Addiction is a complex disease that rarely exists in isolation.
We use the word ‘disease’ intentionally here to highlight that addiction affects the mind, body, and spirit, making it a multifaceted condition that many grapple with and must be treated in a comprehensive, personalised way.
When someone struggles with alcoholism and/or drug addiction, there’s often a lot more going on beneath the surface of these behaviours, namely some kind of unresolved trauma that the individual may have buried or forgotten.
These are often survival responses, and really useful ones too, as they can protect you against emotions that may be too overwhelming or difficult for you to sit with.
If you are here because you are experiencing some issues with substance use, you may already have this knowledge, perhaps even without putting your thoughts or experiences into words.
Hopefully, the following will help you do just that, and even encourage you to seek professional help and support if you feel things are getting a little out of hand.
Our team is always here to support you at a pace that feels safe and aligned with what you need right now. Reach out to us today for a private, no-obligation discussion about potential treatment options.
We are here to listen whenever you are ready to talk.
What is trauma?
Trauma, which is defined as an event that feels overwhelming and can severely impact emotional and physical well-being, is one of the leading causes of substance use and many other types of addiction, like gaming and gambling.
Addiction and trauma expert Gabor Mate takes this explanation a step further with the following:
‘Trauma is not merely an event (such as neglect, abuse, or loss) but rather the internal experience and response that follows such events.’
Mate highlights that trauma is not what happens to you, but what happens inside you as a result of what happened to you.
This may give you some idea of the inner turmoil one may experience after a frightening or disturbing event or a sequence of challenging experiences, as is often the case in chronic or repeated instances of trauma, particularly in childhood.
Perhaps you can even relate to some of this yourself.
We might also see from this how easy it is for someone to turn to alcohol or drugs to cope with the unpleasantness of difficult or shocking experiences.
Symptoms
If left unchecked, trauma can cause a range of different symptoms depending on your history and the experiences you endured, such as:
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Flashbacks
- Avoidance
- Dissociation
- Chronic feelings of shame and low self-worth
Understanding these symptoms may help you feel more hopeful, allowing you to see beyond your struggles, giving you the confidence that recovery is possible with proper support and lots of compassion and empathy.
When we consider how challenging trauma symptoms can be, it’s no surprise that substances are often used as a form of self-medication, a way to numb, distract or completely forget one’s troubled past.
EMDR and addiction recovery
Fortunately, in recent decades, various treatments have been developed to help survivors of trauma not only overcome the historical wounds that cause such distress, but also to address the coping behaviours used to deal with associated symptoms.
One such treatment, initially developed by Francine Shapiro in the late 1980s, is EMDR, which stands for eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing.
EMDR is a pioneering trauma therapy designed to help individuals reprocess traumatic memories in a safe, structured way with the guidance of an experienced therapist, helping to reduce the traumatic charge of past memories and experiences.
Once these memories have been stored correctly, the individual will not necessarily forget them, but will not experience such distress when thinking about them or being reminded of what happened.
How trauma processing reduces relapse risk
EMDR, which uses bilateral stimulation, including side-to-side eye movements, tapping and auditory tones to help your brain safely reprocess traumatic memories, has increasingly become a vital aspect of addiction treatment.
This approach helps individuals safely reconnect with the body, something they may not have done in years, whilst allowing them to release the traumatic energy of the past, helping to support long-term recovery and reduce relapse risk.
When EMDR is integrated into addiction treatment, as it often is in rehab centres in Spain, in fact, most treatment centres around the world, it can help to:
Reduce your emotional triggers
Trauma-associated memories or triggers can often drive or exacerbate cravings.
One of the phenomenal aspects of EMDR therapy is that it helps disconnect present-day stressors from traumatic experiences that occurred in the past.
EMDR helps to store memories effectively in the brain and nervous system, which is often not possible when something frightening is happening, as the body prioritises survival over memory processing.
Improve emotional regulation
Since EMDR helps to reduce the emotional charge associated with trauma-based memories, over time, you learn to develop a greater capacity for a broader range of emotions without turning to substances to cope.
Your Window of Tolerance is expanded through trauma treatments like EMDR, meaning you can sit with the more difficult feelings and sensations without shutting down or becoming overwhelmed.
This is not about ‘fixing’ or ‘erasing’ your past; it’s about helping you develop the capacity to be with a broader range of emotions, resulting in improved emotional regulation, which is primarily what recovery is about.
Address relapse at the root
Remember earlier when we spoke about old addiction treatment models that only focused on surface symptoms?
Well, thanks to advanced research and continually evolving treatment approaches like EMDR, individuals have unique opportunities to explore what lies beneath the surface of their symptoms, helping to address unresolved emotions and experiences that drive unhealthy patterns.
This involves exploring what may have led to you using substances in the first place – was alcohol a helpful way for you to block out memories you’d much rather forget?
Did ketamine offer a way to feel more numb or disconnected from yourself and others to protect you from ‘feeling’ because feeling anything at all felt too risky?
What protective barriers did the substance provide while you were using it?
These are vital questions and are part of root-cause-focused treatment that help to bring repressed emotions and experiences to the surface, instead of only focusing on substance use behaviours.
Root-cause-focused approaches such as EMDR and other trauma-informed treatments help minimise your risk of relapse significantly, as they allow you to reconnect with your body and the world in a way that feels safe and supportive.
Remember – addiction is the opposite of connection, so to heal, one must find a way to reconnect with themselves and the world around them.
Restore a sense of safety
You would have probably heard the word ‘safe’ quite a bit in this article – and for a good reason.
Trauma-related addiction is often driven by the unconscious need to feel safe in a body that chronically feels unsafe.
Most, if not all, trauma survivors need repeated experiences of safety to help the nervous system unlearn old wiring and relearn new cues of safety, which drive healthier behaviours such as connection over unhealthy alternatives like substance use.
The bottom line here?
Feeling safe in your body is a crucial foundation for lasting recovery and is ultimately the very thing that can help you avoid relapse.
Gone are the days of outdated addiction treatment models, where the approach was primarily focused on ‘symptom management’, which worked in the short-term, but many
clients would eventually relapse back into old patterns.
Through structured EMDR sessions, your nervous system begins to rewire, helping you understand that traumatic events are in the past, thus reducing the intensity of your symptoms and the likelihood of you relying on substances to cope.
Repeated experiences of safety gradually teach your nervous system that you are safe and all is well – you may start to feel less anxious, depleted, angry or shameful about the events of your past.
Instead of relieving your trauma or getting stuck in the story of what happened, you will be supported in processing your memories in a safe and meaningful way, so they lose their emotional grip.
What’s more, through EMDR, you stop engaging in the coping behaviours you once used to deal with how these memories made you feel (or perhaps you couldn’t ‘feel’ at all, as is often the case in severe trauma).
A client once described EMDR as ‘robbing them of their trauma’, and that’s precisely what it does.
But it also takes unhelpful coping patterns with it, freeing you of both the experience and the behaviours that once served you but perhaps no longer do.
EMDR treatment in Spain
At Camino Recovery, we provide comprehensive, personalised EMDR treatment programmes where we gently work with clients, guiding them to revisit the traumatic events of their past so they can experience their feelings in new ways.
Our clinical team in Spain has long witnessed the transformative impact EMDR has on clients and their loved ones.
This approach opens new possibilities to gain the self-knowledge and perspective that enable you to choose your actions, rather than feel powerless over your responses.
EMDR allows you to safely process an emotional experience that may otherwise feel too challenging for you to verbalise through words.
When combined with other modalities, such as talk therapy and experiential approaches like yoga and mindfulness, EMDR enables you to move quickly from emotional distress to a life of peace and, perhaps, over time, empowerment.
The life you were always meant to lead.
To learn more about our addiction treatment programmes in Spain or to find out whether EMDR is suitable for you or a loved one, contact our team today for further information and support.
We are here and ready to help you process your trauma when the time feels right for you, one gentle step at a time.
