I’m an addict. I need you.
That’s the essential premise of Philip J. Flores in Addiction as an Attachment Disorder
Flores posits that we’re all born with the ability to feel really strong feelings. We learn from our caretakers how to ease the highs and the lows of those feelings into a range of intensity that works for the health of our own neurophysiology and for the sake of our social relationships.
A screaming infant left untended stresses itself and others. That same infant comforted learns that distress isn’t forever, that responsiveness happens, that hope of relief exists. The people around it can relax in its company rather than run from it.
Infants, toddlers, children, and adolescents need “good enough” care. They need to be consistently comforted often enough, and not be too stressed too often from neglect or emotional or physical abuse. Sh*t happens but people are generally resilient enough to handle a reasonable amount, even from birth. In attachment theory, that’s termed a secure attachment. As a result of having a secure attachment, people learn that they can handle their own highs and lows and can turn to others for help with what they can’t handle. In attachment theory, being able to manage one’s feelings is termed “regulation.”
“Think of love,” Philip J. Flores writes, “…simply as simultaneous mutual regulation.” (59)
According to Flores, when the ability to self-regulate is missing or inadequate, “a person will be compelled to turn to substances for this regulatory function.” (219)
For a variety of reasons, I ended up with an insecure attachment style and the resultant trouble with self-regulation, with shifting those highs down and those lows up to a range that works for me and for others. I’ve heard often enough, painfully, TMA – Too Much Anne. Flores argues that we can’t regulate our emotions on our own, that we need help from others. Given some scenarios I’ve encountered, I have trouble trusting others to help me without harming me. I have trouble thinking it’s all going to be okay.
But I was doing okay in mid-2006. I had worked hard in counseling and with various support groups and spiritual communities and had developed a pretty good method for managing my feelings and for opening myself to conscious, mutual, reciprocal relationships with others.
A whole lot of life happened at the end of 2006 and in 2007. My nascent okayness was too nascent. I felt too much to handle on my own and lost pretty much any trust in others to help me. The fundamental self-regulation skill of self-soothing was too unskilled in me. I felt soothed by a glass of wine. Then two. Unlike others, wine responded. Always.
Given where I started and what happened, that I developed a drinking history and an addiction to alcohol makes sense.
And that I had to attend a support group to get sober makes sense, too.
“Close interpersonal contact can provide an effective alternative to drugs as a means of altering and stabilizing one’s neurophysiology.” (59) – Philip J. Flores
While I have trouble feeling safe with individual people, I feel generally safe within a group of people who are intentional about what they’re doing and why. Sitting in the group’s circle in some ways mimics sitting in the encircling arms of a caregiver, regulating my emotions, soothing me, and coaching me to regulate my own. I can feel attached to the larger whole in a way that I experience as comforting and calming, but distant enough from individuals to not feel what Flores terms the “hunger, dependency and hostility” that come from attachment issues. (233)
So let me see if I’ve got this, Dr. Flores. I feel most safe when I’m alone. When I’m alone and attempting to use only my own under-developed self-regulation skills, I can experience such strong emotional states, usually distress created by my own unconscious self-talk, that I can hardly bear it. I want to drink, I want it to go away, I want to feel better.
The antidote to being unable to soothe myself is to reach out to others for help with calming myself. My history with others is that they hurt you, they shoot up your town, they threaten to shoot you. I’m supposed to reach out to them?!
What I believe has caused me the most disfigurement in my life – others – is the means to my transformation?
What I most fear I most need?!
Recovery feels like insanity to me sometimes.
