By Jack Adam Weber
Contributing Writer for Wake Up World
At some point in our lives, we are asked to show up for an addict. When we love or are attached to this person, the ride can be rough for us, for the relationship, and everyone involved. Addictions most often conceal emotional pain, some form of despair and self-dislike. They either numb physiological pain, or distract the addict on a psychological level. Most often, both physical and emotional denial and numbing are at play.
The damage that addictions cause is usually more damaging than what one feared facing in the first place. When we face a challenge, or pain, we fear dying. But the challenge usually presents a death and rebirth experience from which we can emerge more whole and healed, not a literal death threat. While we may fear the death of our sense of self, and avoid that reckoning through addiction, ironically, our addictions are what actually kill us. What the addict does to counteract fear is scarier than what he avoids. Presented with an opportunity, the addict misunderstands the opportunity and takes it as a threat to his survival, and ends up killing his life.
