1. Addiction is a "relationship" problem By Tom O'Connell I
had a narrow view of addiction before I became immersed in the
subject while working as a communications consultant for health
agencies dealing with the addictions. "Addict,"
when I was young, was a word we applied to jazz musicians and Asians
in opium dens. And "alcoholic" meant the people we saw
lying in Boston alleys. It isn't that simple, I learned. It's as
complicated as the human condition itself. Addiction
involves all aspects of a person: physical, mental, emotional,
social, and spiritual. Yet, despite advances in public awareness
during recent decades, addiction remains widely misunderstood,
underrated, and perhaps even understated. The
various addictions, I believe, comprise the world's number one
public health problem, and are at the root of nearly all other
health problems, most crime and violence, and widespread
deterioration of moral values. As
a highway safety crusader with the Massachusetts Safety Council, I
organized awareness campaigns around drinking and driving, but I
didn't really understand addiction. My understanding began in the
late 1970s and early 80s when I became a mass media consultant and
public information writer for such agencies as North Shore Council
on Alcoholism and The Third Nail Drug Rehabilitation Program serving
Boston's inner city. When
I asked Bill McCue, director of The Third Nail, about the root cause
of addiction he jabbed his index finger into his chest and said,
"It's the hole in the doughnut." Addicts keep trying to
fill that empty place, but it can't be filled with addictive
behaviors. Later,
while on a spiritual retreat to the Graymoor monastery in New York
State, I became separated from my group and was taken to a monastic
cell in the old wing. This synchronicity led to an interview with
Father Dan Egan, a Graymoor friar who had gained national fame as
"The Junkie Priest." Catholic Digest published my article
about him. Father
Dan said, "The basic problem is that deep down inside there is
something missing...and what's missing is the spiritual
dimension." Factors that he cited were "lack of love and
an absence of positive values." Describing the futility of
searching for pleasure as an end in itself, he said addiction's
symptoms point to an underlying "spiritual illness." Later,
I spent eight years as national correspondent for the U.S. Journal
of Drug and Alcohol Dependence, where I saw addiction as "a
condition of unhealthy dependence on behaviors that impair a
person's ability to function to full potential." Also, I heard
alcoholism pioneer Dr. Stanley Gitlow say, "Addiction is a
disease in which any technique for adapting to life is used other
than interpersonal relating." Both views have merit. Essentially,
addiction is a primary relationship that interferes with a person's
connections to
self, others, and God. AA's co-founder Bill Wilson affirmed
this by saying alcoholics have a "total inability" to form
"a true partnership with another human being" due to their
"self-centered behavior," "twisted relations,"
and "perverse soul-sickness." A
major goal of recovery is discovery of how to develop healthy
relationships. And Twelve Step programs work well because they
provide a spiritually based character development and relationship
training program. Healthy relating, I believe, is the key to
addiction recovery. |
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