PeacefulWater12

Is now about eight months since AH died.

I have been working hard on healing my co-dependency issues and have released a very large amount of buried trauma from my childhood. I have had counselling from a domestic abuse counsellor as well as a grief counsellor.

I wanted to share an update today that may offer encouragement to others.

Now the trauma bond I has gone, I feel so very different. The trauma bond being incredible highs and lows that comes with being in a relationship with an alcoholic. The roller coaster of chemicals our bodies release from being around their behaviours. That is highly addictive, makes us unable to see reality. We literally become chemically addicted to the drinker in our life.

This has now detoxed and gone from my body. I look back and see how I felt and acted about AH. It is like looking at a different person. I can see I was behaving like a drug addict needing a fix all the time. I was deeply affected by the chemicals being released in me all the time from my interactions with him. I was obsessed with him, again like a drug user would be with the drug they use.

Now I see him as a very ordinary person. Nothing exciting or interesting about him. All those "dramas" we went through together seem dull and boring. Like why on earth was I bothering with it. It was my outlook of him caused by the chemical highs that made him seem so exciting to me.

My over involvement in him, me taking far too much responsibility for him. Me putting all my focus on him.

I read some of the posts here and I totally see that addiction we have to the drinker in our lives. The drinker rules our thinking and life.

This addiction was by far the hardest for me to detox from. Far more physically painful too as the chemicals stopped being produced by my body after AH passed. When I, in effect, went No Contact.

I look back in a very detached way and wonder who AH was, just a random alcoholic I chose to spend about 15 years of my life with. I didn't know him at all. What I did know was the addictive chemical effect of being around him. The effect that engulfed me and ate me up.

I have good awareness of this now and will not be mixing with any one likely to set this addiction off again, much like as a former drinker I don't hang out in pubs with people who are drinking heavily.

If I do encounter someone who starts me feeling this addictive pull, I will quickly walk away. I do not ever want this chemical process to start in me again.

Under the influence of a trauma bond we act like crazy people. Do dangerous and insane things.

We base our whole life around the drinker, again just like a drug user does.

I feel very stable and peaceful inside. Completely different now to when I was running myself ragged looking after a sick and dying alcoholic for so long. I wouldn't have the interest or toxic energy to do it now, even if I wanted to, which I don't. My energy now comes from a healthy place, is not the anxious energy that comes from being in fight or flight all the time.

Anyways just wanted to share about this. I know on here we focus on telling people to step away from "helping" the drinker, to focus on themselves so I thought perhaps having an understanding as to why we get so obsessed with the drinker in our life might help.

trailmix

This sounds like a natural occurrence when you meet someone you are attracted too - alcoholic or not. I think that's why it is so important to take things slowly in a new relationship.

sage1969

I recognise the recovery pattern you're describing, as it felt a very similar curve after my AH passed away. It took years for me to break out of that pattern of thinking, and I actually remember very little of the first year or so.

I would agree that the trauma cycle reinforces codependent tendencies, which is why I really was hard on myself when I found myself emmnmeshed in the codependent cycle with XABF. Thankfully it had not gotten to the point of physical violence, but I do think that once we've had a "hit" of the chemical response that goes along with a trauma cycle, that it is an addiction, and so easy to backslide into it all again. From a neurological point of view, it all makes perfect sense, our neurons prefer to fire in established patterns where there is the least electrochemical resistance, and behavior changes mean training our neurons to fire in different paths.

PeacefulWater12

Thanks for you reply, Trail Mix

I think slowly and carefully is the sensible and safe way to do it too.

When I met late AH everything moved very fast. A whirlwind. How often do we hear this regarding toxic relationships? Everything moves way too fast. Move in together in the blink of an eye. A feeling of them being our "soul mates". This being someone we don't even know!

PeacefulWater12

Thank you for your reply, Sage.

I found it very helpful to learn about this process during my counselling which was why I wanted to share it here. Understanding brings such relief, I think.

My focus as I move forward now is on changing those ingrained behaviour patterns, as you mention. It feels kind of awkward at first with each change. Like putting on a new pair of shoes that are all stiff. Once the leather in the shoe softens, the shoes become comfortable.

LovelyKaya33333

Thank you so much for this.... This makes so much sense... It really resonated... I am still addicted but I can feel it starting to fade

PeacefulWater12

You are welcome (((Kaya))). I am glad it resonated with you.

I relate to what you say about the addiction fading.

There was an initial very intense withdrawal then it gradually gradually faded until I realised it had gone. Then everything looked different as I was no longer seeing it through a haze of chemicals in my brain.

I feel utter peace right to my core. My full range of emotions are now coming back too.

advbike

Thanks Peaceful, that was a very enlightening and helpful post.

Hawkeye13

I find great comfort and honesty in all your posts Peaceful—right now I’m earlier in a similar journey with my spouse who is struggling with his addiction to alcohol. I haven’t yet been 100% successful either, but am pretty far down the road and working hard to build a solid recovery. I get so frustrated being around someone who is drinking as it reminds me of childhood and pain of living with my mother’s drinking, even though I know as an adult he has every right to do as he wishes.

One difference from my story and yours is that his drinking increased to match mine after we met and over time, and though I haven’t entirely vanquished my own issues, one powerful dream I have for both of us is to live in an alcohol-free home and to work through some of the core issues which helped develop the alcohol problems for both of us.

SR has been a wonderful therapeutic help, especially since I am ACOA, and enabling was (and still is in some ways) a way of life. My spouse stuck with me through the worst of my own drinking, and through the terrible years of managing my out-of-control alcoholic mother as she deteriorated. Today I would have known to cut contact, but then I still felt filial obligation and had false hopes I could find a way for her to live the rest of her life in some kind of peace and dignity.

Seeing people recover and heal from various toxic entanglements on this list has given me real hope, tools, and strategies to keep tackling my own blind spots and heal as well.

The posters here, “regulars” especially, help so much—so thanks to you, and all of you. . . .

Triggered

This is such an important post. Not everyone realises that there is a physical as well as emotional component to co dependancy and also addiction. It answers a lot of questions that arise when it's completely baffling to people as to why they hold on tight to behaviours that are dangerous and damaging.
I refer yet again to Dr Gabor Mate who teaches that practically the whole medical profession are remiss when treating such issues. In many of his talks among medical professionals he asks his audience how many of them have made the connection between trauma and its physiological consequences. Most if not all of them answer that trauma was not considered in medical school as part of the human condition. I thoroughly recommend Mate's talks on youtube (free)

advbike

Thanks for reinforcing that point, Triggered. This is all kind of recent to me (learning how codependent I am) and in my own life there was childhood trauma as well as adult relationship trauma (I'm ACOA and codependent). as well as my own dependence on alcohol for years, to cope. I love Gabor Mate and have two of his books, having started with In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts. What an eye opener that was.

Triggered

I'm pretty much in the same boat as you advbike. Getting sober was a real minefield for me (hence the username) I did a few searches on the net and came up with GM and I'm so glad I did. I've read Ghosts and it's a real eye opener. It also gave me hope that I can somehow make sense of the madness of addiction and gave me a good starting point to address my issues. I have a support worker who I've told about GM (and also this site) She is blown away by both

PeacefulWater12

Thank you so much for your responses and thoughts, Advbike, Hawkeye & Triggered.

I found the work of Gabor Mate to be eye opening too.

The madness of addiction, coming from generations of addicts, my first addiction as a very young child was sugar. In the battling, crazy, violent, unsafe home I lived in some sugar helped numb it out a bit.

I remained a compulsive overeater all my life until I met AH about 15 years ago, I quickly switched addiction from sugar to alcohol like the trained codie I was to accommodate AH wanting to drink every day. As an ACoA my physical body was actually already an alkie in waiting. My biochemistry was primed and just needed the go ahead.

So we drank together for about four years, as time passed I drank more than him, Much faster and stronger drinks. I was a blackout, binge drinker. AH was a maintenance drinker (reached a set level of alcohol in his body which made him feel comfortable. So he drank steadily and slowly all the time).

I quit alcohol about eleven years ago. However with the knowledge I now have, I can see that although free of the chemical of alcohol, I was flooded with the trauma bond and highly toxic chemicals from choosing to be with a covert narcissist who used alcohol. I grew up with alcoholic covert narcissists so they were a good fit for me. They are what I knew.

I would suggest that with most of the drinkers we share about here, their drinking is but a tiny part of the problem, the real problem is the personality disorder/mental illness beneath the drinking. The alcohol is just self medicating. The surface.

Take away the alcohol, you then see the real issue. So with me, I quit the alcohol/sugar and then had to address the real stuff. The deep trauma from childhood and the patterns I was re-enacting.

Triggered

Couldnt agree more Peaceful...First, let me congratulate you on 11 years sober.... fantastic.

GM maintains that there is no addiction without underlying trauma,and its the same for every kind of addiction. He also provides the evidence for the science behind trauma affecting brain function and the chemical anomalies that underpin it. The evidence does exist, why medical professionals choose to ignore it is a mystery.
He himself has been diagnosed with ADD and has struggled with addictions to shopping and workaholism. He gives his reasons:
GM was born into a Jewish family at the onset of the invasion of Romania by the Nazis. The family lived in terror, many were murdered or sent to Auswitch. As an infant, he sensed the angst in his mother. As an adult, we usually revert to the fight or flight defences to deal with such situations but you cant do that as an infant. Instead he 'zoned out' as he calls it... a classic symptom of ADD. And that followed him into adulthood.
I agree with you that people need to look at the underlying causes of their addiction and tackle them head on...our addictions are a symptom of a deeper disquiet. After reviewing the evidence I know that for me, I couldnt do one without the other.

sage1969

I agree with this; if I look at each of my qualifiers, they started drinking to self - medicate before they became teens. Each was different as far as why they thought they started drinking but in different conversations, they'd each shared traumas from their childhoods. It's not difficult for me to see the relationship between trauma and self - medication in my own life experiences; my own addictions started in my teen years when I was struggling with my self identity and self worth, normal for teens coming from a "normal" home and unavoidable for someone coming from a home where addiction and codependency are rampant.
I have often wondered about my own ADHD; FAS was not really screened for when I was a child, so I wonder how much of my diagnosed ADHD is attributable to FAS (my mother was in bed rest during her pregnancy with me and her doctor encouraged as many alcoholic drinks as she could manage each day to "keep her calm"), and how much to the trauma of my childhood.

I'd always wondered how my mother's side of the family became so enmeshed in patterns of codependency, but I would agree that we carry generational trauma in our DNA (my great grandmother's family was murdered at Auschwitz). I've also read about codependency patterns emerging in families that survived events like WWII (my maternal grandparents were married 69 years; my grandmother's every day revolved around and catered to my grandfather). As a result, though my mother was not a drinker when she married my alcoholic father (who started drinking and smoking at 11, and carried his own traumas of his violent parents and the genetic memory of the holocaust his mother's indigenous relatives experienced), she was quite ready to fall into the codependent patterns she'd learnt from my grandparents who were married during the great depression and apart during my grandfather's military service as an officer and pilot during WWII, Korea, and Vietnam.

So this has all been in my genes for a long time, and it was something I really did have to come to terms with when I started digging into why I was so susceptible to addiction and codependency.

PeacefulWater12

Thank you, Triggered & Sage, for sharing your thoughts.

Recently I have have been seeing work about how there are two basic responses to growing up in trauma. We can go one of two ways.

One is to become an appeaser (Response in Flight, Fight, Fawn, Freeze so this would be the Fawn response) which then shows up as being a codie. Giving giving giving to another person. All focus on that other person.

The other being the Fighter which plays out as becoming a narcissist so take take take. All focus on me me me! What can I get.

Each path intended to keep the child safe in an unsafe situation. Survival techniques.

Both paths born in the same place and out of fear. Two branches.

Then when older we get together. A codie and a narc. Perfect fit. Two halves of a coin.

Both playing out our childhoods. I can clearly see this in myself and late AH. Both roles equally unhealthy and damaging. Both roles worked well and were needed in childhood but as adults they need to be changed and let go of. Updated to healthy ways of seeing and acting in the world.

mp315

Thank you so much for this Peacefulwater. I wish I would have known about trauma bonds years ago. I was so obsessed with my ex and still can't believe I put up with his abuse for years. It's like I was a different person during that time and I'm still trying to figure out the why

PeacefulWater12

I am glad it is helpful to you, MP.

I relate to what you say, I was like a different person too, all those chemicals flooding me. I really do look back and wonder who that lady was.

All the best to you.

Leftinthedust

About 3 months ago when the reality of my story was settling in, the book Smoke and Mirrors, was recommended to me. The author suggested that people like me had a certain chemical makeup/imbalance/need for emotional conflict and the “highs” and “lows” that accompany it. At the time I brushed it off. After looking back at my reactions to my AW actions and non-reactions in rehab, where I frankly lost my **** at times, i can look in the mirror and say that author was spot on. I’m working my way through Codependent No More and looking back at myself constantly as I read it.

Thank you all for sharing your journeys. I find solace, hope and commonality in them all.

PeacefulWater12

Thank you for sharing this.

Absolutely, that is me too. I grew up in those devastating highs and lows in the insane alcoholic and mental heath disorders home. My body became addicted to and used to it.

Therefore that is what I thought was "normal" so I sought it out in relationships.

I don't miss my late alcoholic husband as a person. I do notice that sometimes I miss the highs and lows his behaviour created.

In my peaceful life now, I don't miss it in a way of longing to have it back, I miss it in a way of it feeling odd as I had lived in that chaos for so very long. It is like losing a limb. I certainly don't long for it back though.

I think even when I was detoxing from the Trauma Bond, I didn't long to have it back, I was aware I had to sit all the physical and mental pain out as my body chemistry healed and got back in balance.

"Miss" is not really the right word, maybe "awareness" is better. I feel aware that I am not in the cycle of highs and lows.