Addiction pulls on your heartstrings and into its drama.
First, separate your loved one from addiction. Addiction slowly takes over your loved one. You are communicating with addiction, not the personhood of your loved one. But you see your loved one struggling and have a reaction to intervene and talk sense into them. Has this worked?
Addiction’s slow progression, at some point, hijacks your loved one’s thinking. Even when your loved one is not high, you are talking to addiction. Addiction does not reason, nor does it care about consequences.
Your loved one knows how to trigger you. Addiction uses this advantage. The simple solution is don’t react. Simple. But not easy.
Slowly addiction increases stress. It gets better. Hope soars. It gets worse. Hope plummets. This slow progression of stress has you on an emotional rollercoaster.
Stephen Porges’ visual diagram of the nervous system (see Diagram 1) is one way to understand this slow progression of stress negatively impacting family members.
What Stephen Porges calls social engagement (the horizontal axis in the bottom of the diagram) represents the nervous system in a state of calmness. The body is warm, relaxed and present. At social engagement, the cortex has optimal functioning with optimal capacity to catch a lower brain impulse, pause and consider potential scenarios that may result if the impulse is or is not acted on, and make an informed decision.
But when there is a stimulus—like concern over an addicted loved one’s behavior—and the person lives with this stressor for an extended period of time, the baseline of social engagement moves up.
In Diagram 2, note that the baseline of social engagement increases on the vertical arousal part of the scale in response to an ongoing stimulus in the environment (such as behavior of the addicted individual).
Here’s an example. Imagine you have a loved one who stopped drinking for a short time. You feel hopeful about their recovery. But they were supposed to be home from work an hour ago.
You become concerned and anxious. You think about the last time they tried not drinking. Your thinking creates a story that doesn’t have a happy ending, the baseline climbs.
The focus of your attention stays on the story even though you do not know if it is true. Almost imperceptibly, tension increases, perhaps in your jaw and your arms. Your speech may become more rapid. In this escalated state of the nervous system, the cortex’s capacity to think well to make best decisions is decreased.
That is, you may be less able to catch a lower brain impulse, pause to consider potential scenarios of one choice over another, and make an informed decision.
From the above example, you call your loved one, get their answering machine, and leave a message letting them know your concerns and feelings. Over time, your nervous system and thinking processes have become conditioned to respond to worst case scenarios thinking as a way to prepare for addiction problems.
Diagram 3 shows the the belief system cycle: the thinking process when the nervous system is activated. Based on a past belief, we become worried or frustrated (our thinking) and take an action (the behavior) which leads to challenging feelings about our situation, which reinforces our belief system – which we do not know is true. This leads to more negative thoughts.
The cycle repeats. In the very broadest sense, when our thinking process is caught in this cycle, it is a repetitive pattern. Over time, we have less and less self-control, less ability to regulate an impulse, like the worry about a loved one.
In addition, the person who spends long periods of time in a constantly activated state may not recognize that they are in an activated state. Instead, the activated stage eventually becomes normalized and may become a part of the person’s identity.
The focus of attention is habitually focused outward, like radar for a problem that may occur. If your nervous system has already been activated for some time:
- You have little awareness of body sensations from the activated nervous system
- You may also have less awareness of the impact the stress is having on you
- A small disruption can feel like a huge disruption
As Diagram 4 shows, the same level of activation results in dangerously near overwhelm with an elevated baseline. Through this process, the baseline of your nervous system has slowly, almost imperceptibly, increased. Your ability to fully relax in your own body doesn’t happen like it used to. You may not even notice.
The slow, progressive, almost imperceptible process of the baseline of the nervous system increase is similar to the slow, progressive, almost imperceptible process of addiction. In some ways, they reflect one another.
As humans with nervous systems created for survival, we have a natural response to focus on differences rather than similarities – a survival instinct. That is especially true when we are in highly activating environments like families with addiction.
Let me be clear: This is a physiological response, is not the fault of any family member. But when the baseline increases it narrows the window of tolerance (small disturbances result in near overwhelming experiences).
Understanding intellectually and practicing regulating your own nervous system are two very different things. To best use addiction in the family as an opportunity to transform your family, you need understanding, practice, and the ability to calm yourself and bring your baseline down at will.
Realizing addiction is not your fault and an activated nervous system is not your fault starts This the realization you are not alone. You are not alone.
Learn to regulate any nervous system activation that addition throws in front of you. Sign up for a group that fits your situation: https://thefamilyrecoverysolution.com/#groups
Do you have a question? Email me here: jeff@thefamilyrecoverysolution.com
Or schedule a time to chat. https://meetme.so/jeffjones
Or Signup for individual coaching
Learn how your family starting a healing process can encourage your loved one to stop using and engage in their individual healing and recovery. https://thefamilyrecoverysolution.com/whole-family-healing/
Jeff Jones LPC, CACIII, Certified Intervention Professional, and Family Coach has created online family groups for two reasons: 1) In the addiction crisis, families are the biggest stakeholder, with the least support to productively engage in longterm solutions, and 2) with the support of likeminded people, families can have a stronger voice for solutions in their own family, their community, and our world.
Would you like to see a particular topic addressed? Send me an email and let me know. jeff@thefamilyrecoverysolution.com