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trauma

Tire Tracks

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READ IT TO ME: Click Play to Listen to This Post.

Alex had been cheating on Alice from day one. Secretly, he hired strippers at his bachelor party and never made it through his honeymoon without cheating with someone he met at the pool of the resort where he and Alice stayed during the week after the wedding. It didn’t stop. He slept with Alice’s best friend, hired hookers when on the road for his work, and was hooked on porn over the years.

Alice caught him looking at porn on his phone late one night and suspicioned there was more but was afraid to confront him. Then, one evening Alex’s phone rang and Alice picked it up thinking it was their daughter needing to be picked up from volleyball. But it wasn’t. It was a strange female voice who asked for Alex. When the person recognized that it was not Alex she hung up. Triggered with suspicion, Alice checked his texts and phone messages. She discovered a ton of graphic sexting texts between Alex and a woman named Lisa. She checked the phone number and figured there were over 75 phone calls to this one woman’s number. She called the number on Alex’s phone and the same voice of woman answered the call and Alice hung up without saying a word. She burst into tears because she knew what she had been dreading for quite some time. 

She confronted Alex about the call but he denied and lied about anything inappropriate. She stayed with it and laid out the enormity of detail that she uncovered and finally, after hours of adamantly denying and gaslighting Alice, Alex broke down and admitted that he had been having an affair with a woman named Lisa who worked at his company. He piecemealed his history of sexual misbehavior. It wasn’t till a month and a half later when through intensive therapy and an extensive sexual history polygraph that Alice learned that Alex was never faithful to her throughout their ten years of marriage. 

She determined that the only way she would remain in the marriage would be that he move out, go to inpatient treatment recommended by his therapist, and do whatever they recommended.

This is a common story for therapists who work with compulsive sexual betrayal. The stories vary and some relationships are able to heal betrayal brokenness while many are not. Addictive behavior is often concealed in deceit and secrets. In time, compulsive infidelity is discovered by partners and other family members. It is always traumatic for everybody.

Healing around betrayal is difficult and dicey.  The trauma that is incurred impacts both the betrayer and the betrayed. The hurt is multifaceted. 

Therapists treating broken trust have a number of considerations to assess when administering treatment. There are established guidelines for counselor support. However, while there are similarities that are common to all partner betrayal, no two betrayal responses are the same. Couples whose relationships have been riddled with compulsive infidelity with long-term dishonesty have a number of considerations to assess.

1. The compulsive betrayer must prioritize the following in order for healing to be effective: Cut off all contact with the affair partner immediately. This includes text, email, phone calls, and face-to-face visits. If the affair partner is in a working relationship with the compulsive betrayer, contact must be only about business with a commitment to gate all nonverbal energy communication. Preferred accountability about this dynamic would be with a recovering person who also is working a program. The betrayer must prioritize stopping the runaway train going down the track of their entrenched compulsive sexual behavior that has been in existence for a long period of time. Individual treatment is an absolute must. Promises to stop fade away all too frequently for the one who refuses treatment intervention. 

2. The partner must engage treatment for damage created by the betrayal. All too frequently the partner refuses treatment favoring that their betraying partner be the “identified patient”. It is familiar to hear “I am not the one who struggles with lying and infidelity. Focus on the betrayer. They are the culprit. This is like getting run over by a big mack truck and laying on the side of the road with tire tracks across your back. The paramedics are called and when they arrive they tend to the driver, put them in the ambulance, and whisk them to the emergency room for treatment, leaving the victim who was run over lying on the side of the road. It makes no sense. Betrayal breaks the heart and the spirit of every victimized partner. Induced trauma requires long-term partner treatment for recovery. Codependent responses are always triggered by underlying trauma. It must be treated and will not heal without it. 

3. The 3-legged stool approach. I prefer the 3-legged therapeutic approach. Every stool must have solid legs in order for the stool to be stable to safely sit. I find it most helpful that when treating betrayal trauma that each party in the relationship do individual therapy and that the couple also engage therapy as a couple, ideally with three different therapist involved (one for each of the 2 individuals and one for the couple together). I have experienced good success when it is done concomitantly.  There are exclusions when situations are exempt to this approach. That said a three-pronged approach has proven most helpful in healing. 

4. Triage priorities in treatment. Betrayal is chaotic and crisis is not uniform and predictable. Careful consideration and guidance is needed in treating the betrayer, the betrayed partner, family, friends, and extended community depending upon the roles people have in those communities. Both partners will need to embrace their wise-minded adult within, and if this is absent carefully accept the guidance from an experienced counselor to triage treatment based on your specific and unique needs. 

Destructive behavior, broken hearts, and tire tracks across the back caused by betrayal can heal. However, it is a long journey that insists that both partners embrace the healing journey. One or the other being the “identified patient” will impact prognosis for healing and will stymy healing. Addict betrayal is not only about relational infidelity. Addicts betray their own values and the trust of those around them who are counting on them to work a program for healing.  It is crucial that the entire family treat the addictive behavior from a family systems perspective. Each family member will need to address the impact of trauma that warps perspective and undermines trust.

Polarization

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Polarization is a problem in the world. Us versus them is a mentality that has always existed.  The criteria for who is in and who is out are determined by those who have the power.  Historically, the criteria for acceptance has been tragic. Jewish people were rejected by the Third Reich in Germany, who determined that the entire race should be exterminated. African Americans were once considered only 3/5th human in America simply because of the color of their skin. Racism, sexism, patriarchy, ageism, etc exclude some and include others because of someone’s definition about who is acceptable and who is not.

When I was a kid I tried to hang out with only Cub fans. If you liked the St. Louis Cardinals, there was something wrong with you. My dad was a blue-collar worker and we were Democrats. We prayed for those who were Republicans and wondered why! We thought that the Pope was the antichrist. There were 3 areas of our town: Elm Ridge, where the rich people lived; Grant Park, where the poorest lived, and then the rest of us. We learned to categorize people by their address. We looked up to the folk in Elm Ridge as successful. They were the “haves.” We fought to keep our address out of Grant Park where the “have nots” lived.

Judgmentalism has separated people throughout my life. There was the Red Scare and McCarthyism in the 1950’s. Famous people like Paul Robeson, who was a great black athlete and actor, was ostracized and accused of being Communist because he refused to bend to popular opinion. There were Christians who thought the world was going to end in a ball of fire in the early 1960’s. They were scoffed at by scientists and ostracized as Holy Rollers. Now, scientists push the alarm of a catastrophic global warming, and many of those same Christians scoff and ostracize the scientists.

Polarization is a challenge to recovery. Healing requires integrating both the best and the beast within each person. In community, us versus them undermines the healing process. Judging others’ social status or recovery progress paralyzes the potential for transformation. It requires each person to recognize their own dark behavior in order to have compassion for other people’s struggle. It is by recognizing compassion and identification that transformation occurs. 

No one escapes childhood unscathed. I have learned that working through abuse requires the acceptance of a victim/victimizer dynamic that exists in those who have suffered abuse. When you have been victimized it is important to face ways that you have victimized others, perhaps not in like kind but in like principle. 

It is critical to confront behavior where you selfishly wanted what you wanted when you wanted it. It is important to face the impact of feelings and consequences that your behavior created for others and experience the gravity of their plight  because of your actions. Then, you focus on forgiving yourself which simply means to let go and not hold the behavior against yourself. It also means to stop the hurtful behavior. When you do this, you become less polarized from those who have victimized you. By accepting your own dark behavior you can create compassion for the dark behavior of others who hurt you with perpetrating abuse. Through common shared brokenness you can experience healing and forgiveness which can produce freedom from the abuse. 

Essentially, this controversial process can be framed as a way of getting out of an emotional prison that an abuser’s behavior created. Some have described it as a healthy selfish way of forgiving the son of a b**** who perpetrated pain and devastation in your life. You don’t have to be friends with someone who has hurt you. However, polarization is less likely because you have addressed in principle the victimizer dynamic in yourself that also exists in the perpetrator who has hurt you.

When this does not occur, communities remain fractured and polarized. Perpetrators, like sex offenders, are excluded from their communities. Some people think that if we segregate, isolate, or polarize people, then somehow we become a safer community. I don’t see evidence that this is true. 

Through my work at Psychological Counseling Services, we have witnessed transformation and healing by bringing victims and victimizers together. When sexual abuse is the issue, careful consideration of healing factors are assessed for both victim and victimizer before such integration takes place. Through 25+ years of engaging this process, I have observed and facilitated healing and transformation for both victim and victimizer. Regarding betrayed partners, we have integrated them with addict betrayers for many years. I have listened to partners who have shared that listening to the heart of an addict who is not their partner has been helpful to cultivate compassion and healing toward their own addict partner. On the other side of the coin, I have listened to addicts state that hearing the heartache of a different betrayed partner helped them to deepen empathy toward their own betrayed partner.  

When we face each other’s pain we promote healing and transformation and eliminate polarization. This makes far more sense to me. 

I do not think there is just one way to heal trauma from abuse. There are many alternatives. I do believe that polarization has splintered communities throughout our country. Judgmentalism through categorizing and labeling people has been detrimental to healing in our country. I suggest that we overcome judgmentalism and polarization toward others through identification of common-shared brokenness with shared accountability and consequences.  

Take time to be curious of someone who is unlike you or represents a position you vehemently disagree with.  Notice how judgment comes up and simply sit with gaining an understanding of another person’s plight and position about life. You don’t have to change your mind about how you think. But, you can find a way to connect with someone who sees things different than you do. A way to overcome polarization is to integrate common-shared brokenness through listening to a different perspective.  

Stuck and Stargazed

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When I graduated from seminary in 1977 I committed to an intern position at a large church with 24 full-time pastors on staff. I worked 85+ hours a week without compensation for three years. I would work from 7 am till 10 pm each weekday and then help the janitorial staff clean the church from 10 pm to 2 am. Many nights, Eileen and I would sleep in the parlor of the church. We lived off Eileen’s salary which was $9k per year. Why did I do that? At the time, some said because I loved God and the church. But underneath, in my desire to be the best I could be, there was a desperate need to gain the smile of approval from the senior pastor. You might say I was stuck in stargaze. 

I came into my adulthood with a hole in my soul. My dad worked hard at three different jobs to meet the needs of our family of 12 kids. I believed that if I worked really hard then I would get the attention and acclaim that I missed from my dad because of his absence. I wanted this pastor to notice my hard work. Looking back I was stuck in desperation for approval. Yet, I could never get enough. After many years of workaholic ministry, the pastor promised that I would become his replacement. However, I later learned that he made the same promise to five other guys. I felt like a fool. 

In recovery, I was challenged to examine my tendency to reach out to destructive people and believe in their false promises. While demonstrating relationship savvy in most friendship connections, I had a pattern of unwarranted loyalty and allegiance to authority figures in my life. Repeated and unresolved childhood trauma created a pattern of trauma repetition that undermined my emotional health and had to be addressed.

Do you ever wonder why you tend to bond with people who hurt you in your life? Addicts have the propensity to bond with people who are emotionally unavailable. Blindly, they lose themselves in unhealthy relationships that trigger desires to meet their unmet needs. They lose themselves in the intensity of the relationship in hopes that this one special connection will replace what has been missing. It can be a strong affiliation with a person of power at work, an intense alliance with an organization leader, or becoming hooked on a romantic relationship. Individuals frequently marry with a deep-seated desire to work out with their marital partner what was unaddressed in their family of origin. It can be an inward repressed longing that must be recognized before authentic contact can occur in an intimate relationship. 

Trauma occurs during vulnerable and early developmental stages in life and is often unrecognized and invalidated. People become fastened to this nexus of early trauma. There is a tendency to repeat the trauma in later years of life. 

Every child has developmental needs to be addressed. Touch, mirroring value, predictability, knowing that you matter, etc. are just a few developmental needs that must be met in a healthy way. When these needs are satisfactorily met safe attachment is formed. There is an embodied sense of security and acceptance. There is an ability to self-regulate with the capacity to form close connections as well as have separation from those with whom you are most personal.

However, when these needs are not met then developmentally you resemble a chunk of Swiss cheese with holes. There is an intense desire to fill the needs (holes) from the outside by achieving power, position, and control with accomplishment and relational approval. This need is overwhelmingly intense but can only be addressed with healthy attachment on the inside. In the attempt to fill these needs from the outside, you can become like a child who cannot get enough sugar. There is never enough achievement or approval from others.

As an adult, the process of addressing this destructive dilemma is to grieve the losses of deficits suffered way back in childhood. Embracing sadness, anger, resentment, shame, hate, and other feelings associated with loss is both unpopular and uncomfortable. Recognizing these painful feelings as energy streams is important. Moving the energy of unwanted feelings from the original source person to the issue (lack of attachment) and then creating what you want in your life through boundaries and personal empowerment requires accessing the maturity of adult self-parenting. Most times, people need therapy to develop this skill set.

Fritz Perls, who is credited as the father of Gestalt therapy, once said that “nothing ever changes until it is real”. You must come to a place where you recognize that the relationship with a toxic person is an attempt to fulfill a psychological need that was never addressed as a child or grieved as an adult. This is the reason that you never get enough of what you really don’t want in a relationship with a toxic abusive person. The crazy-making experience is that you keep creating the same toxic relationships with people who are emotionally unavailable and abusive.

When these hurtful trauma-bonding experiences are not addressed, people become stuck in their own stargazing experience whether it be name-dropping, preferential treatment toward those perceived as important, or pedestalizing a partner subconsciously hoping they will meet a need within. 

Addicts struggle with looking outside to others to find answers for approval that can only be discovered within. There are no gurus to lead you. The late activist Grace Lee Boggs was right when she declared that “We are the leaders we are looking for”. Trauma bonding is a way of repeating an abusive relationship hoping for safety. Those who are willing to take the courageous steps toward addressing the pain of past trauma 

Shame—The Ear Worm that Dominates the Reality of an Addict

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“There’s a lion and when he roars he’s telling me I ain’t no good–It’s not just what I could, but he’s bitching what I should.” (Stalking the Lion King—Kw)

Shame is like a sticky music song syndrome that works its way into your mind and quickly forms a noose around your neck with the design of choking the authentic reality out of you. It all begins when you are very young.

I grew up in a very religious household. The clergy of the church I grew up in during my lifetime were servants from hell. The first pastor was in my life from birth to the 8th grade. He was a very abusive man. I have a lot of memories that were not pleasant. There were times he would challenge resistors to his leadership to a physical fight out in the parking lot of the church. Once he attempted to undress me when I was a second grader in front of the congregation. He said he wanted to use me, as an illustration, to describe “a gutter drunk” he was trying to save from hell.

When I was a kid, I wet the bed and was embarrassed that others would know. Once, this “saintly” pastor coaxed me into going to summer church camp and vowed to prevent others from knowing that I struggled with wetting the bed. In turn, he suddenly announced to the entire camp that I wet the bed and was a “pee-baby” during a morning flag-raising ceremony. There’s a long list of abuse and antics that this clergy person did and no one held him accountable. My parents would only say “Had it not been for this pastor, we wouldn’t have a church today”! He ran out all of the incorrigibles and the troublemakers so that he would be the only thug left to save souls. Well, it took a long time but thank God, or someone, that particular church is now defunct and out of business. Upon reflection, it’s settings like this during early formative years that shape and mold young minds with the earworm of shame-driven messages that dominate in later years. James Baldwin was right when he wrote “It’s not the world that was my oppressor, because what the world does to you, if the world does it to you long enough and effectively enough, you begin to do to yourself.” Shameful earworm messages work this way in your life.

After the preacher from hell finally retired, we got another one. Our new pastor was young and he related much better to the youth of the church. As a matter of fact, he related too well. He molested at least three of us and I am convinced there were many more. He disfigured the lives of so many kids that required more than a “born again” experience to ever restore. For many, it scarred and marred for life. Sexual exploitation is the abuse that keeps on giving, not just in the victim’s life but in generations to come because of the shroud of secrecy around the shameful behavior. Do you have experiences of exploitation that you have never talked to anyone about? Then you know the earworm of shameful messages that eat away at you and silently become transplanted into your next generation.

Shame that was ever present with my parents was transferred to every one of us kids. I experienced it around my inability to perform in sports. I was a great practice player but during actual games was dismal. Shameful earworm messages like “You can’t do this, who do you think you are” dominated and created miserable results.

I also experienced it around my sexuality. The only girl I ever dated as a teenager was in the church I attended. When it came to sex, shame pretty much dominated my thoughts and actions. Of course, there was no one to talk things out regarding healthy sexual experience or the crazy sexual abuse I had known previously. Under the cloak of shame, the earworm message would say that masturbation would send you to hell and that sex would be something you would automatically know what to do on that magical honeymoon night. Any other thought about it was considered dirty, disgusting, and to be condemned.

The earworm of shame would constantly ring “You must be more to keep from being less”. With the ring of shame, there is never a moment when who you are and what you have achieved is enough. No time to sit back and enjoy except for the rush you might experience while seeking more.

When I was little, my brother, Steve, and I used to mow very large lawns, 2 to 3 acres, with a power hand mower. We would take a pasture-size section and divide it in half. Then each of us would see who could mow their section the fastest. As we got closer to the finish we would mow faster and faster in an attempt to win. Eventually, each of us would be running. I remember how tortuous it felt toward the end. But, when it was finally finished, there was such a relief and adrenaline rush that felt great, win or lose! I would later try to addictively construct that adrenaline rush throughout my adult life. Truth is that the earworm of shame is often transformed into the adrenaline that comes from conquest and accomplished performance. It is a formative piece toward the development of addictive behavior.

I was often told that I would not succeed or be special in any way. It would always make me mad. I remember my business teacher in high school telling me that I would fail and be least likely to go to college. In college, my academic advisor told me that I would be a traditional “9 to 5” kind of guy and nothing special. To his point, I only wish I was a “9 to 5” kind of guy. It would have helped me live a more healthy life.

I have always had a burning desire to succeed in my life. I must admit that it became distorted in ministry in such a way that I lost myself and my way. Upon graduation from Seminary, my wife Eileen and I moved to Denver Colorado to work in a large evangelical church.

I was determined to learn to be the very best pastor I could be. I did a 2-year internship with absolutely no compensation. We lived off the 9 thousand dollar salary Eileen made working for an insurance company. I worked crazy hours. I would begin at 7 am and work until 10 pm. Then I would help clean the church from 10 pm till 2 am. During those days, Eileen and I would sleep in a gathering room at the church that was identified as “the Parlor”. I have always been embarrassed to tell people I did all of that for no pay. I wanted to be the best. There is this unrelenting subconscious need to correct the message from the earworm of shame that “I am not deserving” and that if I would keep driving myself that somehow in the end I would be enough. But, when I got to the end of the accomplishment, it was never a big deal and the approval I sought was elusive.

The dynamic of shame is all-inclusive. I have been working on this for 33 years of recovery and still must do recovery work simply to accept that what I am is enough. As a professional, I have noticed that I am not alone. Most recovery “gurus’ I know struggle with the earworm of shame in a similar way. The drive for notoriety, power, and possessions shelter this need to be more to keep from being less. There are times that this struggle becomes blatantly obvious through arrogant and socially unacceptable behaviors by some gurus. Sometimes, I have actually encountered folks who have never written a recovery book or even read one who have best exemplified managing the earworms of shame in their lives.
Earworms are common phenomenon to everybody. Shame has a way of sticking earworm messages in our hearts for a lifetime.

I am wondering if you are aware of shameful earworm messages that incessantly dominate and drive you toward addictive behavior? What shameful experiences did you have while growing up that set the foundation for the earworm of shame to drive you to your addiction later in your life? Can you identify the coping strategies that you have created in an attempt to avoid the shameful earworms that ring down deep in your heart?

Gestalt theorist Fritz Perls once said that “nothing ever changes until it becomes real”. Identifying the painful earworm messages of shame is the beginning of interrupting the pattern and creating a pathway that leads to serenity.

Unpacking Your Storyline

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My brother Dave always fought my brother Jimmy’s fights for him around town. Dave was three years older and looked out after him.  Jimmy kind of had a mouth and Dave backed him up. He was a big fighter. Once, Jimmy was being picked on by Mike Sweeney who was sort of a neighborhood bully. When Dave heard about it he challenged Sweeney to a fight. They met behind the Etog Bowling Alley. Jimmy was with him but stayed in the car.  Sweeney had a chain and wrapped it around Dave’s head. I remember seeing the blood from Dave’s head spurting everywhere. Dave went nuts. He picked up Sweeney and body-slammed him to the ground and hit him in the face mercilessly until Sweeney was unconscious. Dave kept hitting him. I remember seeing Sweeney’s lifeless body flop after each hit and thinking Sweeney was dead. It was horrifying! 

Two weeks later, as friends, Dave and Sweeney got drunk and drove a 1963 MG into a concrete culvert with speeds in excess of 100MPH! Neither were killed but Dave got his eye gouged out. My mom used religion and got everyone to pray for Dave’s eye.  During surgery, they put his eye back in and he was miraculously able to see out of it again.  

Later I watched my dad, in a rage triggered by Dave coming home drunk, pull a leg off one of our dining room chairs and beat Dave mercilessly on his arms until they bled.  Dave could have killed my dad but he just closed his eyes and took it. 

These life experiences shaped my view about anger, violence, and fighting. I learned that fighting was always for survival and then you fight to the death. It always humiliated other people. I decided to never fight except to escape death. Even as an adult, I have always been unwilling to wrestle with my boys because of what I witnessed during my childhood. 

Everyone has a story to tell. The magic of healing can be found in the stories of our lives that we share. The  uncovered storyline can be the most important link to healing. Housed in every story is truth that can liberate. This is why Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) has been so powerful for so many for so long.  Within the community of alcoholics, there are “shared stories.”  Each unique story is tied together through a shared weakness. 

I learned to change the storyline about fighting and to direct it away from violence and toward healing and justice-making for self and others. Do you know the storyline you tell yourself from experiences in your life?  Is it life-affirming? What storyline did you learn from life experience? Is it life-affirming or do you need to redirect or maybe even give up the storyline altogether?  

Listed are considerations for changing your storyline from destructive to life-affirming:

*No One Passes Through Childhood into Adulthood Unscathed–It is not uncommon to hear someone declare “I grew up in a perfectly happy childhood.” Usually, this signals that someone is minimizing significant hurtful experiences. Regardless, no one is able to go through childhood and avoid disappointment and other hurts. There are major traumas and minor traumas. Both are significant. While horrifying traumas can be obvious, minor trauma is often minimized and overlooked. Many times upon exploration, what is revealed are experiences of neglect and abandonment that have been normalized and marginalized. Frequently, people have learned to practice an unspoken rule in their family to “embrace the improbable and ignore the obvious.” Understanding the impact of these “minor” traumas in average daily living takes focused effort. 

It takes courage to tell our stories and deepen awareness of what is real. We are often afraid to unravel the uneventful, uncomfortable times of our past. We fear that if we do this, preconceived notions of reality will disintegrate. Consequently, we fear that what we have always thought to be true has now crumbled into nothingness. Yet, personal healing demands that we tell our story to uncover the meaningfulness that exists in average everyday living experience.

*Authentic intimate connection happens by telling your story and understanding your storyline–It is scary to be vulnerable. I describe it as becoming emotionally naked. Perhaps people will accept what they experience of you or perhaps not. Being honest with yourself at the deepest level has always been a most difficult task. Yet without this honesty, the depth of meaningfulness in life is blunted. Average experiences in life remain just that—average with no depth of insight. Brilliance is unleashed in the depths of honesty. Yet, there is a great price. To become emotionally naked to oneself is courageous. To open your heart with that same honesty to another person is at best a risky encounter.

Without honesty, there is no authenticity. Without authenticity, average everyday experience fails to have impactful meaning. Living life unchallenged and with boredom eats away at the soulfulness of inner brilliance. Dishonesty becomes a way of embracing the improbable and ignoring what is obvious. It makes average experiences empty of brilliance and drains creative resources.

*Your story can teach you the fundamental basics of self-care in the presence of human struggle if you are willing to examine and change your storyline as needed. A common thread that ties all of us together is the story of struggle. Tragedy, death, loss, emotional and physical pain are common bedfellows regardless of how or where we live. We make up a storyline about our experiences in life. Are they affirming and life-sustaining or flawed and enervating? For example, I am getting old. In my old age, I can tell myself that the joints in my body are just going to hurt, so get used to it.  I can tell myself stories about others whose lower back hurts just like mine and that it is just the way it is for old people. The stories I listen to from others are stories of folks who sit on a couch all day and don’t stretch or exercise. Well, what I know about that is when I do that, my lower back hurts. Yet, when I stretch, run or walk, my back is stronger and hurts less. So, if I want to change my storyline about getting old, I will need to look for stories of older people who have healthier experiences in life. Those who walk long distances and exercise are motivated to doing and being active. It is all about the storyline I choose to believe about my life experiences.

Strength and inspiration come in every-day moments when we change the storyline and share connection with the human spirit of others. There is genuine depth in soothing a broken heart when we learn to steady and stay in the presence of overwhelming discomfort. As we change the storyline of life experience we learn that the human spirit is resilient and has the capacity to transform the convulsion of wretched agony into the presence of poise and healing peace when discomfort and heartache is embraced and shared.

Emotional First Aid Expert Dr. Guy Winch on Trauma

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While it’s well-known that recovering from addiction is a non-linear process, it’s more difficult to tell what throws people off course. After getting clean and sober, the difficulty of staying clean and sober is often a surprise—particularly when drugs and alcohol were previously used to medicate many different discomforts and psychological issues. It’s the latter that Guy Winch, a licensed psychologist, author and pioneer of the concept of Emotional First Aid, has taken aim at.

Winch got his doctorate in clinical psychology from New York University, completing a post-doc at NYU Medical School. Though he has a private practice in Manhattan where he sees individuals and couples for psychotherapy, he has also written books such as The Squeaky Wheel and Emotional First Aid. Perhaps what he’s most popularly known for, though, are his wildly popular TED Talks about practicing emotional first aid and fixing a broken heart. While his work has all kinds of helpful applications, it applies particularly well to addiction recovery.

In a recent interview with Joe Polish, Winch expanded on his concept of emotional first aid: “We really know how to address physical injuries when we have them,” he says. “We have no such practice whatsoever when it comes to emotional or psychological injuries.” As it turns out, the “injuries” that we try to ignore the most are the things that create the most problems for us. “Injuries like failure, rejection, loneliness, guilt,” Winch says. “Unless we’re aware of these things, we’re just going to get deeper in and sustain more damage than we need.”

Becoming aware of our emotional state is a practice Winch calls emotional hygiene—and  according to Winch, we should all strive to make it part of our everyday life. “One of the things I’m really for is…gratitude exercises,” Winch says. “A gratitude exercise is getting up in the morning and saying, ‘You know what? The people I really care about right now are healthy, my parents are in good health, I’m really grateful for that because there may be a time in the future where that may not be the case.’”

Research shows that substance abuse disorders are often strongly correlated to a variety of mental health issues—issues which can further worsen our emotional states. Although this isn’t specific only to people with diagnosed disorders, overly negative self-talk is one of the negative symptoms of mental illness that Winch says is a major culprit. “The self-critical internal voice that so many of us have in so many frustrating moments is absolutely useless,” he says. “It’s purely damaging, there is no utility to it.”

While negative self-talk can have any number of causes, it can sometimes be exacerbated or caused by underlying trauma. Some addiction experts like Gabor Maté have theorized that trauma or a lack of connection may be to blame for all (or at least nearly all) of addiction. While Winch agrees that trauma can be a cause, he hesitates to give a blanket explanation—and says that the reality of trauma is much more complex.

“It only takes a few seconds to have trauma,” Winch says. “It’s not a quantitative thing, it’s a qualitative thing. Trauma is something that shocks the system, something that’s impactful enough that it causes you to reassess and rethink your general views on yourself, on life, on the people around you. It causes a fundamental shift, a seismic shift in your psychological system.”

Much like his concept of emotional hygiene, Winch similarly agrees that untreated trauma could lead addicts back to drugs and alcohol, or to negative emotional states that then lead to drugs and alcohol. “When I read that ‘the generalized approach to trauma should be this or that,’ it’s hard for me to endorse,” he says. “You have to have some kind of understanding of it in a way that gives it meaning. In the narrative of your life, it has to be a plot point that leads to something of significance.” While for some people this may mean excavating the experiences, others, according to Winch, may not need to.

Perhaps the underlying problem for recovering addicts, as Winch sees it, is one of positive and negative identity—particularly as they relate to trauma and negative self-talk. “Having a strong sense of self is actually really important,” Winch says. “At a certain level of addiction, it is so prominent in [an addict’s] life that it is the organizing principle. Many people get sober but they can’t maintain it. The problem there is that the addiction has become so central in their lives that there is nothing else central enough to attract them into another way of being.”

For his part, Winch has hope from his practice and his understanding of psychology that people can make changes in their habits to increase their chances of recovery. “I’m not a psychiatrist,” he says,” but my general thought is that it’s a two-way street. Our brain chemistry, our wiring, those kinds of things, impact our behavior significantly. But there are things we can do, behaviors we can assume, that will impact our brain chemistry.” Still, he notes that it’s a bit more complicated than that. “The impact of neurochemistry on our behavior is like a six-lane highway,” he says. “Our ability to impact brain chemistry and hormones by thinking or behavior is like a single-lane country road.”

Because of these hard facts, Winch also advocates getting on medication whenever necessary to treat depression, anxiety or whatever else may be ailing a person. With that chemical boost, people can then begin positive habits to reinforce their change. What all these disparate threads have in common, according to Winch, is simple. “Self-awareness,” he says. “When you hear yourself go through the same argument and it’s not going to get anywhere, stop doing that. That’s my advice in general. When things aren’t working for you, change the script. Don’t just try the same thing but try harder. Change the system.”

Recovery Month Contest Winner #1: Recovering in Waves by Lynn Fraser

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In honor of Recovery Month, we asked you to send us your stories about the impact community, nutrition or environment has had on your life since you put down substances and picked up life. Winners are not only receiving copies of our book, The Miracle Morning for Addiction Recovery, but are also being published here on the site.

First up we have Lynn Fraser. Find out more about Lynn here.

As a teen, I was desperate to escape the pain of bullying and used sugar, alcohol and other drugs. I dissociated. I considered suicide.

We medicate ourselves when we can’t stand feeling powerless and shamed. I’ve used the “bad ones”—sugar, alcohol and other drugs, and socially approved addictions like codependent relationships and over working. I stopped drinking and drugs in my mid-20s.

In the past five years, I finally healed the trauma and disconnection that was driving the need to escape.

Twenty-five years ago, I learned meditation and developed a connection within myself and within a community. I began to see how the mind worked and gradually healed the what-if catastrophic and compulsive thinking that was torturing me. I got to know myself on many levels and became kinder to myself.

Six years ago, I left an unhealthy relationship. I learned about Developmental Trauma. I began to release trauma stored in my body and I now specialize in supporting people to feel safe enough to heal. With the right support, we reach a tipping point where we no longer need to hide out or escape.

I connected with myself. I felt hopeful I could end my suffering. I stopped shaming and judging myself. I begin to have experiences of being okay. I became patient and compassionate with myself.

I connected with my sense of value through inquiring into and seeing through core deficiency beliefs of unworthiness and shame. Many of us had experiences as children of feeling unloved and unworthy, of feeling like we are being hurt because we are fundamentally bad. We developed beliefs based our experiences and these beliefs persist. They are the innocent beliefs formed when we were children and they are not true.

As I let go of the self-loathing and shame, my mind became healthier. When a negative thought comes up now, I notice it. I gently inquire into why I feel triggered into shame. My whole life and experience is workable.

Every single day I am grateful for my stability and presence and that I can help other people find their own safety and healing.

How Do You Heal Core Trauma? An Exclusive Interview with Dr. Jamie Marich on EMDR

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Dr. Jamie Marich is an EMDR bad-ass. Sure, that’s a kind of crazy way to identify someone but it’s true.

Here are her stats: she travels internationally teaching on EMDR therapy, trauma, addiction, expressive arts, yoga and mindfulness while maintaining a private practice in her home base of Warren, Ohio. She is the founder and director of The Institute for Creative Mindfulness, developer of the Dancing Mindfulness practice and co-developer of the Yoga Unchained approach to trauma-informed yoga. She is also the author of five books on trauma recovery, most recently EMDR Therapy and Mindfulness for Trauma Focused Care (with Dr. Stephen Dansiger). Oh and she’s over 16 years sober.

While I’d dabbled in EMDR before (I went to a therapist in the 90s and asked her if we could figure out if I had any repressed memories and she waved a pencil back and forth in my face and nothing happened), I knew a time would come when I’d have to dig in and really do it. But who wakes up in the morning and says, “Today I’d love to go pay someone to make me cry about all the things I’d rather forget”? I waited until I was, as they say, going through it and decided, since I was already sad, I might as well capitalize on that and try breaking down the thought patterns that were causing me to suffer more than I needed to.

I’m about 25 appointments in and I can say without hyperbole that it has been one of the most significant experiences of my life. While I love my regular therapist, EMDR has a way of making you go, “Why in God’s name have we been talking about all these issues all these years without ever SOLVING them?!!” Through EMDR, I have dismantled destructive thoughts in ways I never thought possible and been able to shed those labels my family gave me so that I can step into my greatness.

We all deserve to step into our greatness, as Dr. Jamie Marich knows better than anyone. Below are snippets from the conversation I had with her when I interviewed her over Facebook Live,

ANNA DAVID: Let’s start with the basics. What is EMDR?

JAMIE MARICH: EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing and, as you and I were sharing in our chat before the interview, it is a terrible name. It really is reflective of the historical context of which the therapy was founded.

There’s this story which is almost the stuff of legend now that Dr. Francine Shapiro, who came up with EMDR, was taking a walk the park and was contemplating some terrible things that had happened to her. She is a cancer survivor and had recently gone through some issues around that. Because was a very devoted student of mind body medicine, she was used to experimenting with her body to see “If I do this with my body, how will it affect my mental processes and vice versa…”

So she was taking this walk and discovered that her eyes started doing this bizarre back and forth thing as she was processing her thoughts and feelings, and so from there she started trialing and erroring with her friends saying, “Follow my fingers. As you reflect on these thoughts, feelings, emotions, notice what happens.”

It’s not as simple as “Just think of the trauma—follow my fingers and it’s going to go away.”

ANNA DAVID: How is it more complicated?

JAMIE MARICH: There is a method and a protocol that therapists need to be trained in so they can do EMDR safely and properly. But the reason it’s a horrible name and a clinical misnomer is that it was eventually discovered that you didn’t need the eye movement component to have a lot of the effect. You could do it by having earphones and hearing alternating beeps or by being tapped or by holding pulsers.

The mechanism at play really is this back and forth stimulation. We sometimes call it bilateral stimulation or dual attention stimulus…that oscillating motion back and forth.

ANNA DAVID: What does the bilateral stimulation do?

JAMIE MARICH: The easiest way I can explain EMDR is that it really helps us go deeper into the brain than talk therapy alone. A lot of people who’ve had experiences with EMDR will say things like, “I’ve mulled over this issue in talk therapy for years and years and years, and it just never quite shifted. I have good cognitive understanding, but at the heart and the body level, I still feel stuck.”

EMDR is one of the approaches that can help us go deeper than talk alone. It’s probably the most effective method I have seen for allowing me to access the holistic person and allow these shifts to happen more effectively and more quickly.

ANNA DAVID: What exactly is happening to the brain?

JAMIE MARICH: The limbic brain, which is the middle part of our brain that we cannot easily get to by words—our fight or flight brain—can say stuck in trauma repetitions. So we can’t easily get to it through words. This sort of stimulation opens up neurotransmitters that connect the limbic brain—the neocortex, which is the more rational brain.

It’s like this: We can have that talk over and over again where we say, “I should know better” but it’s not linking up in the heart and the body. So what the dual attention stimulus is doing is it’s literally widening the bridge between those two brains in ourselves…we can call them parts of the brain, but they’re technically different brains.

But when you’re getting into reprocessing trauma, the speed is usually set up a little higher because we want to move information more efficiently over that neuro fiber bridge between the feeling brain and the neocortex. The way that I’ve heard one of my mentors explained it is that when we help a person process trauma in this way, we move memories to the neocortex. It’s not that we’re eliminating memories. It shifts how memories are stored in the brain.

ANNA DAVID: What percentage of your clients are you doing EMDR with and what percentage are you doing just talk therapy?

JAMIE MARICH: I do EMDR with all my clients. Because once you get known in an area as doing it, a lot of people end up finding you. Of course I do other things—I do 12 step facilitation and expressive arts therapy, there are other things I bring into the mix. But EMDR is my primary method.

ANNA DAVID: While I know how it works, how can you explain it to someone who’s never done it?

JAMIE MARICH: The client and therapist talk about something and the therapist asks the client the level of distress around the issue, from 0 to 10. After doing some of the stimulation, the therapist asks, “What are you noticing now?” as opposed to “What are you thinking about now?” We want to be open to the full range of your experience. Some people will give us the thought that’s on their mind. But if what you’re noticing is that your chest is on fire, tell us that because that means your body is giving you that information. The magic EMDR phrase is “Go with that” because we want you to be able to be with that but then keep allowing more to be revealed. At the end of the session, we ask the level of stress again, with the idea that the number goes down.

ANNA DAVID: I know it’s for reprocessing memories but is it also so people can access repressed memories?

JAMIE MARICH: EMDR may take you by surprise; you may think, “I forgot that happened, or I never connected those two things together.” But one thing Dr. Shapiro always said is that EMDR does not bring up memories just for the sake of bringing them up. The point is not to torture you with your past, but if something is going to come up in the reprocessing, it’s because it’s connected to the issue that you’re working on. EMDR reveals what needs to be revealed.

ANNA DAVID: Why do people think EMDR is sort of woo woo when in fact it’s medically supported?

JAMIE MARICH: It used to be considered very fringe, very alternative. Like, “Oh, move your eyes back and forth while you sense into memory experiences in your body.” But one of the things I do credit Dr .Shapiro for is she really did soldier very strongly in those early days, in the 90s and 2000s, saying. “We have to research this.” And so she developed a very technical protocol.

One of the reasons you’re asked those questions about your level of distress is so that we can measure how it’s working. EMDR is one of the three most researched therapies for PTSD. There are other things out there that can treat PTSD but none of them has the research support quite like EMDR.

On EMDRia.org, which is our big international organization, there’s an up to date listing of all of the research reviews, literature reviews, and clinical randomized controls on EMDR. It’s really quite exquisite and it’s something I’m just proud to be a part of.

ANNA DAVID: So the research is just based on what the client reports?

JAMIE MARICH: There are some really highly randomized controlled studies where those ratings around distress are taken into effect but we also have seen symptoms eradicated. A measure of success is if you go in as a client and have this clinical threshold that meets PTSD symptoms and then by the end of a certain course of EMDR treatment, those symptoms are eliminated.

ANNA DAVID: What sort of symptoms?

JAMIE MARICH: The major symptoms of PTSD are things like flashbacks, nightmares, intrusive thoughts and body level distress memories. You can have what we call the heightened arousal symptoms like the increased startle response, hypervigilance, outbursts of anger and problems concentrating. Also feeling intense, negative effect or having negative experiences of emotion all the time—anger or terror, shame, sadness—or just an intense negative self-image where you’re thinking thoughts like “I’m bad. No one can be trusted. I am defective.” A lot of these symptoms may sound like other diagnoses you heard of, like ADD and depression, so it really does become important to work with a clinician who can weigh out what things are affecting you. But the more we learn about trauma, the more we see that a lot of the behaviors and issues that cause human beings distress are explained by unhealed trauma.

ANNA DAVID: Is there a typical number of sessions of EMDR that people do?

JAMIE MARICH: Some of us have long-term clients for one issue or another because the nature of an individual’s disability may require that they have some type of check in on a more permanent basis. But we’re not trying to get people into therapy long-term with this. I do find that EMDR can work a lot more effectively and quicker than other forms of therapy. But I don’t ever want to sell it as a quick fix; that’s one of my pet peeves around some of the marketing around EMDR. You’ll read things online where someone says three sessions wiped out what years of therapy could never do. Now, I think in three sessions you can go very far and if you have a person with a pretty good life who has been through one single incident trauma, you may be able to eradicate most of the symptoms. But even our international guidelines say EMDR is not done in any certain number of sessions and it really is up to the clinician and the client together to devise the best treatment plan possible.

ANNA DAVID: What actually “counts” as trauma?

JAMIE MARICH: PTSD is typically understood to be single incident…like one bad thing happens to you and so you have all of these symptoms. But then there’s complex trauma and honestly, most of us who would meet PTSD criteria, it is of the more complex variety typically—meaning it’s one thing after another that has made the trauma symptomology a little more volatile or the trauma happened at a very developmentally vulnerable point in your life…typically before the age of eight and often by a primary caregiver.

ANNA DAVID: What do you say to people who think EMDR is not going to “work” on them or they’re scared to do it?

JAMIE MARICH: It’s a very good question. I mean two things. Let’s start with the fear first. I usually approach that by validating the fear because any change process is scary. The first thing I try to understand is what the fear is about. For a lot of people, it really is a fear of getting better. What would my life look like if I made these changes and shifts?

A lot of people are also scared that they couldn’t handle what may come up. EMDR can be pretty emotionally intense and so one thing I tell folks who work with me is “I’m willing to help you get ready for that process.”

And when people say, “I don’t think this will work for me,” often it’s because they’ve been jaded by other forms of therapy. So I will often explore what some of those experiences have been. Sometimes the core idea is “Nothing will work for me because nothing has worked for me so far.” And sometimes I explore that by asking the question, “Well, what does it mean to you for something to work? Well, let’s start there.” And um, then usually from there we can develop a plan.

I think it has the potential to work for everybody but I also know that not every therapy is the best fit for everybody so I usually try to invite people to give it three to six sessions. And if it’s not a good fit for you, then I’ll help you try to find a therapy that is a good fit. But I have honestly seen this work for about every type of client out there, if they’re willing to do some of the work required.

ANNA DAVID: Amen. Well, this has been fantastic. Where can people go to find out more information about you and EMDR?

JAMIE MARICH: Everything I’ve written for free online is on my website. I also have a big YouTube presence with mindfulness videos and EMDR demos that you can watch. Just go to YouTube, type my name, EMDR or ”trauma made simple” and you’ll see.

How Does Addiction Affect Families?

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You don’t necessarily have to be an addict in order for your drug and alcohol use to annoy members of your family or have a negative impact on your family’s dynamics. However, an addiction often forms around dysfunctional family behavior that can be aggravated by the addictive behavior.

Families in which parents are addicts have their own particular dysfunction. Instances are they will not able to their own children. Because of what they’ve witnessed as models for adult behavior, these children are at an increased chance of becoming addicts. Sometimes, as they mature, children of addicts may attempt to distance themselves from their parents’ compulsion. Only to find later on that they have abuse a different substance. This might happen, for instance, when a parent is an alcoholic. Even though the adult children of this parent don’t drink, they might develop an addiction to sex. Or might run up high debt because they are shopaholics.

How Does Addiction Affect FamiliesFamilies in which children are addicts often have problems distinguishing the difference between helping versus enabling the addict. Addicted family members should be handled with tough love. Don’t give in to the temptation to try to make the situation better for the addict. Only he or she can make the decision to get clean. Families in this situation must first make the addict aware that their behavior is unacceptable and then they must seek to heal from the trauma that addiction has caused in their daily lives. Sometimes the financial devastation of addiction (if family members are stealing money from other family members or opening fraudulent credit in their name) can takes years to set straight. In cases of theft or violence, family members often have to make the tough decision whether to involve law enforcement.

Dealing with Addiction

Usually, these extreme steps might be the final push that an addict needs in order to seek help. Addiction causes damaged on the normal family bonding. An addicted family members cannot be trusted. They usually cannot hold onto a job and may often go missing over night or for multiple days. They inevitably betray people who love them and more prone to violence. Above all, they are not able to attend to small children.

In addition to the emotional impact, the cost of an addict’s attempts at recovery might ruin the family financially. While the cost of buying drugs or alcohol can be a drain on a family’s budget, which may dwindle due to job loss, recovery programs can often be very costly, too. Many families dealing with addiction have to consider whether they might be better off filing bankruptcy, which can lead to the loss of future opportunities, such as the purchase of a home or the ability of your children to attend college. An addiction doesn’t just affect the person suffering from it; it affects everyone around him or her.

It is normal for the dysfunction of addiction to trigger feelings of anger, bitterness, resentment, jealousy, and many others from those who love a person abusing drugs or alcohol. The bottom line is that families should be very careful when dealing with addiction. It can damage relationships for years.

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