And as I think about it, I think this represents, in effect, an affective split, a dissociation. You have your face that you take into society, then your core reality. One doesn’t need drugs, the other one does. One doesn’t need sex every day, but the other one does.
Healing is accomplished, to offer a truism as something deep, through integration. If alcohol amplifies and improves your existing life, then it is healthy for you. If it is an alternative to your life, something where you escape it, then it is unhealthy.
Here is another metaphor: addiction is a means of feeding a wild beast which does not belong in society. The solution is to reintegrate to society, but the thing is, you can only do that when you can figure out how to actually belong.
I think Jonathan Hari is unquestionably correct that addicts suffer from lack of connection, but I think in a great many cases, it is because their traumatic experiences prevent them from socializing properly. We live surrounded by people, most of us. That is not the problem. The problem is HOW to do it. If your mother did not love you, if she perhaps even hated you, then that is the water in which you swim.
It’s a complicated fix, but I’m working on it.