Core Emotional Addictions at the Root of Compulsive Behaviors

By Caroline Eick

While you may know something about your core beliefs or imprints - for example, that you carry the deep belief that you are not good enough, or that you can't count on anyone but yourself, or that you have to win at all cost or else someone will take advantage of you, and more - you may still find yourself repeating the same self-defeating behaviors of people-pleasing, of self-sabotage, of compulsively competing for things you don't even want, and so on. That's because of what keeps your beliefs about yourself alive in your neurological core: the energies of emotions to which you have become addicted. In this book, Caroline Eick explains how the very emotions we have been avoiding, repressing, projecting, or trying to control, we have become physically and psychologically addicted to, and that recurring self-defeating behaviors as well as substance and process addictions are in great part manifestations of patterns of emotional addictions. She offers a way to gain emotional peace by getting acquainted with emotions as energies that can be transmuted through attention and intention. Integrating spirituality and science, she offers a practical approach to sustained emotional sobriety.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 18, 2018
• ISBN: 9781642987652

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Core Emotional Addictions at the Root of Compulsive Behaviors

Caroline Eick

Copyright © 2018 Caroline Eick

All rights reserved

First Edition

Page Publishing, Inc

New York, NY

First originally published by Page Publishing, Inc 2018

ISBN 978-1-64298-763-8 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64298-764-5 (Hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-64298-765-2 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

For people in recovery from substance and process addictions

For people in recovery from codependence and distressing childhoods

For all people seeking emotional well-being

Acknowledgment

To my stepdad, Gilles Desjardins, who passed away in 2012, and to my mom, Liliane Desjardins, and my brother, Richard Hofman. I am in admiration of their tireless dedication to the work of helping people in long-term recovery from substance and behavioral addictions. They have been instrumental in transforming the lives of thousands from the beginnings of Gilles’s first addiction treatment center in Pointe-Calumet, Québec, in the 1970s to Pavilion International Addiction Treatment and Training Center in North Carolina in the 1990s, cofounded by Gilles and Liliane, and finally, to Chatsworth Pavilion founded in 2004 by Richard and renowned for its state-of-the-art care. They answered their calling wholeheartedly and proceeded with an indomitable faith to practice what they taught as they faced with integrity and devotion, the singularly challenging enterprise of running addiction treatment centers while also working as clinicians. Choruses of voices join mine to express how blessed so many of us have been and continue to be by the formidable life energies and service of these three deeply loving people.

chapter 1

Context

Troublesome Emotions

This book is written for those of us seeking relief from emotional distress. Whether the distress keeps us in continual low grade discontent, or boredom, in anxiety, explosive anger, or crippling apathy and depression. When struggling with emotions becomes the norm, we feel fragmented, disconnected, and our relationships suffer. That’s because emotions are energies through which we interpret ourselves relationally. They strengthen or weaken our connections with others and within ourselves. I dare make the radical statement that because everything in the world is relational—we grow and live within social networks of relationships [whether these are empowering or disempowering]—everything is primarily emotional. Emotions are so powerful that when their energies are distressed, our whole biology becomes distressed and our cognition, impaired. This is particularly the case for those of us recovering from substance and/or behavioral addictions, and from having grown up with or lived with people who struggled with addictions or other destructive behaviors. For those of us with a history of addiction and emotional distress,—our own, that of others, or both—experiencing emotions can be an endless effort. Joy can feel as unsettling as anger.

In my childhood and throughout my young adulthood, I struggled with joy. When it showed up, I had a dark sense that something bad would show up soon after. I refrained from yielding into joy as if not feeling it would prevent the bad experience from occurring. Often, I felt I did not merit joy. Then too, there were times when anger lived in me so strongly that I would get enraged at the slightest mishap; someone accidentally stepped on my foot, and I would lose it with profanities that continued long after the incident! For a great number of human beings in general, but particularly for those of us impacted by addictions and distressing pasts, emotions are troublesome. They seem to manage us rather than the other way around.

When those of us in long-term recovery begin to sober up from alcohol or drugs, from behavioral/process addictions (i.e., gambling, compulsive shopping, compulsive sexual activity, etc.), or from the aftermath of having been immersed in toxic relationships, we may not know how to recognize what we are feeling. We may experience mood swings, overwhelm, or complete shutdown. We may get stuck in repetitive outbursts of certain emotions (i.e., anger, jealousy) and develop as we shall see a physical habit to their effect in our body. Before we know it, subconsciously, we begin craving the effect of jealousy or anger—akin to craving—during active years of addiction before abstinence, the next drink, or the next gambling session; or in the case of codependency, the next relationship to save. We may get so overwhelmed by some of our emotions that we believe them regardless of evidence to the contrary. Jealousy can flood us so intensely that our cognitive brain responds with vivid scenarios to justify the intense emotion; and with great confidence and self-righteousness, we accuse our innocent partner of infidelity.

Much of our energies may be spent fighting emotions, denying them, repressing them; catastrophizing them or attempting, with no effect, to will them away through hyper-focused positive thinking; being swept away by them and then punishing ourselves for experiencing them; confusing them with thoughts and actions, and believing they are who we are. Exhausting!

When we consider the statistics that one in four children in the United States are exposed to alcohol abuse in the home; and that children of alcoholics are four times more likely, when compared to the general population, to become alcoholics; and further that an estimated 43 percent of Americans are affected by a close relative who is an alcoholic (HealthRersearchFunding 2015), addressing emotions becomes pressing. The same logic applies to those of us at grips with drug addictions, and/or who come from highly dysregulated emotional settings whether familial or social or cultural. A community with prolonged economic depression and lack of work becomes the incubator for emotional dysregulation, and the ensuing body pains, increasing the likelihood that its residents, seeking relief, develop dependencies on painkillers and other drugs. The current opioid crisis in many economically depressed regions of our nation is such an example.

Unless we get deeply acquainted with our emotions and begin to work with them effectively and creatively, we may continually postpone living our lives to the fullest by either making others responsible for how we feel, waiting for them to make us feel good, or recoiling from social interaction altogether paralyzed with anxiety and deep feelings of not belonging. We may continually seek the latest drug that can make us not feel the feelings we feel. We may go on for years in recovery from addictive behaviors; feeling trapped, not experiencing relief from abstinence, white knuckling it to not drink or use drugs or gamble, fearing intoxication rather than enjoying and delighting in the possibilities of the new life.

When emotions are not in distress, they are phenomenal relational radars. For example, feeling guilty because we did harm to someone is a useful emotional alert to make repairs and amends. Feeling angry when our personal boundaries or those of someone else have been unjustly crossed is a useful emotional alert for taking action and/or seeking help to re-establish healthy boundaries. Feeling sad after an important loss, signals a need for stillness and release. It is important that I stress that what we often refer to in our culture as negative emotions have their place and use in navigating relationships. The problem is not the particular negative emotional energy, but whether we indulge that energy, allowing it to take over us. Our focus in this work is on emotional states when they have become unmanageable—not on doing away with an emotion simply because it is disturbing [which we may have practiced doing most of our lives]—or on judging or dismissing any emotion, but on transmuting emotional habits that have kept us stuck in self-defeating patterns. Finally, it goes without saying that for some of us, emotional distress of the kind generated by bipolar disorder, or clinically diagnosed major depression, or other mental illness may require also the help of medication. The work suggested in this book can further support the important helpful role of proper meds and diets in those cases.

Emotions are potent energies that elicit a wide range of chemical reactions throughout our bodies, affecting the functioning of hormones and the immune system, of organs and more (Pert 1999); repeated distressing emotions in particular have been linked to diseases and premature aging (Sapolsky 2004; McCraty et al. 2009). And in this book, I am linking them in very profound ways to addictive behaviors. I explain how the very emotions we have been avoiding, repressing, projecting, or trying to control, we have become addicted to, and that substance and process addictions are manifestations of patterns of emotional addictions.

But this book is also about a way to gain emotional peace. It is about getting acquainted with emotions as energies that can be transmuted through attention and intention. It offers an approach to sustained emotional sobriety that integrates spirituality and science to loosen the hold of, and undo the emotional addictions at the core of various manifestations of substance addictions and compulsive behaviors. The process begins by identifying some fundamental self-defeating core beliefs we carry about ourselves (i.e., I cannot trust others; I am not good enough). However, identifying core beliefs is only a very first step. Becoming aware of some of these deep-seated templates we carry and against which we interpret life experiences, helps bring to consciousness some important subconscious forces. Raising awareness is crucial, but it is far from enough. Too often, we know very well that it is because of certain childhood experiences (i.e., a mother who never paid attention to us; a father who left the family) that we are prone to self-defeating behaviors (i.e., sabotage our relationships because we fear abandonment).

Self-defeating core beliefs as we shall see are stories that live in our neurology through the energies of the emotions that fuel them. It is the emotions that give the stories their drama, their aliveness, their seeming reality. The longer the core beliefs have remained unseen and unchallenged, the more the body itself as we shall see has become accustomed to the chemical effects of the emotions attached to the story. Once that happens, the emotions themselves will become the point of reference for our interpretation of reality and how we experience it (i.e., waking up with the emotion of fear may, if not recognized and released, quickly overtake the cognitive brain and escalate into ruminations about the familiar story of being abandoned or betrayed by our partner and the accompanying behaviors of accusation or isolation).

Addressing the emotions directly is the way out of the neurologically imprinted core beliefs or stories. Core emotional addictions can be organized into four overarching categories: to security, sensation, power-control, and suffering or struggle. The good news is that transmuting the energies of emotions attached to only one or two core beliefs has a domino effect that lessens the intensity of other imprints, even those we may not be fully aware of because of the high degree of connectivity among the brain’s neural structures and systems (Izard 2009). In this book, I make the claim that these addictive emotional patterns that are alive in our neurology and biology and which were transmitted genetically and/or developed in the ecosystem of our childhood as survival strategies precede the development of substance or process addictions.

That is why as I will reiterate throughout this book, the path of long-term recovery from addictions is not returning to a state that preceded the manifestation of our addictions. That state was already in distress. Instead, recovery from addictions, compulsions, and codependence is a new developmental process in awareness, a quickening of attention that leads to accessing and trusting our inherent wholeness. It is a process of transmutation of addictive emotional energies that clutter and obscure our always present connection to the true, already complete, and sacred within us. Another way of stating the same: core emotional addictions are what constitute the ego, the neurologically wired predisposition toward any form of addiction, perpetually wanting more, ravenous, nervous, at war with self and others, in constant state of fear and survival. In very practical ways, the focus of this book is on how to unwire that neurology by dis-identifying with the ego and its core emotional addictions, that is, by taking attention away from the ego, and on how to rewire a new peace-suffused neurology by identifying with our wholeness, that is, by intentionally directing attention to our wholeness. Attention as we shall see shapes biology.

For us at the Center for Heart-Mind Coherence, recovery from addictions to emotional states or to any other forms of addictive behaviors is primarily a spiritual path that privileges the heart—the biological, neurological and sacred heart­—as we shall see. Transdisciplinary approaches that bridge science and spirituality and that explore the roles of mindfulness, prayer, and attention in physical and mental well-being (Keng, Smosky, and Robins 2011; Koenig 1999; Siegel 2012) are generating a robust body of work that reveals the role of love and compassion in healing our bodies and our relationships with self and others. Some neuroscientists have begun making the case for the existence of the soul (Beauregard and O’Leary 2007). In unprecedented ways too, scientists and spiritual teachers are now joining efforts in collaborative projects that examine the role of mindfulness and prayer in calibrating emotions (Ekman 2016). More and more are scientists and practitioners alike suggesting that handling a crisis from the emotional rather than the intellectual level will shorten its duration, dramatically (Hawkins 2012, 39).

This great scientific awakening to the role of spiritual practice in affecting emotional, and therefore, physical, and mental health coupled with a growing courage among greater numbers of people to publicly tell of their spiritually grounded transformational stories of ongoing recovery from physical and mental illnesses (The National Recovery Movement; Koenig 1999; Dispenza 2017) is raising our collective emotional intelligence. While the claims I make in this book rest on years of experience in the field of addiction treatment, they are increasingly being supported by recent and ongoing advances in neuroscience. Finally, the process I offer in this book is in no way meant to supplant the important and effective work of state-of-the-art addiction treatment centers. Seeking help to sober up physically and to find traction in remaining sober is the first order of business. The process I suggest is meant to compliment, support, and accelerate the work done within addiction treatment centers; the work done by people attending twelve-step programs, and the work done by people choosing other approaches to physical and emotional sobriety.

Historical background / Family-in-recovery in the field of addiction treatment

The idea of this book first came to mind twenty years ago. At that time, the addiction treatment center Pavillon Gilles Dejardins in Québec, Canada, was invited in light of its innovative approach and strong outcomes to move to North Carolina, as a demonstration project. In North Carolina, it was renamed Pavilion International, Addiction Treatment and Training Center and had been officially cofounded by Gilles and Liliane Desjardins. Liliane Desjardins and I, Caroline Eick, cofounders of the Center for Heart-Mind Coherence were part of the clinical teams in both Québec, and North Carolina. As mentioned in the dedication, we also happen to be mother and daughter. Gilles Desjardins was my stepdad.

I include in this introductory chapter some parts of my childhood story and of our family-in-recovery in the field of addiction treatment story which actually began forty years ago. First, because that story provides the historical background to the development of the core addiction model; second, because the story brings to light an upward spiraling path from emotional enmeshment to emotional empowerment, an archetypal story in the world of recovery from addictions and codependency; third, because the development of our approach to core emotional healing in its present incarnation at the Center for Heart-Mind Coherence is deeply grounded in a commitment to heal past familial hurts, and the story I include here is a story about family healing.

The Story

My parents had been active alcoholics when I was growing up, and my hurts ran deep, just like the hurts in their wounded nervous systems; wounds that erupted into their alcoholism. For a moving account of my mom’s life as she shares the making and healing of her traumatic imprints, see The imprint journey: A path of lasting transformation to the authentic self (Desjardins 2011). For a long time, feelings of betrayal and abandonment, of resentment and shame, and the accompanying narrative that my parents’ lives and successes, and my mother’s in particular, had been forged at the expense of my childhood and early adulthood—had crippled me. When it came to writing, I stayed away from personal stories. I wrote academic works where I could feel safe. Until recently, I had carried the fear that my story if I dared publish any part of it would turn into a sappy woe-is-me account; a story of vindication that would only be pitied and dismissed as stories of grievances by