Emotions: why bother with them?

Often my clients who are struggling with emotions of anger, fear or sadness, and who in the course of that struggle have self-medicated with alcohol, drugs, sex or gambling, will ask me:
"What is the point of having emotions?"

When your emotional life mainly presents as suffering, that question is a very appropriate one. Why do we need those pesky emotions which "make us feel bad"?

The answer is very simple: emotions are nature's feedback system (honed over many millennia) for what is happening to us.
Good stuff? positive emotions tell us to get more of those experiences.
Bad stuff? the negative emotions tell us to avoid and stay away.

When we allow ourselves to feel the emotions, we get valuable info on what we need to do.
And when we are brushing them under the carpet with a flick of our mind, or through alcohol, drugs, or whatever we use to self-medicate, we make a situation bearable that is not meant to be bearable.

If we are exposed to trauma and violence, the fear or anger will guide us to fight or flight. When we ignore those emotions, we remain in a situation that is detrimental to us.

Emotions that are not acknowledged do not disappear - they only fester. The fear and anger about having been abused as a child for example might morph as an adult into extreme anxiety for their safety and into panic attacks.

Part of my work with clients who have self-medicated for a very long time is to slowly let them experience those emotions in a safe and contained environment, in our sessions. That allows them to find out what changes they want to make to their lives.

For those suffering from post-traumatic stress or from the long-term effects of having been abused as children, they can start looking at the trauma, and allow themselves to grieve for their losses - of innocence, of safety, of wholeness. Then the next step of the therapy begins: finding a way to make sense and to create a new narrative of their life as survivors, not victims.

A different take on the causes of addiction

Here on Huffington Post is an excellent article suggesting that addiction occurs much less frequently for people who take mind-altering substances and have a life with sufficient quality human connection. It seems to underpin my theory that recreational or "festive" use does not have the same addictive effect than using/drinking to forget.

I don't quite agree with the article's theory that it is not the "chemical hook" that creates addiction, but I too have the sneaking suspicion that the chemical hook is not the only culprit. There are many behaviours which don't involve taking substances (think gambling, sex, running) yet involve a "rush" (usually a release of adrenaline) which can lead to addiction. The chemical hook is still there, but produced by our own brain.

So maybe we should worry less about keeping away from drugs and alcohol and more about having a preventative attitude regarding mental health.

Maybe the point is to protect children (and not just our own, but as a society in general) from abuse and trauma, to allow them to grow into emotionally functioning adults, who will be capable of looking after their needs without self-medicating...

My definition of addiction

Very often my clients and complete strangers (when they hear about my work) ask me whether they "are addicted".

My simple answer is: it is an addiction if you have either lost your health, a relationship, a job, or the roof over your head because of it.

An addiction is actually any behaviour that we do more of than we want, and that we use to mask unpleasant emotions (anger, boredom, sadness...). If you have ever thought you ought to spend less time on Facebook, and not put that into practice, then you have an addiction to Facebook. Personally, I am addicted to reading books.

What my rather flippant answer does, is to point out that there has to be a harmful element to "qualify" a habit as an addiction.

Because let's face it: most of us are addicted to coffee for example. We could not face starting a day without it, even though we hate spending literally thousands of dollars every year on it. Yet no-one seeks professional help for that.

So I suggest we sort our addictions into harmful and harmless ones. And very often my work involves helping my clients to find harmless addictions to replace more harmful ones. Running for example - the endorphins that it releases is addictive - yet you're unlikely to lose your relationships, jobs or house for it. Surfing is another one.

Another way of answering the question "am I addicted?" is to ask yourself what is the price you pay for continuing your behaviour - and whether you can afford to pay it long-term.

And if you can't, then it's time to seek help, before you lose one or all of the essentials: your relationships, your health, your job, your home.

"Festive alcohol" - or when consumption is less likely to lead to addiction

I have a theory (well, more than one, but this is the one for today):

When we drink because we are happy, to celebrate, with friends, what I call "festive alcohol", we drink to enhance a positive state of mind. Alcohol lubricates, disinhibits, but isn't the actual point of the occasion - the celebration is.

When we drink to forget, to numb our pain, or to deaden what we think are otherwise unbearable emotions, that's when alcohol leads to addiction. Because the more we avoid those "bad" emotions (read sadness, grief, anger etc.), and the earlier we start doing that, the less we learn how to deal with them, to process them, and ultimately to accept them. The result? we reach for the glass or the bottle as our first and soon only line of defence. And as soon as the effects wear off, we want to top them up, because the emotions are only pushed under for as long as alcohol's influence hasn't worn off.

Of course, feel free to replace the word "alcohol" with drugs, sex, gambling, or any other addictive behaviour you can think of. They can all be used in the same way - to either enhance what we feel, or to numb ourselves.

I have yet to meet in my private practice a client who says: "I love to party, I'm a happy person, but I have a real addiction problem now". For all of the clients I have ever seen, their addiction stemmed from trying to cope with trauma as well as they could, with the means they had at hand at the time.

So, if you like going to the pub, or drink moderately (whatever that means...) every day and are wondering whether you're an alcoholic - the answer is no, unless you're drinking to drown your sorrows. Same quantity - different purpose - different outcome.

Why I became a therapist

I have always been interested in people: their stories, their emotions, their thinking.
In some ways, just as there are natural story-tellers, I believe I am a natural listener.
I enjoy it. Always have.

Well,  nearly always. When I was a child, I was as egocentric as the next one - happy to prattle on about myself and my world to anyone who cared to listen (or didn't walk away fast enough).
As an adult though, I discovered that everyone had an interesting story to tell, and if I just listened carefully enough, I would find out what makes them tick.

My love of books is a parallel: good writers create "real" people and their stories, protagonists that ring true, not just hastily cobbled together in two dimensions. So reading a great book is like meeting new people in all their complexity.

When I first finished my law studies (a "family curse"), I wanted to work as a headhunter - to find the right people for jobs at the pointy end (executives and/or specialists). And I did, listening to their always interesting, often fascinating lives. The perfect job for someone collecting people's stories.

After a while though, I wanted to know more than just their employment background, or how they got to where they were. I yearned for more depth. So when I took a break to have my first child, it seemed like the perfect time to go back to university for a postgraduate degree in counselling and psychotherapy. I haven't looked back since.

Now I am in the privileged position to listen to my clients' innermost stories, doubts, struggles, to offer them support, and (mostly) to have the wonderful chance to see them come out the other side of the depression, addiction, conflict or abuse they were facing, able to lead a life of their own choosing, instead of a "life-sentence" imposed by their childhood or later traumas.

To say that I enjoy my work as a therapist is an understatement: I actually love it. I often joked that I would do it for free; and the reality is that I have worked pro bono for close to 5 years for the St Vincent de Paul Society (which operates a free counselling service in Redfern).

So I guess this is a perfect example of what Freud called "a conflict of ambivalence": I need to choose between fulfilling my vocation - improving the world, one person at a time - and making a living... And I choose to offer reduced rates to clients with financial difficulties, ensuring thus that therapy is accessible to everyone. Because at the end of the day, what satisfies me most is to see the change I have facilitated.

If you liked this post, you might also enjoy this one.