I drank and drugged to "deal" with my fears and feelings. (or rather to NOT deal with them)
I call it my magic band aid theory.
I had a hurt. So I put a band aid on it. The band aid didn't fix it, so I thought "Hey, better add another band aid"
hundreds of band aids didn't fix it, Thousands of band aids...didn't fix it.
turned out I needed surgery.
Take off the band aids, address the real issue.
Finally got relief.