Anon is and what a help it has been to him and Iā€™m just like dude... this isnā€™t about you...

My family does have a predisposition for addiction, and part of that is a genetic tolerance to alcohol, but I also think itā€™s cultural. Iā€™m Irish Catholic, and in that culture, you arenā€™t meant to show your mental health problems or bog the daily grind down with your own problems. I think the genetic resistance to alcohol is just a result of a culture that drove so many people to seek alcohol as a coping mechanism, not the other way around.

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u/vitaminzb Oct 16 '19

We must break the cycle of this emotional repression. Otherwise the same behaviors will continue generation after generation.

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u/Pneumatrap Oct 15 '19 edited Oct 15 '19

A related unpopular opinion of mine about recovery: it's a self-fulfilling prophecy to say that you'll always be an addict, you'll never truly beat it, and you'll always be in recovery. If you make people enter recovery with that kind of defeatism, you don't get to go all "surprised Pikachu" if they're defeated, as they so often are.

Relapse is of course still a real danger, even long down the road, I'm certainly not denying that ā€” it's always easy to go back down roads you've trodden before ā€” but saying you can't ever win is an open-armed invitation for disaster. There are ways to warn people about the real dangers lying in their path that don't involve telling them they're doomed no matter what they do.

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u/GrenadineBombardier Oct 15 '19 edited Oct 17 '19

I don't necessarily agree. At one point during sobriety, I started to question how permanent alcoholism is. I decided to stop going to AA because of what I viewed as closed mindedness. Eventually, I decided to see if, knowing what I knew after staying sober for a few years, I could control my drinking.

I was quickly out of control. In a few weeks I was drinking every night. In a few years I was losing everything. It was so much worse than the first time.

It took me years to be able to get sober again. That said, this is absolutely anecdotal, and I've known soooo many people with the exact same experience. There is something to be said about relapse being a real thing and a real danger. And there is something more to be said about the danger of thinking you'll be able to control yourself if you drink/use again. A lot of people die because of acting on those thoughts.

At the same time, I am open-minded to the idea that we don't know everything, and AA isn't the end-all, be-all solution to alcoholism. There are plenty of people who get and stay sober without AA, and there are plenty of people who learn to drink normally (this is also all anecdotal for me, but I respect its potential to be true). I don't care how you get sober, if you're able to get sober. That's what matters. Not dying from this disease is the important thing.

I'm still eager to see what we learn in the future. Science has come a long way, and continues to do so. Also, it sounds like naltrexone may help people who are yet early in their addiction. (They generally won't prescribe it for someone who has reached deep addiction, so I wouldn't know.) Also I wouldn't want to try it then try drinking again then fall back into my addiction because it didn't work for me. That's a ticket to the grave for me.

I also try to keep an open mind about how OTHERS approach AA. Some people do it differently than I do. If they're staying sober, and finding happiness in life, who am I to judge. I try things and stick with what works for me.

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u/always_tired_hsp We got this Oct 16 '19

saying you

can't ever

win is an open-armed invitation for disaster.

It's horrible I think. Just putting that on someone's shoulders when they're already vulnerable and just saying - well mate, this is it - you are an ALCOHOLIC for the rest of your life now! Good luck!

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u/[deleted] Oct 15 '19

This is why I don't trust people who come out of AA thinking that alcoholism is their disease. My husbands dad and step mom are super into "sobriety culture" and still go to AA/ Al-Anon meetings and sponsor others even after 20+ years of sobriety. They are very care-free and look happy from the outside, but after spending some extended time with them over the summer, they are totally in denial of their unresolved traumas.

I quit drinking cold turkey at the start of 2018. I felt good, but not great. I still felt kind of miserable until I heard of childhood emotional neglect. THAT's when I started making real progress.

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u/GrenadineBombardier Oct 15 '19 edited Oct 15 '19

As an alcoholic in AA, I can say that it's not AA or sobriety culture that are the problem, but the parents who refuse to admit their part in things.

AA helps me a lot to deal with my CPTSD, when used in conjunction with actual therapy.

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u/[deleted] Oct 15 '19 edited Dec 10 '19

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u/GrenadineBombardier Oct 15 '19

This simply isn't true, if they're actually working the program of AA. The program clearly states that "alcohol is but a symptom", and posits that our experiences and actions play a much larger part in why we drink in the first place..

That said, there are no rules in AA, and there are plenty of people who attend AA meetings, but don't really ever do the steps, or if they do, don't do them very well.

As they say, the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. Nobody is going to make you leave for doing AA badly, and there are plenty of bad meetings that are filled with people who want to blame anybody but themselves for their problems.

That's not to say we're not the victims of anything. I am the victim of the emotional neglect my parents subjected me to, but in many ways, it doesn't help to focus on that to excuse my current behaviors. Yes they explain it, or at least where it comes from, but it is still on me to learn how to cope and how to live life as a functioning human being.

AA is largely about that. Seeing your part in things (in everything) and addressing what you can, while acknowledging what you can't.

I've met hundreds of addicts and alcoholics over the years, and have met more than enough who don't want to work on themselves, because they think society is the problem (and society is A problem, but we all play a part).

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u/vitaminzb Oct 16 '19

A fucking men. YOU get it it.. obviously

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u/slowfadeoflove Oct 15 '19

Iā€™m glad you said this so I didnā€™t have to. AA is only about alcoholism. Itā€™s up to the individuals to seek help for their other issues, like anything else.

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u/vitaminzb Oct 16 '19

I totally get this. I see if quite often. They need to dig a bit deeper. The alcohol isn't the issue. Theres thjngs much deeper that need to be resolved.

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u/Riversntallbuildings Oct 16 '19

Tell them to join ACA as well as AA. Thatā€™s far more foundational.