Women Who Love Too Much by Robin Norwood

Author:Robin Norwood [Norwood, Robin]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781407009315
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2014-11-27T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

When One Addiction Feeds Another

There is a great deal of pain in life and perhaps the only pain that can be avoided is the pain that comes from trying to avoid pain.

—R. D. Laing

AT OUR WORST we women who love too much are relationship addicts, “man junkies” strung out on pain, fear, and yearning. As if this weren’t bad enough, men may not be the only thing we’re hooked on. In order to block our deepest feelings from childhood, some of us have also developed dependencies on addictive substances. In our youth or later in adulthood we may have begun abusing alcohol or other drugs or, most typically for women who love too much, food. We have overeaten or undereaten or both in order to tune out reality, distract ourselves, and numb the vast emotional emptiness deep inside us.

Not every woman who loves too much also eats too much or drinks too much or uses too many drugs, but for those of us who do, our recovery from relationship addiction must go hand in hand with our recovery from addiction to whatever substance we abuse. Here’s why: The more we depend on alcohol, drugs, or food, the more guilt, shame, fear, and self-hate we feel. Increasingly lonely and isolated, we may become desperate for the reassurance a relationship with a man seems to promise. Because we feel terrible about ourselves, we want a man to make us feel better. Because we can’t love ourselves, we need him to convince us that we are lovable. We even tell ourselves that with the right man we won’t need so much food or alcohol or so many drugs. We use relationships in the same way that we use our addictive substance: to take our pain away. When a relationship fails us, we turn even more frantically to the substance we’ve abused, again looking for relief. A vicious cycle is created when physical dependence on a substance is exacerbated by the stress of an unhealthy relationship, and emotional dependence on a relationship is intensified by the chaotic feelings engendered by physical addiction. We use being without a man or being with the wrong man to explain and excuse our physical addiction. Conversely, our continued use of the addictive substance allows us to tolerate our unhealthy relationship by numbing our pain and robbing us of the motivation necessary for change. We blame one for the other. We use one to deal with the other. And we become more and more hooked on both.

As long as we are bent on escaping ourselves and avoiding our pain, we stay sick. The harder we try and the more avenues of escape we pursue, the sicker we get as we compound addictions with obsessions. We eventually discover that our solutions have become our most serious problems. Badly needing relief and finding none, sometimes we can begin to get a little crazy.

* * *

“I’m here because my attorney sent me.” Brenda was nearly whispering as she made this confession on the occasion of our first appointment.

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