As an experienced addiction and EMDR therapist, I believe it’s important when working with recovery to initially stabilize before starting trauma work, in order to create and maintain stability. A dysregulated nervous system is a relapse factor. So first and foremost, it’s stabilizing the nervous system, co-creating a healthy and safe therapeutic alliance, comprehensive and thorough assessment and then the actual trauma work.

 Trauma and Addiction: A Direct Link

Not why addiction, but why the pain? – Dr. Gabor Maté

What Dr. Maté—a leader in addiction medicine and world-renowned author and speaker—is saying, is something we’ve long known to be true about trauma and addiction, addiction is usually a symptom of underlying trauma, or mental health issues that are the manifestation of trauma. Dr. Maté uses the word ‘pain’ to refer to trauma and other underlying issues, whether it’s past sexual or physical abuse, the pain of not being able to control one’s thoughts and emotions, loss and grief, physical pain or whatever is causing the unpleasant feelings. Untreated trauma is a leading factor in the addiction relapse cycle and why so many recovering individuals substitute one addiction for another.

When people are exposed to chronic stressful events, their neurodevelopment can be disrupted. As a result, the person’s cognitive functioning or ability to cope with negative or disruptive emotions may be impaired.

Unfortunately, many people experience trauma at some point in their life and don’t understand or acknowledge the trauma, so it goes untreated and manifests itself in fear and hopelessness, depression, anxiety, and in the most severe cases, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

What is EMDR?

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a psychotherapy that enables people to heal from the symptoms and emotional distress that are the result of disturbing life experiences. Repeated studies show that by using EMDR therapy people can experience the benefits of psychotherapy that once took years to make a difference. It is widely assumed that severe emotional pain requires a long time to heal. EMDR therapy shows that the mind can in fact heal from psychological trauma much as the body recovers from physical trauma. When you cut your hand, your body works to close the wound. If a foreign object or repeated injury irritates the wound, it festers and causes pain. Once the block is removed, healing resumes. EMDR therapy demonstrates that a similar sequence of events occurs with mental processes. The brain’s information processing system naturally moves toward mental health. If the system is blocked or imbalanced by the impact of a disturbing event, the emotional wound festers and can cause intense suffering. Once the block is removed, healing resumes. Using the detailed protocols and procedures learned in EMDR therapy training sessions, clinicians help clients activate their natural healing processes.

Trauma and addictions are connected

With the impact stress responses and trauma have on the body, it’s not surprising that emotional and psychological pain often lead to an endless cycle of self-medicating, which leads to more pain, and inevitably more self-medicating, and so on. Often, when left undiagnosed and untreated, people will self-medicate with alcohol, illicit drugs or misuse prescription drugs to placate the feelings of depression or anxiety or to numb the pain of the trauma.

Avoiding trauma, and turning to unhealthy coping mechanisms, only exacerbates trauma and can lead to addiction or other harmful behaviors. Seeking treatment and confronting trauma in a safe place is the best way to address trauma and reprocess it so that one may give traumatic experiences attention and acknowledgement, but not let them negatively impact your life.

Many people who find themselves in a treatment program are not getting the help they need if the program only treats addiction and does not consider trauma or co-occurring mental health issues. Substance use is often one way to cope and numb out the impact of trauma. Sometimes it may be the only coping method one has. Therefore, it is important to treat both the trauma and the addiction. When you address the addiction without looking at the trauma, you are not resolving the root of the addiction.

To schedule an appointment with an addiction and trauma specialist today, call 250-802-5738 or email cpziebarth@gmail.com