Your Addiction is Not the Super Villain in Your Story
When people come to my practice seeking help for addiction, they have a horrible relationship with their addiction. It makes sense, right? They have witnessed their addiction destroy so many things they love; their relationships, careers, hopes and dreams, physical and mental health, and their trust in themself. If another person came into our lives and caused the kind of destruction that we see with addiction, we’d probably hate and fear them too.
That's why when I tell my patients that their addiction cannot be the supervillain in their story, they look at me like I am crazy. I am sure that as you reached the period of that last sentence your eyebrows were quizzically raised and you might actually be doubting my sanity as well. But go with me on this!
What is a “Super Villain”?
As an avid nerd who grew up watching every super hero series (Marvel AND DC, I don’t discriminate), as well as Star Trek and Star Wars, I am basically a specialist in what it means to be a super villain. Let's take The Joker, for example. I think we can all agree that The Joker is the quintessential Super Villain. He is extreme, dramatic, immensely powerful, relentless, immoral, and selfish. His decisions are exclusively destructive and he shows no remorse for them, in fact, his goal is to cause as much harm as possible.
I bet you’re saying to yourself “Dr. Canetta, you just described my addiction! How is that not a super villain??” I hear that! It makes sense! But I encourage you to hold off on your judgement until I share a bit about how I understand what the function of addiction is before making a final assessment.
The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA, 2020) defines addiction as “a chronic, relapsing disorder characterized by compulsive drug seeking and use despite adverse consequences.” While this definition certainly identifies some characteristics of addiction, I think it’s limited in its overall explanation. I think of addiction as a desperate attempt to cope for someone who either has not learned or has an insufficient ability to self-soothe.
What is Self-Soothing?
Self-soothing is the ability to manage and regulate your emotional and physiological states to neutrality without external support. Our ability to self-soothe is learned throughout our infancy through the developmental years. I believe this learning lasts throughout our early adulthood as well due to new experiences of hormones, significant life changes and events, and the continued development of the brain.
The brain is an amazing thing that we know pretty much nothing about. Two things that are clear, however; 1. The brain’s number one job is to keep us safe, no matter what and 2. The brain is HIGHLY adaptable. Lets hold these two functions of the brain in mind as we explore the relationship between self-soothing and addiction.
If I was not taught skills, or if the skills I learned were not sufficient to cope through the circumstances I am in, the brain will do whatever it can to remediate the perceived threat. We want to expand our understanding of what a “threat” is. Remember, our brain is complex and responds to not only the cues of our environment, but the cues within our bodies. Anxiety is a necessary mechanism within our bodies that tells our brain that something is wrong. It's evolutionarily necessary and connected to our brain’s alarm system, the amygdala. It's really helpful when danger is actually present but can cause a lot of problems when it goes off when everything is ok. Think of it as a fire alarm- we are really grateful for it when there's a fire in our house but much less grateful for it when it goes off in the middle of the night for no reason.
Anxiety is often the over estimation of the threat and an under estimation of our ability to cope through it. So when my brain’s alarm system goes off, it’s going to look for the fastest and most effective way to eliminate that threat. “Fastest and most effective” are the key terms here. That doesn’t mean that the way our brain decides to eliminate a threat is the SAFEST (both in the immediate and long-term). The alarm is too loud for that long-term thinking to be online so our brain just focused on eliminating the threat in front of it at that moment.
Putting It Together
So how does this apply to addiction? When the alarm system goes off (our brain is perceiving a threat), our brain is immediately looking for the most effective way to eliminate that threat. If I have not learned ways to soothe that alarm system, my brain will adapt and figure out ways that are the fastest and most effective at turning the alarm off as soon as possible. For many, this is through the use of substances.
Let's look at an example:
Winston has a big presentation to do at work next month. He is terrified of public speaking and worries that his coworkers and boss are going to judge him harshly on his presentation. When he has been anxious in the past he rambled and stumbled over his words, so he is sure that this is going to happen again. Even worse, the quality of this presentation is going to be highly weighted in his annual review and can impact his bonus and potentially his job security. Winston’s brain clearly sees this as a threat and as he gets closer to the presentation day he starts to have almost daily panic attacks. He is now afraid that he will have one during the presentation. He struggles to calm himself down and the worrying only gets worse and worse.
Winston begins to have a drink at night when he is reviewing and practicing his presentation. It helped calm his nerves in the past when he was anxious at parties or had a tough week at work so why wouldn’t it help with this anxiety? And it does! Alcohol is a depressant, which means it calms the central nervous system activation that happens with anxiety. It's fast and effective at quieting the alarm system. Winston soon sees that one glass of wine isn’t as effective anymore so he moves onto a second, and then a third. He is now drinking several drinks every night and sees that when he doesn’t drink, he has panic attacks that are unbearable. His brain is terrified that the panic is going to decimate his presentation and he’s going to lose his job.
Remember those two functions of the brain we discussed earlier? To keep us safe and to do it in the fastest and most efficient way possible. Winston’s brain is perceiving a threat: the anxiety threatens his job. His brain is looking for a way to eliminate that threat to keep him safe. It remembers how alcohol calmed anxiety quickly in the past and made things easier for him so that is what his brain recommends; drink and the threat will go away. The drinking is quickly reinforced when it does what the brain was hoping and eliminates the anxiety quickly. The brain isn’t taking the time to evaluate the long-term impacts of Winston’s drinking. His brain is not seeing that when he isn’t drinking, he is now having panic attacks, which are likely withdrawal and rebound anxiety. His brain is just seeing that the threat returns even more powerfully, so it tells him to drink even more.
What the Cycle Looks Like
Threat→ Insufficient ability to cope→ Alarm is too loud to think rationally (brain focuses on quick and efficient) → Substances are quick and efficient → threat reduces or eliminates temporarily → reinforces the use of substances.
Partner with Your Brain
Let's go back to that definition of a super villain. The most important characteristic of a super villain is their motivation. Super villains are motivated by selfish, destructive intentions. They do damage without regret all for the joy of doing harm. When we think about the motivation of our brains, however, it is motivated by the singular goal of keeping us safe and doing it as quickly as possible. It doesn’t want to do harm, if anything it is looking to eliminate harm. Its alarm system is just too loud for it to take a beat and think through the decisions it's making. Yes, this results in harm, absolutely, and the intention is important.
So if my brain is not looking to hurt me, but it is, what do I do about that? Recovery is a process of partnering with our brains, not fighting against them. When we can recognize that our brain isn’t a super villain trying to ruin our lives but rather the hardest working safety officer on our team, with poor training in how to keep us safe, we can focus on retraining our brain to what actually helps us, which requires it learning to tolerate discomfort, find new ways to soothe our distress, and devalue “quick and efficient” in lieu of “safe and sustainable”. Addiction is just the result of our brain’s failed attempts at keeping us safe.
Your brain is not the enemy. It is working so hard to keep you safe. Unfortunately it doesn’t always get it right. Thankfully, we can rewrite the story and what may feel like a super villain right now can be your biggest ally- the Robin to your Batman.
