Our addictions can manifest from different mental and emotional patterns, many of which we aren’t conscious of, that are operating under the surface of our awareness. These patterns impact us in strong ways and contribute to the development of our very self-destructive addictive cycles. One of our most common patterns is our tendency to suppress our pain. Whenever a thought, emotion or memory arises that we don’t want to deal with, we try to block it out. We bury it deep down within us, where we hope it will disappear with time and avoidance. In actuality, it usually festers and worsens the more we try to deny it and pretend it isn’t there. It grows stronger, feeding our addictive patterns and causing us tremendous pain.
When we’re able to confront our pain head on, we take away the need for our addictions. We don’t need to try and escape our pain, distract ourselves from it, or hide from it. Our addictions function as our coping mechanisms for handling our pain, and when we suppress it rather than dealing with it, we feel even stronger urges to give into our addictions. The stronger our unhealed pain and the more intense our unresolved problems, the stronger and more overpowering we feel our addictive urges and the temptation to use our drugs of choice.
Our tendency to suppress our pain often comes from fear, fear of facing the memories of our traumatic experiences, fear of confronting conflicts in our relationships, fear of owning up to our past mistakes and wrongdoings, fear that we’re inadequate and unlovable. We feel a strong reluctance to feel the discomfort, uneasiness and anxiety that come with fear. We feel resistant to our fear, and we try to avoid feeling it at all costs. Our addictions make us forget our fears temporarily. When we’re high, we feel more confident and at ease, powerful, invincible even. We forget why we were so paralyzed by our fear in the first place. Our worries recede from our minds. The more we learn about our emotional patterns, especially our tendency to suppress our pain, we realize that most of our coping mechanisms are actually quite unhealthy for us. Not only do they fuel our addictions, they compound our pain because we’re resistant to facing it and it is therefore worsening over time. In addition, our addictive patterns cause us to self-destruct so much, and also to hurt other people, that we’re continuing to cause ourselves more pain to have to heal from, which we then suppress, creating vicious cycles of avoidance, denial, suppression and the intense after-effects of addiction, depression and other mental illnesses.
At The Guest House Ocala, we have personal recovery experience and over 12 years in the recovery industry. We have helped countless people recover, and we’re here to help you too. Call 855-483-7800 today for more information.