Many of us living with addiction also find ourselves in unhealthy relationships that are filled with toxicity, hostility and even violence and abuse. Many of us experienced relationships like these in our families while we were growing up. We witnessed domestic abuse within our homes, that we often were victims of as well. We tend to choose the relationships that mirror what we are most familiar with and the most used to, what makes us most comfortable, essentially our emotional comfort zone. The patterns we perpetuate come from what we know to be reality. When we get accustomed to violence, we are more likely to attract partners who continue these patterns with us. They are often addicts themselves, and we fall into cycles of enabling each other, lying and deceiving one another, and abusing each other. The violence we live with that is compounded by addiction is filled with unique challenges.
When we are living with addiction in our lives, we tend to have turbulent love stories that are filled with issues, problems, and danger. We are reckless, risky and throw caution to the wind. Our relationships are filled with ups and downs, drama and high emotions. We’re constantly fighting, breaking up, making up and then repeating the cycle. With abusive relationships, there is a cycle of violence that includes the high of the honeymoon phase as the first phase. We’re high on love, and high on the substances we’re addicted to. We feel good about life, sometimes we feel like we’re on top of the world. When we haven’t yet felt the low that inevitably comes with addiction, we still think we’re invincible.
After the honeymoon phase, all of our old habits and patterns that are still unhealed will return. Everything we haven’t healed from will present itself as a lesson, a spiritual test. We usually fall back into our old habits of self-destructiveness, and with abusive relationships, there is a lot of anger, contention, bitterness and resentment that we haven’t healed from yet. The violence we experienced as children, within our families, and within past relationships will again resurface, and our patterns will re-emerge. We haven’t healed from the pain within us. We haven’t learned healthy coping skills to handle the difficult emotions that will naturally arise for us.
Understanding the violence of addiction often means working to unearth all the past violence in our lives that we haven’t healed from, so that we can move forward in peace.
Because we’ve lived with addiction in our own lives, we know firsthand all of the other life complications that come along with it. We’re here to give you the support you need to help you heal from all of it. Call Riverside Recovery at (800) 871-5440 for more information.