Category Archives: Addiction

Every Narcissist needs a Codependent Love Addict

“The most common toxic relationship is between the codependent love addict and the narcissist love addict. Opposites attract and love addicts are vulnerable to charming people.” -Author, therapist and founder of Love Addicts Anonymous, Susan Peabody.

Narcissism is a personality disorder. It stems from childhood abuse. When these abused children are young, they decide that the world, and the people in it, are bad and they are the only ones that are good. These thoughts result in a distorted view of themselves. They are the ones that are perfect, and they should be catered to. They lack compassion for others because everyone else is ‘less than or wrong. In general, narcissists are incapable of maintaining a healthy relationship because they have to be in control at all times.

But really, a narcissist has to be in control because they experienced the trauma of not being in control, being abused, abandoned, or made to feel ‘less than’ at a young age. In order to feel they are not being abandoned, abused, thwarted, or hurt they have chosen to put on false bravado, to dominate, and/or exhibit righteousness to protect their damaged “inner child” from being seen.

These narcissistic behaviors hide the fact there is a hurt child and in its place is this thoroughly in control adult-child, which is what the young child assumes their parent wants and will love. This becomes a belief of “You will love me because I am in control.” This behavior finds a home in any gender; male or female, non-binary, trans, or any sexual preference; heterosexual, gay, bisexual, and in any type of relationship; collegial, familiar, or intimate.

If you keep your eyes open, you can detect a narcissist’s need for control and self-centeredness. If you make an error, they will be critical and unsympathetic. A narcissist will never forget a past mistake. They hold you to a high standard and exhibit disdain for what they consider weakness or vulnerability.

Narcissists are very charming in order to seduce people into liking them. Their ability to impress people is amazing. They appear confident, exciting and are a “match made in heaven”. Love addicts fall for narcissists and bond with them. Narcissists are so good at their craft, that when their true colors emerge, they manipulate their codependent love addict partner to ensure they will not abandon them.

A codependent love addict fears abandonment as much as the narcissist

It is as if the narcissist and codependent love addict are fighting for the same thing. The codependent love addict fears abandonment as much as the narcissist. Early abandonment of a child places that kid into a very harsh environment, forcing them to figure out a way to survive. They hate the fact they were abandoned but believe that they can endure, and if they work hard enough, to prove their worth, their parent (or love interest) will not abandon them, thus ensuring abandonment will never happen to them again. This becomes a belief of” You will love me because I will do for you before I do for myself.”A codependent love addict adult emerges from this traumatic early childhood experience.

Narcissists and codependent love addicts are trauma survivors

Both narcissists and codependent love addicts are survivors. A narcissist will overwork in order to get what they need to survive. A codependent will scrape and do without in order for their offspring and family to survive. Both of these behavioral types excel in sales, in service positions, or dealing with the public. If they need more money than a 9-5 career can provide, they overwork. We will find them at a grocery store stocking shelves at midnight or selling craft goods on Etsy. The narcissist will make demands to the codependent to do ‘more for me’ or ‘love me more.’

The codependent love addicts are constantly fulfilling their role as the primary enabler for their narcissists. A consummate “make doer”, the codependent is unable to speak up for themselves, selling themselves short in order to avoid the pain of conflict with their loved one. Both are strong and resilient, yet mute to the need for resolution of the inner turmoil surrounding their early, adverse childhood traumas.

You might want to consider attending a 12 step mutual support group such as:

http://www.loveaddicts.org/

http://www.slaafws.org

http://coda.org/

http://www.adultchildren.org/

To find a professional with counseling experience in love addiction go to the Society for the Advancement of Sexual Health (SASH), which is a nonprofit organization dedicated to scholarship and training of professionals certified in sex and love addiction treatment.

For training and to find a professional with counseling experience in trauma, and love addiction consider the International Institute for Trauma and Addiction Professionals (IITAP) which is a resource for therapists specializing in the areas of sex addiction recovery and trauma.

Other good books and resources are:

We Codependent Men – We Mute Coyotes: Hope, Inspiration, and Healing for Men Living with Addicted People by Ken P, Bob T

Codependents No More- Codependents’ Guide: Heal Yourself After a Toxic Relationship, Overcome Jealousy, Possessiveness, Anxiety, and Boost your Self-Esteem

Codependent Mother: Codependency Cycle Recovery for a Daughter. No more Toxic Emotional Abuse in Family Relationships. A Guide to Cure Afflictions and Healing your Self-Esteem by Dana Jackson

The New Codependency: Help and Guidance for Today’s Generation by Melody Beattie

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A TRAINEE’S INTERVENTION

On December 1,  I will celebrate three years as a non-smoker. I wanted to reinforce this choice for any others making a similar decision.

RECOVERY RISING EXCERPT: A TRAINEE’S INTERVENTION

Recovery Rising Book Cover PaperbackIn 1987, I celebrated 20 years working in the addictions field. During those years, I perceived myself as a laborer rather than a “leader,” but an incident occurred in fall of 1987 that forced me to confront the role that was emerging for me. The incident in question involved the issue of smoking.

Like most of my professional peers and my clients, I had continued to smoke heavily throughout my career. I brushed off comments about my need to quit with the bluster that addicts have long made into an art form. Here’s the incident that changed that.

A training participant—a spunky, young woman who looked like she was in high school—marched up to me as I was smoking during break at a workshop that I was presenting for a hundred addiction counselors. She said the following:

“As much as you apparently know about addiction, I can’t believe that you smoke. Do you know that every smoker here loves to see you smoke? Seeing you smoke is a powerful affirmation of their addiction. Whether you smoke or not is more than a personal issue. To smoke as a role model, given what you do, is to enable addiction among hundreds of professionals in this field. You should think about that.”

Not waiting for a response, she turned and walked away. I wanted to write her off as one more overly rabid anti-smoker, but her words wouldn’t go away. They haunted me!

I had been able to justify my own potentially self-destructive smoking behavior, but was haunted by the thought that my behavior could so profoundly and negatively influence the lives of people for whom I professed great respect and affection. Within days, I no longer smoked publicly. I snuck off into bathrooms and back corners! Within a month I had made a covenant with myself to quit and within three months smoked what I hope was the last cigarette of my life. During the weeks between this trainee’s intervention and my last cigarette, I gave serious thought to how the addictions field had failed to confront the devastating issue of smoking. At this time I was writing my book, Pathways from the Culture of Addiction to the Culture of Recovery, and wrote these words in the weeks BEFORE I quit smoking: “Treatment professionals must boldly recognize nicotine as an addictive and highly lethal drug. It is time the field stopped burying its leaders, frontline service practitioners and its clients, who achieving abstinence from alcohol and traditionally defined drugs, have their lives cut short as a result of drug‑related (nicotine) disease. Day‑by‑day, month‑by‑month, the field must stigmatize and sever its continued relationship with this drug.”

I knew when I wrote those words with a cigarette burning in front of me that I could not be a smoker when those words were published. After repeated attempts, I smoked my last cigarette a few months later. I owe a debt of gratitude to this unknown trainee who taught me a lot about what it means to be a role model in this field. And the point is: we are all role models.

Are there toxic habits or other behaviors that stand as gross incongruities between your aspirational values and the life you are living? Work in this field doesn’t require perfection, but it does eventually demand congruity between our words and the lives we are living. Living your life as a role model doesn’t mean you have to lose your true self in the process. Our field has long been filled, not just with personalities, but with true characters.

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Video game addiction now an illness says World Health Organisation with conflicting treatments available

By Samuel Port

In a development that might worry parents, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has now classified video game addiction as an official illness.

But the message is very much don’t panic, it’s not an epidemic – it’s a pathological disorder – published in the 11th revision of their International Classification of Diseases book.

The gaming disorder refers to people whose lives have been consumed by video games to the point where their health is in jeopardy.

UK Addiction Treatment (UKAT) – an organisation that have offered private therapy centres for gaming addiction alongside drugs and alcohol rehabilitation – conduct an abstinence based policy across the board, an approach to treatment where one size fits all.

Claire Havey, UKAT Head of Communications, said: “Something in their lives has gone very wrong for them, they’re almost putting a plaster on an open wound and whether that plaster is gaming 18 hours a day or whether that plaster is injecting heroine: the wound is still there. They will carry on doing that and re-applying the plaster until [they believe] that wound is healed.”

The abstinence treatment extends to mobile technology. They are only allowed access to a smart phone one hour a day after completing the initial assessments and treatments. This hour is closely monitored by therapists to ensure they don’t play games.

However, Stockport based psychotherapist Barbara Wallace believes that an abstinence lead treatment can ultimately be more damaging for a patient’s long-term health.

She said: “They might have withdrawal symptoms. So depending on the person, we’d have a plan of action to ween the person off gradually or to just abstain.

“I’d look at what impact that is going to have on them. We wouldn’t know what the particular withdrawal symptoms were going to be.”

Comparing it to her treatment of sex addiction, she stated that patients would usually want to return to a healthy sexual relationship post treatment and the same applies to gaming addicts.

Wallace proposed a plan where patients cut the gaming time down and worked in healthier activities alongside it.

She said: “If you take away a coping mechanism, you might be setting them up to fail – if you think about it, drug addicts get methadone.”

Ultimately, both courses of treatment target the addict’s compulsion to receive the dopamine fix that gaming provides – examining their triggers.

Setting up the patient for life post-treatment is where the opposing treatment methods come in to contention.

Written By Samuel Port

For Mancunian Matters

Carlton House, 16-18 Albert Square, Manchester, M2 5PE

Copyright © Mancunian Matters 1997-2018.

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