From 1997 to 2021 I have managed various Units in one of the two major drug addiction rehabs in Malta. Over the years I have met with thousands of people and listened to their stories, some I met in rehab, some in prison, some in psychiatric wards, others on the streets. Over the years working so closeely with people with a drug addiction problem, it became more and more clear that the question to ask is not why the addiction but why the pain (G. Mate). This new perception took me on a journey of exploring this pain, this discomfort that is so heavy to carry that one turns himself in to an addiction.

 I thought one can not stop the addiction if he does not come to understand and challenge this pain. Afterall the addictive behaviour, be it drugs, alcohol etc.,  is the comforting source covering this pain. 

“The attempt to escape from pain is what creates more pain.”Gabor Maté

Why do people feel the way they do? What concept do they hold of themselves? What  relationship do they hold with pain? How do they show up in the world? Is drug addiction a mere coping mechanism? And if it is, what is it that we finding so difficult to cope with? Is it a sense of not fitting in, of not being good enough, is it anger, fear, frustration, loss, boredom, loneliness, a lack of a sense of belonging, a yearning to fit in, to be accepted, to be heard, to be seen, validated and acknowledged, the list is endless really.  

We have come to a point where we can not tolerate our sense of ‘self’, of our feelings, we can not bear to take a minute and feel what’s it like to be me? We don’t even know how to do it, our system has moved us so far from ourselves, we have now come to believe that we do not have time to attend to ourselves. We have all been sucked into a hamster wheel, spinning us away, with no direction, no meaning and no inner true joy.  

With these reflections, the concept of addiction expanded into many other problematic behaviours. Behaviours that are more socially accepted but that are nevertheless are also moving us further and further away from our authentic self.  Be it gambling, sex, shopping, video games, the internet, porography, eating, work and so on. We end up d Senying ourselves to be truly alive. Some of us might be lucky (or unlcuky) enough to be ‘hit’ by a physcial intervention where we are left with no choice but to slow down.

We have become our very own abuser. We hold negative views of ourselves, obsessed with how other people perceive us, putting up a facade to keep up appearances, we live in oblivion, in a routine, never questioning anything.

Addiction of any kind has broad social dimensions and cannot be reduced to the mere “choices” one makes or  a “disease” of the individual.

I needed to delve deeper into the topic of addictive behaviour and the authentic self and in 2018 I started my own private practice. The truth is we all have ways and means of escaping ourselves and it is this very dynamic that in truth creates more pain in our lives. Many today are unconscously craving some relief, even if it is for a fleeting moment, from the reality they find themselves in.

Addiction, be to drugs, food, alcohol, etc.,  is always a compensation for the sense of being devalued as a human being. “That’s basically it. Feeling alienated within the system: a system that demeans people, marginalizes them, exploits them, and creates a situation in which our value depends only on our capacity to consume.” (Glover),

We end up sacrificing  parts of our self in order to accomodate the other and that becomes our default throughout our life.

The cost of not tuning into ourselves leads us to burnout, stress and anxiety, depression, insomnia, stomach upset, autoimmune diseases, fatigue, high blood pressure, to mention a few. With the way our lives are structured we now find no time to pause and listen to our bodies, just to check in with what it needs. 

We need to learn how to give ourselves persmission to step out of our heads and into our bodies. We need to let go of ‘shoulds‘ and ‘musts‘ and attend to ourselves. We all know that ultimately ‘there is always more to get done in our day’. It gets tiring continuously pretending that all is well, that we have it all sorted out.   We have learnt how to wear masks and cover up how we feel. We have become unrecognizable even to ourselves. We find ourselves yearning for a space where we can be seen and heard without these masks, a space where we can come home to simply be ourselves. We are human.ob