Is There a Link Between Trauma and Addiction?

To describe the link between trauma and addiction, it is important to first clarify the differences between the two terms and define the aspects that make them a tragically enmeshed partnership. Substance Use Disorder is a diagnosable condition characterized by cravings, loss of control, increased tolerance, withdrawal symptoms, and dismissal of harmful consequences. As a result of the above-named symptoms, paranoia, depression, anxiety, aggression, loss of judgement, increased impulsiveness, and interrupted thought processes can hold a person at the mercy of the substances or behaviors that has helped them to cope with life’s challenges.

There are several risk factors that contribute to addiction, often due to its nature as a disease some believe it is linked to genetic factors, some believe it to be a moral failing, and others believe that is a way of living it that counteracts their symptoms of pain and/or helps to cope with distressing emotions. It does not matter what philosophy you most strongly align with, here at Prosperity Haven, we find it important to address habits as a powerful force that may better explain causality for this disease. Habits set the tone and tenor of our daily lives and have the authority to dictate what direction we move towards or away from since they can be used as excuses just as effectively as they can be used for change. 

Habits require little energy to enact which allows our brain to direct energy towards critical thinking and decision making. The risks of habit formation in substance use, directly correlate to our brain’s motto of “work smarter, not harder” and with each use, the brain craves repetition because it wants to establish a pattern so it may become a habit. The National Institute on Drug Abuse references addiction as a “chronic, relapsing disorder” that has considerable impact on the brain (NIDA, 2018, archived retrieval). To understand the importance of this reference, there is a common stigma that is circulated that “if they want sobriety badly enough it will happen, it must not be important to them” and saying this to a struggling person, has lasting effects. This belief can facilitate a message that no matter how many times they try to reliably get out of this situation, they will never be strong enough to do so. The more they listen to that voice, the more likely it is to become a defeating thought and as the cycle repeats, it becomes a habit to associate every use, conflict, behavior, and shortcoming as a personal failure. Therefore, despite the persons deep desire for change, they can feel powerless to overcome it once it has established ownership over the mind. 

Addiction is a highly prevalent concern in our society and yet sadly, it remains consistently misunderstood. This can leave individuals displaced and discouraged as we blame the substance a person is addicted to as the cause for the addiction itself. It is important to address the role trauma plays in addiction because not only can it influence these patterns to develop, but the addiction can also become both a source of trauma and a solution to its pain.

Trauma is complex human experience, and the causes of trauma may differ between individuals, and it makes it near impossible to generalize such a condition. However, there are three major aspects that contribute to its intensity and impact in our lives:

• An External Cause: this condenses the experience of an event that is/was unpredictable, sudden, and inflicted by an outside person, place, or event such as a natural disaster, assault, or other violent attack. This leads to the formation of fear, relying on plans and outcomes to guide daily choices, uncertainty, or unwillingness to try new things or meet new people, and you may be critical of society or towards a higher power.

• Violation or Betrayal: this condenses the sufferers experience in which the physical, emotional, or psychological self was mistreated by a trusted person. this is associated with being harmed by a romantic partner, a close friend, a coworker, a peer, and can happen within parent-child relationships. This specific type of event leads to a person feeling unsafe in relationships, they can develop patterns of codependency, become mistrustful of the motives of others, and possibly have strict standards for the people in their life or will have no standards at all. These behaviors are unified in their ability to give the sufferer a sense of control or data to justify their choices for being self-reliant.

• Loss of Control/Loss of Self: this condenses the feeling of helplessness, and an inability to control one’s own body. Loss of control is an extremely painful experience that leads to a person losing chances to gain or benefit from the life they have been given due to an inability to manage impulses. This category is for any person that says “_________ happened because I didn’t try hard enough” or “not surprising that I failed” or “I made the mistake of doing that once and I won’t do that again” and while there is an intense focus to avoid overwhelming feelings, such perfectionism when it faulters, leads to intense agitation, mood swings, and personality changes. Over time, the person’s identity, memory, consciousness, and perception of reality is unstable, and it is hard to separate the person you know from the version they created. When it is believed that restraint, suppression, and denial is an effective approach, you can experience altered personality traits such as isolating when you were once a highly sociable person, confrontational or argumentative in conversations when you were once easy going and perhaps, as you are reading this thought of some of your own qualities to include.

As you observe what trauma is, you can see parallels in how it presents itself to what addiction has done to change you or a loved one. Like substance use, a reaction to a stressful situation begins with experimentation and the questions of “did that help?”, “how did that work?, or “why didn’t that work?”, so then, you make changes because it didn’t work or it works a little too well, and it becomes a pattern, and once it becomes a habitual response the cycle feels too overwhelming to overcome. We at Prosperity Haven want to signify that experiencing trauma does not guarantee a person will develop a substance use disorder however, it does have a pattern of showing up as an underlying source of addictive behavior because abusing substances lowers your tolerance to stress and decreases your ability to use critical thinking to access alternative coping.