A Drug Person Or How They Get Into An Addicted Relationship

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

It all starts corny. A man - a woman or a man - lives a completely ordinary life for himself, well, there, study / work / children or something else, earthly, everyday. And in general, everything seems to be nothing, but only there is no strength. Either from the fact that there is too much “necessary” in life, or exhaustion arises against the background of being knocked out by some event that knocked the ground out from under our feet: betrayal of a partner, moving to another country, changing jobs or some other strong life changes when a person is in an emotionally agitated state

And so, it means that a person lives for himself, somehow tries to cope with what is, and then vzhuh! - HE appears. Or SHE. Gender doesn't matter. It matters that this person is able to evoke strong ambivalent emotions.

I like the drug dealer metaphor.

Drug dealers - they are usually not pleasant to anyone. Usually they find you first, not you find them. And usually the first reaction to them is the desire to brush it off, inside it sounds "no, well, have I completely lost the coast? No, I don't need this." And, at the same time, there is always curiosity: what is selling? and how much? and of what quality? maybe try? oh well, why, I’ll try once, I just need to relax.

A person who has a lot of vital energy due to the fact that things are fine with his own aggression, drug dealers usually do not come to him. And if they do, then the meetings are so fleeting, they are instantly forgotten, the conversation does not start.

Reflections "maybe try?" always arise where there is exhaustion, a deficit of something - strength, joy, respect, warmth in relationships, etc.

Drug dealers are distinguished by their activity. They are not afraid of rejection, they clearly know why they come to a person and what they want to take from him. Refusal is not experienced as personal rejection; refusal is just another obstacle. Better yet, the game stage.

And what does the classic scheme of getting hooked on addictive relationships look like?

Somehow a weakened person suddenly becomes attacked by someone else's attention.

It can be a frontal attack, when a person calls, invites you here, here, and in every possible way gives the message "I like you, I want to get closer to you, you are cool", while becoming so annoying that the victim does not feel any other desire except to reject someone who is annoying and unsympathetic, but the very fact of such attention and perseverance is usually pleasant. Usually the thought arises: this is not at all the person I need, but he knows the price for me. It's okay for someone to want me and get my attention. Finally, I have the right to choose and refuse, which is nice.

The second scenario of this game may be quite the opposite. To hook the victim with something and leave her to think for a long time what it was.

In fact, the same first option, only in the most accelerated form: first invade the borders, and then move away, disappear suddenly, let go, so that the victim would start thinking “what was that all about?”.

This can look, for example, as constant hints of sympathy, or a desire to invite you on a date, and all this is in words, or very meaningful. And on actions, if you look at the fact, a person chooses not to take any direct actions.

It can be a hint or even a voiced invitation to a date, but without clear agreements.

For example, a person says: I invite you to a restaurant, but does not say when, which one, whether he will stop by, whether he will call. And it seems that the tension begins to build up: if you start to clarify "where? And in which?", You can seem too aggressive (oh), tactless, show your interest. And even if you directly clarify this, you will get a lot of fog in response, which creates a feeling of inappropriateness of such clarifications.

Be that as it may, in whatever way the drug dealer lures the victim, he always first violates the boundaries, turns out to be closer than the willingness to let him in was initially.

Closer, because it starts to make you think a lot about yourself.

In the first scenario of the game, when there is an active conquest, a person usually suddenly, at the most inopportune moment for this, disappears. And the victim begins to think: what was that? Why did you disappear? Did I go too far with rejection, or maybe he (a) has already died (la), so he disappeared (la)?

In the second scenario, the victim begins to occupy his inner space by chewing on thoughts "why was it necessary to invite out on a date and then disappear?" - and then act like I'm the last asshole and did something bad? ".

In general, the drug dealer usually creates a situation of ambivalence, where the impulses and their own manifestations are so contradictory that if you try to analyze them, the brain will simply explode.

A person with stable boundaries, filled with satisfaction with life, not exhausted by deficiencies, most likely will react to such stuffing with something like "pfff, is this something like that? Some bullshit. Well, okay, this is not my war, there is no desire to understand in this, I'd rather do my beloved (something / someone there)."

A person with deficiencies of affection, attention, relationships, support, self-respect will begin to try to solve this riddle. Not right away, but will begin to guess what it was.

And, since such sticking is a clear sign that the relationship with one's own aggression (read, one's own boundaries) is not regulated, then the most likely option is to follow the beaten path - to direct one's own aggression either at myself (this is all because I was (a) too callous / oh, offended an innocent person!), or will do the same, but through projections and introjects (he has already been run over by a dump truck, and the last thing in his life was my refusal. What a heartless bitch I am! to be kinder, because he loved me so much, loved me so much, and I …)

Well, and in the second coming of the drug dealer he is greeted with open arms, almost like a family, because his sudden disappearance has grown his value.

And this is very reminiscent of the story of a three-year-old child who said to everything "I am here!", "No!" and throwing tantrums, and when the parent got into his trauma and said "here? Nope? Well, stay here, I went."

And then suddenly righteous anger and self-defense turn into horror: how? I was abandoned? No mommy, mommy, please don't go!

Such stories may have long been forgotten in the experience of an adult, but the reactions to catch up and cling to come to life faster than the ability to realize what is happening.

And that’s all. Then the torment begins. More precisely how.

First, the victim gets an incredible thrill, the feeling that here it is - real happiness, the embodiment of the cherished dream into reality has come true, finally it has come true!

And then bang - and suddenly some terrible things begin - all of a sudden this warm, loving person begins to neglect, use, humiliate, be rude. And it’s so hard to believe in such a sharp change in mood that everything in my head starts to go away: no, no, no, it’s not he (a) so cruel, it’s him at work / wife / difficult situation / I got sick. In fact, this man is gold. You just need to calm him / her now, please, regret, understand, accept and forgive.

In short, a new circle begins with retroflection (turning aggression onto oneself) and other defenses that stop the awareness and expression of aggression in a constructive form. Aggression accumulates, pours out into affect, after which the retroflection only intensifies (guilt for what is expressed in affect, the experience of one's own inadequacy, shame for oneself).

A person who is emotionally dependent is not much different from a person who is chemically dependent.

Both those, and those, are dependent on that short, but incomparable buzz, when deep satisfaction comes inside, the feeling that now everything is in its place inside. Such inner fulfillment and bliss.

Both those, and those, are gradually depleted, gradually allowing more and more in relation to themselves.

Both those and those, in fact, have only two choices: between a little good, and then into the hell of waste, and immediately plunge into the bottom of the hell of waste, which, it seems, will never end. In general, the choice remains only between bad and very bad.

After all, the drug high is so acute that ordinary life / ordinary healthy relationships seem so insipid, uninteresting, boring that they do not excite at all.

A frequent statement by people who are in dependent relationships, in which there is often a lot of violence, humiliation, suffering: I meet with other men / women. They are good, but I am absolutely not interested in them at all. Everything is boring, predictable, dead.

This happens for the reason that in order to get dopamine naturally, you must first show aggression, sweat: be active, take risks and be responsible for its consequences. Serotonin and endorphins also require aggression - sports, activity in search of favorite things and relationships in which joy appears after some time after creation.

The drug is aggressive in itself. You don't have to do anything. All the consequences are calculated, the person knows what will happen after the use.

Heroin itself penetrates the walls of blood vessels, acting on the nervous system, nicotine more quickly than natural neurotransmitters sits on the receptors and stimulates their additional production, so that without nicotine, there would be such a force of excitement, such hunger, which is much faster to drown out with nicotine. It's just that deep breathing is not soothing, not satisfying, it becomes about nothing when stress arises.

That is, the difference between a natural, healthy high and a high from outside is, in general, aggression.

If my aggression is stopped by some mechanism, then, of course, I lose energy, because all my energy was spent on keeping this very aggression in me. And, of course, I need energy even more - both for holding and for being active. And, of course, I will find her where they will offer me to fill this deficit. And, of course, there is not always the energy to weigh what I will have to pay for it and whether such a price is really suitable for me.

Is there a way out?

There is.

But it requires patience and a lot of tedious work on yourself.

There are different opinions about how to get out of emotional addiction. I will share only mine, based on my own experience and experience of working with such states (for some time now, this is one of the most frequent requests in my practice).

I am not a supporter of an abrupt exit from such a relationship using "willpower." Quotes, because for me "willpower" is an abstract concept that I don't believe in. For there are always in parallel so many unconscious processes that regulate my choices, motives and manifestations that this inflated "willpower" for my taste is nothing more than a myth.

And the way out of such a relationship by pushing oneself to "willpower", as a rule, does not bring anything but a short-term result, followed by such a feeling of guilt that he did not cope, that the situation only gets worse and the dependence grows stronger.

You know how to quit smoking. Or drink. If I'm ashamed, I need support. And my automatic way to support myself is to drink or smoke. But I smoke / drink and feel ashamed and guilty for my type of "weak-willed". This makes you want to smoke / drink even more.

In order to eliminate the need for any addiction, it is necessary to form the support that the substance is now providing. Or the person I'm depending on.

Until another source of support is formed, it is not safe to remove the addiction crutch.

And yet, the chemical dependence is somewhat different for me in terms of the "technique" of exit, so let's leave it.

But in emotional dependence, the central resource is the gradual development of self-sensitivity.

If we recall the metaphor when the child is capricious, and the parent threatens him to leave and the child is forced to hammer all his volitional manifestations with fear and run after his mother, then the story is very clear: the child is really dependent on the adult. a child really cannot survive without a parent.

When we become adults and there are exactly the same feelings from the threat of rupture, then the situation has a different context: you can definitely survive without this relationship. But for this you need to know from experience why this statement is true. That is, what you can exactly, what resources you have, how you can use them and what goodies you can get yourself.

The trouble of a person who has fallen into an addicted relationship is that, due to many circumstances, he was often taught to track and analyze well the reactions of those on whom he is dependent, but was not taught to notice and be aware of himself.

Well, that is, there was no parent around who would tell the child what was happening to him:

you are angry with me now for stopping your game. You may be angry, but we really have to leave now.

you are crying now because you lost your toy. You liked her so much and you are sad about this loss.

you are now at a loss because this is a new task for you. It's good to be at a loss. Take your time, give yourself time to orient yourself, look around and understand where it is better for you to start deciding.

Sounds fantastic, right? Few of us had such parents, and indeed adults in the environment.

More often I had to learn to read what mood my mom was in, how drunk my dad was, when it’s better to ask for something, when it’s better not to approach, and most importantly, what I need to do to get parental approval.

Thus, the skill to recognize and analyze the feelings of others (and it doesn't even matter whether these feelings are real or projected) is highly developed, but ask such a person "what do you want?" and at best, you can hear a clear answer about what he does NOT want. More often formal "correct" answers or confusion. Because nobody taught to be in a relationship with oneself, to ask oneself, to be interested in oneself in the present. There was no such thing. More often they expected and demanded something, and it was necessary to correspond to something.

Thus, the very first step in getting out of addiction is the formation of the skill to clearly recognize your feelings and the formation of the skill to relate to yourself.

Sounds simple, right?

But in therapy, this usually takes at least a year, so that a person could both name his feelings clearly, and not be afraid of them (it's scary to meet some of your feelings, for which they used to be punished (envy, anger, a desire to compete in such a way that wash competitors, etc.).

And the second story is the formation of the skill to regulate the focus of attention from attitudes towards others to attitudes towards oneself.

Many people are generally at a loss: how does this relate to yourself? I treat myself like that!

Here intellectual concepts about oneself from Personnelity are often confused with the ability to feel feelings for oneself.

Well, that is, you can say to yourself "here I am a good fellow, here I am a fool, but here I am just normal," and this is a completely different matter than if, immersed in feelings, answer oneself to a question "and how can I that they did this to me? ".

That is, if you ask such a person "how do you like the fact that this child was ashamed and humiliated?" he will most likely answer "I feel sorry for this child, I am angry at those who take it out on him at his expense."

But when you ask a person, "how do you like the fact that your inner child has been suffering these shaming and humiliation from your inner critic / real partner for more than a dozen years?"It is not immediately in this place that the opportunity arises to look at oneself as a living person who finds himself in some kind of difficult experience.

And the trick is that as soon as such a skill begins to appear and becomes stable, then the real parent who threatened to leave if he could not cope with the child's affect comes to replace his inner parent, who comes to the sensual part that easily excited, carried away and needs a relationship, comes and says: no matter what, I will never leave you. I will fight for you, no matter what situation you find yourself in, I believe in you and you are valuable enough for me that I would protect you and do everything to make you happy.

As soon as such a part, capable of noticing, treating, caring, loving, in general, giving everything that was not possible to receive from real parents is formed, then no drug dealers - emotional or heroin addicts - do not cling anymore.

Many criticize therapy for taking too long - a year, two, three, five, sometimes seven.

But each of us has our own holes and they are all of a different scale. And to add in a year or two, three or five that which did not work out from childhood and, in general, a whole life for ten years is not such a long time, but a very valuable investment in myself in my experience - to devote an hour a week entirely and completely self-reliant.

So it goes.