By: Jamie Salsberg, LCSW, CAP, MPH, Assistant Clinical Director for Transformations

When a client comes into treatment with an addiction, there is inevitably something underneath it. I typically ask, what is this person really addicted to?  We’ve all heard the phrase “the addiction is only a symptom” and the real question we ask ourselves as clinicians is “what aren’t they addicted to?” In today’s culture, it seems that we are always addicted to something. Alcoholism and addiction seem to surround us everywhere, whether we are watching a reality television show or passing by a billboard for another treatment center.

What I have found in working with people is that our addictions stretch farther than simply alcohol and drugs. Our cable eyelet 2901179 640attachment to things, and the addiction to alcohol and drugs, is often a manifestation of this attachment.  Most of my clients have an attachment to things outside of themselves, or an attachment to control. ‘If I could have this job, this much money, this relationship, this woman or man, if this situation would work out this way, if my partner would do this, say that, if the world would just be this way, then I would be happy.’ It is this attachment, and the attempt to manage things outside of our control, that ultimately leads to drinking and using, because we believe we are unable to affect the outcome of our lives.

As long as fulfillment and happiness are placed outside – a job, money, a relationship, or anything else – the search for happiness and fulfillment is futile and endless. People will turn to a drink, a drug or anything else that will minimize the pain and maximize the comfort they feel to avoid letting go of this attachment and taking responsibility for their own emotional well being. After all, it is much more comfortable to believe that someone or something else is responsible for how you are feeling than to take ownership of it yourself.

You may be wondering, these ideas are all fine and good, but what is the point, how does this help anyone? We teach spiritual groups and distinctions that support people in finding peace in their lives, through taking responsibility for their feelings and experiences. While people may be powerless over drugs, alcohol and the outside world, they are certainly not powerless over their perceptions, interpretations and experiences of what goes on around them. The choice to be responsible for one’s own experience in life, while somewhat new and scary for many people, is also empowering and freeing for most.

Many people have learned to blame their environment, others and the world for the way they are feeling and are consistently looking for something in the environment to help ease that feeling. Most of our clients are accustomed to taking or using something to feel relief. By taking responsibility for your emotional well being, you become empowered to be accountable for how you are feeling by not attaching your happiness to anything outside of your control. In large part, the 12 steps are a mechanism for helping people understand that there is nothing outside of themselves that will ever make them ok and that fulfillment comes from within – from spirituality, a higher power, love and connection with others, through purpose and community – and never from anything they can ingest, inject, inhale or intake. Clients are constantly looking to fill the void with something or someone and they, if they choose to see it, get to learn that there actually is no void.

I see each client who walks in the door as whole, perfect and complete, never broken. Sometimes things get in the way of them seeing this themselves; this is what leads to addiction. The recovery process is about lifting the veil off each individual so they can see their love, their light and their perfection and they can stop believing they need anything outside of themselves to be okay.

Through community, purpose, connection, and unconditional love you can wake up to this; it is simple and not always so easy. When people are ready to accept themselves, and let go of judgment and see the gift of who they are, they see that there is no reason to ever choose to be less present to how beautiful life is, no matter what it brings.