{"id":93958,"date":"2016-04-21T12:33:32","date_gmt":"2016-04-21T20:33:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=93958"},"modified":"2016-04-21T12:33:32","modified_gmt":"2016-04-21T20:33:32","slug":"addiction-reflects-emotional-dependency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=93958","title":{"rendered":"Addiction Reflects Emotional Dependency"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Dr. Rosemary Brown with Laura MacKay<\/a>:<\/p>\n

It is emotional dependency, the cause\u2014not such symptoms as alcoholism or overeating or workaholism\u2014that I have been treating in private practice and as a sponsor, with good results, for three decades. My method is my own cause-focused modification of the spiritual process that is the 12 steps.<\/p>\n

Symptom Substitution, aka Relapse<\/p>\n

The fundamental sameness of addictive behaviors is indicated by their interchangeability. A classic example of this symptom substitution, as I call it, is sugar for alcohol. Years ago, while focused on relapse and 12-step treatment as part of pursuing my PhD, I came to recognize the substitution of a different addiction, including a nonchemical for a chemical one, as a form of relapse. The substitution may be less (or more) immediately life-threatening, but logically, any substitution indicates that the underlying problem has not been addressed.<\/p>\n

The phenomenon had been all too apparent in my personal experience. Addicted to alcohol for many years, I had joined AA, relapsed, returned, and found long-term abstinence from that drug. But much to my dismay, I continued to feel like an active alcoholic much of the time.<\/p>\n

Even as I continued to work the program\u2014which saved my life\u2014I substituted (i.e. relapsed into) sugar, then cigarettes, then yo-yo dieting, followed by exercise, work, sex, relationships and AA itself. In an attempt to deal with each addiction as it surfaced, I found myself going from one 12-step group to another, where I met many others who were doing the same thing. (Imagine what the relapse statistics would look like if substitutions were accounted for.) Finally, after 18 years of this brand of \u201cabstinence,\u201d I found myself checking into a treatment center for the first time\u2014for codependency.<\/p>\n

Once I started my private counseling practice, I saw the same phenomenon in my clients.<\/p>\n

For example, my client Chris, like me, had a history of alcoholism but really hit bottom with codependency. \u201cI didn\u2019t think I\u2019d have to commit suicide, because I thought my pain would kill me,\u201d he writes in a testimonial. \u201cI was at that point without a job, without a home, without an ounce of hope. Hadn\u2019t I done everything correctly up to then? I had gone to AA meetings, done service, worked the steps, not drank or drugged for 13 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Or take my client Alex: \u201cI had been sober for more than eight years, going to AA meetings and sponsoring as well as having a sponsor. In addition, I had attended Overeaters Anonymous, Debtors Anonymous, Al-Anon, and Codependents Anonymous. All the 12-step programs I experienced never healed me from my using; it was only sublimated. The drink or drug I abstained from, but in its place came overworking, sex, shopping, relationships, and the list goes on.\u201d As long as single-addiction treatment is the norm\u2014whether through the steps or some other method\u2014relapse in both the traditional sense and by substitution will also be the norm. \u201cRelapse is part of recovery\u201d is the institutionalized rationale for this ongoing failure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Dr. Rosemary Brown with Laura MacKay: It is emotional dependency, the cause\u2014not such symptoms as alcoholism or overeating or workaholism\u2014that I have been treating in private practice and as a sponsor, with good results, for three decades. My method … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26369],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-addiction"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=93958"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93959,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93958\/revisions\/93959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=93958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=93958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=93958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}