Natural Comforts Healing

Yes!

I spent years leading groups at a recovery center. And what I came to understand that addiction is a symptom. It’s a response. Almost always to unresolved grief. Or shame. Typically both.

No one that’s addicted enjoys the “high.” Life becomes an endless cycle of stress, betraying the people they love, and chronic lying (to themselves included.) Every spare moment is about that next drink, or the next drug— and in a way that’s a relief because it’s something to focus on. Something to briefly remove them from the brutal inner critic playing like a recording in the mind. Something to briefly remove them from the destruction they’ve created around themselves.

We say that people are in active addiction. But what they’re really in is: deep grief. Grief from the abandonment of their father, from the emotional neglect of their mother, from the death of a sibling. From the punishment of poverty or the struggle of being highly sensitive in an emotionally unaware world. And almost always: from the death of their true self. A self they could never be because family or society said it was wrong, bad, or something to be ashamed of.

Addiction is the symptom.

Grief is under the surface

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JD Cole

In the darkest of times, remember nothing is permanent, even when it feels like a never-ending s**t show.

It's usually darkest just before dawn, but the beauty of the sunrise is usually well worth the wait.

It's also a great reminder that shadow and light go hand in hand. We must learn to embrace both.

When the sun shines again, you will remember how you never thought you would bask in the warmth of its rays again and smile.

Whatever you are going through, know the sun WILL shine again.

And you will have great clarity about why it was so important to set in the dark in the first place.

With so much love,
JD