PTSD: Nature and Nurture on Trauma-based Addiction

Thomas Goenczi, 
Lookout contributor 

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Addiction born out of trauma is devastating for the psyche. Everyone’s path to addiction is unique. No story is ever the same. Sure, we can concede some generalizations in the form of similar forms of trauma i.e. childhood trauma, sexual abuse, life-threatening illness, natural disasters/major events. However, another piece of the trauma and addiction puzzle is where we are with our psychic development at the time of the tragedy. In other words, what was our ego’s capacity to handle such a critical event?

 

We all have patterns born into us. A good representation of this is how we all have our unique genetic code in our DNA. Research has suggested that genetics plays a significant role in people who suffer from addiction. Estimates indicate that 40 to 60 per cent of addiction is correlated in a hereditary fashion. Essentially, one’s genetic predisposition can be an indicator when trying to find insight as to why one may choose the path of addiction.

 

Even with these noteworthy nature-based estimates, our environmental factors offer their pieces to the puzzle. How we are nurtured and how the world interacts with us is a vital element to one’s addiction story. Factors such as family dynamics, the conscious and unconscious intake of other’s psychological patterns and how they coped all bump us down the path of addiction. 

 

When addiction and trauma collide, it is often the perfect storm of a genetic predisposition, a lack of meaning in life/inability for meaning-making, faulty coping, and a stubbornness toward change. This all mixed in with the mental, emotional, and physical anguish that comes with enduring a traumatic experience and it begins to make sense why we cauterize the wound through addictive behaviours. 

 

When we are in the depths of addiction, we are in the pursuit of something beyond the act itself. Recklessly, we engage in an interminable cycle that leaves us stunted and eternally scarred. Our indifference to our trauma pulls and pushes our psyches into a rigidness that makes us believe that we no longer have autonomy. 

 

Our ego doesn’t know how to manage and process the trauma. 

 

What our nature is and how we were nurtured in our life matters when it comes to our reaction to our trauma. However, trauma is merely a juncture in one’s path. It happened, but what do we choose to do after the fact? These are the remaining pieces to the puzzle; our action forward and what we choose to become. 

 

To come out on the other side of trauma-based addiction is a hero’s journey. It leads us to growth and a deeper understanding of who we are and what we are truly capable of. We rise above the pattern and start living again.