Soulshine

Addiction is an emotional dis-ease. It’s all about running away from our uncomfortable emotions (shame, in particular) and thus running toward addictive acting-out to drown those emotions into a comfortable state of numbness or euphoria or a false sense of happiness. I was recently watching Sandra Bullock playing the role of “Gwen” in the film 28 Days . Gwen is either drunk or drugged-out all of the time. She’s constantly running from her shame through alcohol (or drugs), which causes her to do more shameful things, which causes her to feel worse about herself, which causes her to then drown herself in more alcohol and drugs. It’s an endless cycle of Gwen running from her feelings about herself. Unfortunately, Gwen also has a partner-in-crime: Her fiancé Jasper. Jasper is equally as trapped in addictive acting-out. As the movie progresses, we learn that Jasper is actually a substitute for Gwen’s mother. Her mother was a hopeless alcoholic who died from her disease when Gwen w...

“He doesn’t belong either in your head or in your bed. He just serves your addiction to pain... I think you’re the one who’s committed to hurting you. He’s just a screen on which you project your cruelty to yourself.” Maria Bello, Whatever… Love is Love Most every codependent I’ve ever known has been unknowingly addicted to pain. So many of us were taught to be cruel to ourselves. As small children, when adults hurled nasty, shaming words our way, we allowed ourselves to be verbally and emotionally stoned to near-death. We took their harsh criticisms very personally and we learned to endlessly repeat every ugly word we absorbed. We then beat ourselves up with these same shaming criticisms until we developed a need for them. This is how our addiction to pain began. As we grew into adulthood, we then searched-out new people who could serve our addiction to pain. We often chose friends and lovers who treated us as badly as our parents had. These new people became the screens o...