So pretty much everyone knows there's a strong link between trauma and addiction,
but did you know there's actually three very strong links between
trauma and addiction in this video, we're going to explore exactly what they are.
For those of you who are new here, welcome to put the shovel down. I'm Amber Hollingsworth and this
YouTube channel is all about helping you understand the science and psychology of addiction
from every angle so that you can get your life
and your family back on track and get back out there and live the life that you want to live.
But before we get into our topic, I want to let you know that as always,
there are links to tons of free addiction, recovery resources.
Right in the description. So don't forget to check those out. Okay. Back to our topic. So the first
link between trauma and addiction is probably the one that people are most aware of.
And that is the idea that people with trauma are way more likely to develop addiction issues. And
to be honest, it doesn't take a psychologist or a research scientist to figure out
why that is. When you have trauma, you actually dysregulate the alarm systems in your brain.
Sometimes that dysregulation is permanent and it comes in the forms of
lots of different kinds of anxiety, lots of different, very uncomfortable symptoms
so it doesn't take a genius to figure out that if you're uncomfortable all the time,
you're going to be looking for some sort of solution.
And sometimes people think they have found their solution and drugs, alcohol, or other
types of behavioral addictions. Unfortunately, they're just not very good solutions because
they tend to help a little bit short term, but they tend to make the problem way, way worse.
Long-term. For many reasons, because it disrupts your relationships because it
starts to consume your life because it changes your brain chemistry and
you start to have the rebound effects from the substances or the addiction,
which makes you have further anxiety, depression, all kinds of other uncomfortable symptoms
I will say there are definitely some better solutions out there for you. If this is your
situation. In fact, I made a video recently about a cool new PTSD treatment, and I'll put
a link to that at the end of this video. Now the second strong link between trauma and addiction
is the fact that if you didn't have trauma to begin with, but then you develop an addiction
you're likely to get traumatized as a result of all the things that come along with addiction.
Unfortunately, addiction will cause you to behave in ways you wouldn't normally behave.
It will cause you to put yourself in situations you wouldn't normally put yourself in.
It compromises you to be honest, and you are so much more vulnerable.
For bad things happening. So people with trauma have a higher chance of developing an addiction
and people with addiction have a higher chance of developing trauma.
And this third way that trauma is strongly connected to addiction is probably the least
talked about. And that is the fact that people that are struggling with addictions
are so much more likely to be causing trauma to the people around them.
Yeah, I know that's an uncomfortable thing to hear and maybe even not very PC thing to say
these days, but let's be honest about it. If you've had trauma in your life before,
maybe in your childhood, there's a pretty high chance that the person involved with maybe
triggering or causing some of that trauma had an addiction
because when you have an addiction, you don't relate to people the same way.
You get into such a self preservation mode that you make decisions differently. You
see the world differently, your mood is up and down. You're unpredictable.
Sometimes you're not even in control of the things you're saying and doing.
And the uncomfortable truth is that is very, very traumatic to the people around you.
Now, one of the reasons why I actually wanted to talk about this is because recently there was a
comment left on one of my videos. It's hard to tell with comments and maybe it just came across
differently than the person meant it. But I see things like this a lot. And I have for sure heard
things like this a lot, but the commenter said something that was kind of along the lines of,
you know, you just don't understand, you need to leave addicts alone because they can't help it.
They have trauma. You don't know what it's like.
And I kind of had a little reaction in my head to that comment because you see, I do know that
people struggling with addictions have trauma and I have tons of empathy for it. However,
sometimes I see that being used as a reason or an excuse to not deal with an addiction
I'm going to give you a little piece of tough love right here,
just because you have trauma, doesn't make it okay for you to make decisions that negatively impact,
or maybe even traumatize the people around you. Now that trauma can come in many types of forms
and you might be thinking, well, I don't abuse my kids or I don't abuse my spouse.
I'm not causing them trauma, but it's a lot more complicated than that. There are a lot
of other ways that living with someone who has an addiction is very traumatic. In fact,
a lot of family members or people living with someone with addiction, they develop a disorder
that's somewhere in between post-traumatic stress disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder.
They're living in fear constantly. They're walking on eggshells.
They're worried something bad is going to happen to you or your behaviors are going
to result in something bad to happen to someone else. They're worried it's going to cause the
family to fall apart. And ultimately this creates something called complex trauma.
But I do have a video on that and I'll try to remember to link that up for you here
at the end as well. You know, the other day I was actually listening to one of my true
crime videos. Some of, you know, I like that. Anyways. I was listening to a video that was
all, it was very sad story. It was all about a mom who had a drug problem who
was very abusive to her five-year-old son and ultimately killed her five-year-old son.
Probably not intentionally but the abuse was so severe, it resulted in his death. The reason I'm
telling you the story is because the part that stands out to me is when this woman was on trial,
she was found guilty. And I was actually listening to the part where the judge was sentencing. This
person. And the judge was talking about why they were making the sentence recommendation.
the way that they were. And the judge was talking about how this person had
a history of trauma, how, when this woman was younger, her brother committed suicide
and how she had developed an addiction issue off and on and had struggled and how the judge
was sure that the addiction had contributed to the abuse and the things that happened.
And I'm a hundred percent sure. That that judge was correct, but it just struck a little bit of a
nerve with me because at some point the trauma and the abuse has to stop. We can't continue to accept
bad behavior from ourselves or from other people because we have empathy for them. It's okay to
have empathy for someone and to understand why they're struggling and maybe even understand
why they developed and have an addiction have some empathy for that, but a reason is not an excuse
and allowing substance abuse to continue for yourself or for a loved one. Isn't helping
with the trauma. Anyway, I'll promise you. Just like we said, in number two, continuing
to abuse substances is most likely to result in more trauma even to the person themselves.
So you're not doing yourself any favor or your loved one, any favors
by having so much empathy care and concern that you're just excusing away this behavior
by just excusing away the addiction. Ultimately, we're going to have to balance empathy
with reality. And I realized that can be a little bit of a hard pill to swallow,
but if you're ready to hear that information, I want you to watch these videos next.
It's more about the links between
trauma and addiction and how we can intervene and get that cycle to stop.