How Can I Help You With Addictive Relationships?

To make these relationships more understandable so that they are less painful and shameful to address them as correctable problems.

To gain control over the forces that have left you feeling out of control of yourselves and helplessly at the mercy of the painful consequences of your actions.

To develop a practical and effective plan for you to recover.

To provide you a holding environment of acceptance, safety, trust and support to reduce your fears of trying to make positive changes when you are ready.

To enhance and complement any recovery activities you are already pursuing.

If you wish to set up an initial consultation please call me at 201-647-6607 or write me at mhmilch@healthymindsets.com.

Anatomy Of An Addictive Behavior: Not For Men Only

This article attempts to make sense of our vulnerabilities to developing abusive or to use a more popular term; addictive relationships to activities of daily living.  I will review the outstanding features of those of us caught up in addictive relationships.  Then, I will highlight some developmental issues that shape one specific activity of daily living that holds the potential to become an addictive one; male masturbation.  As an addictive relationship male masturbation has received much publicity with the coming of age of the world wide web. 

In my mind, masturbation has the same potential for abuse and belongs in the same category as eating, working, and spending.   All of these activities in moderation are healthy and pleasurable activities.   When used in moderation they all keep us in balance and thus, serve life sustaining functions.  When we develop an over reliance on these activities in ways they were not intended to be used by adults, they become self- defeating and self-destructive activities.  They wind up creating problems for us instead of enhancing our lives, and they erode our willingness and abilities to sensibly manage our lives.

I write this article hopeful that many of you out will there will enhance your understanding of why so many of us take such activities beyond healthy self-interest into a realm of unhealthy extremes.  I hope whatever you learn may translate to greater compassion, acceptance and empathy for those who suffer with addictive behaviors.   Furthermore, my desire is that these insights empower those of us who will benefit from them to overcome our denial of needing more help than just plain willpower.

Many of you may recall having seen on television or read how in an era that pre dated modern medicine salesmen peddled tonics.  These tonics were advertised as elixirs for all that ailed the consumers.   Those who hawked these products preyed on folks’ wishes for magical solutions to their medical problems.  Not only did these elixirs not live up to their billing but, the buyers in neglecting more conventional treatments wound up worsening their conditions.  Furthermore, the consumers’ appetites for these alcohol based tonics grew as they were indeed, habit forming.  The unsuspecting buyers in many cases wound up drinking these tonics as if they were “stiff drinks” to forget their unhappiness about their physical ailments and temporarily numb their pain.   The more they became hooked on the alcohol laden elixirs, the less willing and able they were to manage their lives, let alone their ailments.  Soon they were so disabled mentally and physically by these tonics that even if they were inclined to see a doctor they couldn’t gather themselves to do so. 

Such is the anatomy of an addictive relationship.  An interesting note here is that one does not have to self-medicate emotional pain with alcohol or other mind altering drugs.  This can be accomplished with food, exercise, spending, and even pleasuring one’s self.  All can produce similar effects on our brains.   We all have bottomless bags of magic tricks to temporarily make life’s challenges we are overwhelmed by, temporarily disappear.  Meanwhile these actions increase our resistance to change, weaken our tolerance for the painful truths abut ourselves we all must face to grow, and devalue and retard our abilities to create meaningful changes in our lives. 

My experiences inside and outside my psychotherapy practice have taught me that all addictive relationships express our feelings of hopelessness and helplessness to be active agents of change in our lives.  Often we are running from legacies of emotional deprivation and abuse that we believe to be life long punishments for being bad and/or incompetent people.  We fear being found out and run from our dirty dark secrets which are in truth, as inescapable as one inert piece of metal trying to pry itself loose from another piece of metal it is soldered to.  In running from our selves we can behave in ways that make real our worst fears about ourselves.  We must admit our powerlessness to escape our self -imposed existences and accept responsibility for reaching out for help in order to pursue our roads to recovery.   

At the risk of over simplifying an examination of addictive behaviors below please find a review of some outstanding characteristics of folks suffering with addictive disorders.  As you read the comments please keep in mind that addictive behaviors speak volumes about ferocious struggles to resist needing others in any way, shape or form unless those others can be controlled.  Folks who suffer with addictive relationships tend not to discriminate between healthy dependencies and unhealthy dependencies. 

As mentioned before we deny that our magical solutions to our problems increasingly become self -defeating and self -destructive.   We deny that our addictive behaviors sabotage and disable our mental functioning making us more unwilling and/or unable to develop healthier and more mature ways to meet our needs.  The continuation of these behaviors may result in mental and physical problems due to the stressful consequences of our actions.

Our actions are as much exercises in futility as trying to feed a lonely heart with endless amounts of food.   All we will wind up with is a helplessly and hopelessly lonely, obese person who learns to eat to temporarily fill an emotional void.   We can temporarily numb an infection with a topical anesthetic and cover it with a band aid so we don’t have to look at it however, such band aid approaches are quick fixes that only make matters worse in the long run.

Folks with addictive patterns make certain that they remain in the grips of unidentified needs; that create bodily tensions.  When we cannot connect to, think about and satisfy what is wreaking havoc on a physical level, we cannot bring ourselves back into balance.  This is both a cause of addictive patterns and a worsening consequence of its continuation.   It’s like racing a car engine in park and then, suddenly putting the car in gear.  We can lose control of ourselves and engage in impulsive, mindless and reckless acts.   We begin to feel and act like children in need of guidance, structure and limit setting who believe that someone other than ourselves should be responsible for controlling our impulses and/or dealing with their consequences.   Left to our own devices we make messes of things, and heap shame and guilt on ourselves only to seek temporary refuge in our addictive behaviors to flee our intolerable emotional pain.   We will make parents of anyone who will apply for the job; even our own children.        

So, how do we apply this definition to men who though, they may have loving and available sexual partners develop unhealthy dependencies on pleasuring themselves?    Why do they continue to do so even when doing so late at night leaves them without enough sleep to function adequately the next day?  Why do they do so even when these activities leave them feeling ashamed, embarrassed and guilty so as to distance themselves emotionally and physically from their partners?  Often matters will go from bad to worse when their partners reproach them for feeling, abandoned, rejected, and perhaps, deceived and betrayed by them.  Such are the addictive messes we can make for ourselves and our loved ones.   

I will use my understanding of normal and abnormal child development to explain how specific instances of physical and emotional abuse and neglect suffered during our formative years may translate to the abuse of masturbation as a self-regulatory activity.  This addictive relationship like others expresses a universal and normal resistance to accepting the unfairness and injustice that comes with the territory of growing up.  This relationship also expresses a resistance to accepting societal expectations that we will be responsible for the “crosses we must bear.”  We may not have caused our problems early in life however,  we are the only ones who can accept responsibility to overcome them.  Pleasuring ourselves when carried to an extreme is like all other addictive relationships.  The repetition of the activity will intensify our resistances to mourning our losses, and finding forgiveness in our hearts.  We may fight against these realities with a resolve so fierce that one might imagine we are defending our homes, our communities and our homeland from annihilation.  Such is the nature of addictive relationships. 

Think about whomever you might know who is suffering with this addictive issue and please allow my remarks to be food for your own thought as you build your own logical bridges between the causes and effects of this widespread problem in the era of cyberspace.   I look forward to hearing from you in the hopes of sharing insights and stretching our understanding of this hot topic in today’s world.  Please imagine how the following formative experiences might or might not shape an addictive relationship to masturbation based on your own experiences and observations in life

1) When emotional needs become sexualized then, we need to discharge these sexual tensions by achieving orgasms with great regularity.  There is such a thing as too much external stimulation by a mother or maternal surrogate that can shape both too much of a dependence on external stimulation for pleasure and a sense of aliveness.  This condition may result in a child not learning to translate physical excitation to feelings they can identify, connect to, think about, verbalize and act on in meaningful ways.       

2) Many male adolescents when they need to transfer loving feelings once reserved exclusively for their mothers to their female peers can’t do so.   As adults, tender loving feelings and sex mix as well for these men as oil and water.  This outcome may be shaped by a possessive mother who at some point in the past or present still competes with her son’s love interests for his primary allegiance.  The son grows up and struggles in his mind to separate his partner from his mother.   He may feel caught in a tug of war between the two of them.  In either case feelings of shame and guilt may erupt.  I’ve heard many a male client comment to me: “I don’t know why but, once we got married and it even got worse when our first child was born, something held me back from enjoying sex with my partner.  Suddenly, it felt like the wrong thing to do.”  These men may try unsuccessfully to separate the two most important women in their lives by relating sexually to their partners as if they were glorified prostitutes.  When such demeaning expectations create frictions they may wind up masturbating to fantasies of glorified prostitutes. 

3) Sexual relations may shape fears of castration for men who are belittled by their partners in ways that remind them of the ways they were belittled by their mothers and/or fathers.  Such legacies can be the products of many things such as: 1) Hostile competitiveness between fathers and sons, 2) Mothers’ displaced hostilities from an absent and/or distant father onto a son, or 3) A mother’s hostile envy of her son’s male identity rooted in the degradation of her own female gender identity. 

These unresolved issues can shape sexual performance issues and may not only leave men insecure about their male identities but, also leave them blaming their partners for their insecurities.  In such an environment masturbation may assume several important functions.  It may become a means for men to reassure themselves in fantasy of their male potency, and become an act of retaliation for their powerlessness and hunger to be admired by the women in their lives.  Perhaps, without even realizing it, they wind up rendering their women as powerless to get their sexual and emotional intimacy needs met as they feel powerless to get their needs for respect, admiration and love met by their partners. 

4) Stressful environments where the emotional caretakers subject male children to frightening and dangerous scenarios while oblivious to their needs for safety and security may help shape a reliance on masturbation to self soothe and discharge physical stress.  This behavior may be outgrown in adulthood in favor of men talking to themselves and others to soothe their fears and anxieties.  However, if these men repeat the frightening transactions they witnessed as children in their adult relationships, they may very will return to masturbation to soothe what feel like overwhelming and unmanageable situations.     

If we liken the above trends as many streams emptying into a river known as addiction then, we can begin to appreciate the energies that fuel these behaviors.  I hope this article not only offers something about the power sources that energize addictions but, also what needs to happen to short circuit them. 

Tangos Of Debt Accumulation: What Are They All Worth?   

     Watch Jane or Bob max out on their credit cards.   Is that their partner Jim or Mary registering a half hearted protest?   Listen to Spot bark and scratch his neck in befuddlement when Jim or Mary pay off the abused credit cards and then, look stunned when the sun rises on another spending spree?   Was Spot’s ears playing tricks on him when after one of Jane or Bob’s rants about their partners not contributing enough to their respective households, they agreed to take out loans to renovate their kitchens?  Could it be that this actually came out of Jim and Mary’s mouths; the same Jim and Mary who are in charge of the finances and know full well they will once again have to rob Peter to pay Paul this month?   Did Spot really hear Jim and Mary say to Jane and Bob after screaming at Jane and Bob about their impulsive and excessive spending: “Don’t worry about the finances I’ve got matters under control?”  

     There is something definitely wrong with these pictures so why is it that the parties to these financial problems keep the engines for these problems running at peak performance?  Why do the seemingly more fiscally responsible parties speak out of both corners of their mouths as if they have two mouths?  Does it seem odd to you that although, all the partners have an equal stake in these affairs Jane and Bob sound like children and Jim and Mary sound like parents who let their children get away with murder and then, blame them for it?   This article will provide some answers to what has become a painfully common dance among couples throughout this country.  I’ll name this dance: Tangos of Debt Accumulation. 

     Every couple dances in complementary ways.  Some of these dances are healthier than others.  All of these dances notwithstanding denials and protests to the contrary, are mutually gratifying on some level.   Therefore, the dances do not deviate until someone puts his foot down; no pun intended and insists that the dancers agree on another dance or someone ends the dance by sitting the next song out.   I’ve interviewed many of these dance partners and have often found it difficult to keep in mind that they are separate people; two independent centers of action free to determine their own courses of action.  It’s as if the partners become a fluid or seamless entity.   Who is leading and who is following is often anyone’s best guess?  

     This state of affairs reflects confusion that stems from both parties using and depending on each other in ways that blur the boundaries between themselves, and deny their responsibilities for themselves and to each other.   For example, both partners may have wishes and fears about being in debt and yet it looks like one partner is the culprit for all the debt accumulation and the other partner is fearfully helpless to stop the bleeding.  Having worked with these couples I can tell you that if the alleged victim has watched his partner over spend for years and has not put his foot down then, he is tacitly giving his stamp of approval.  Don’t be misled by their words.  The two partners may have different agendas for perpetuating these tangos of debt collection.  Nonetheless, it is safe to say judging by their actions that neither party is ready to see this tango of debt accumulation end.

     Many of us out there wish to exercise total control over each other.  These dance partners are soul mates in that this is a mutual need of theirs so they can individually deny that they are out of control of their selves.  The quid pro quo for these relationships is that they cope with their intense and unhealthy emotional dependencies on each other by synchronizing their efforts to ensure that each is held hostage by the other’s vulnerabilities to being held accountable.  This is accomplished by alternating and effective uses of the carrot and the stick.

For example, one partner may use a credit card to appease and pacify another partner who is unhappy with his life and ready to point fingers in his direction.  This may be a matter of both hearing the unhappiness as a personal attack to fend off as well as wanting to avoid getting in touch with his own unhappiness he doesn’t believe he can do anything about.  The stick may be employed by one or both parties threatening to leave or giving the other partner the silent treatment.  Curiously, only when they are about to tango off the cliff or sometimes after they have careened down the side of that cliff known as Mount Bankruptcy or  Mount Foreclosure do they surrender to the realities of their co-created destinies. 

     Before the eleventh hour strikes, their collusive and conspiratorial ways can ensure that neither partner will insist on changing the dance, sitting the dance out or leaving the party.  It’s as if the two dancers share an appendage and form a wishbone.  To break them apart is to make a wish and OUCH!!!!!!!!   I think you get my point.  Up until this juncture  known in the addiction literature as “hitting bottom,”  these folks sit and fight about “if and when and on what” to spend money on while the ship of their Titanic- like fiscal existence is slowly swallowed up by an ocean of interest payments.  You might believe that they risk drowning in debt stubbornly waiting for someone other than themselves to save them.  Well, if you thought that you would in many cases be correct. 

     The folks who come supplied with life rafts and life preservers are often the money managers and debt consolidators.  They may create  vehicles for these dance partners to rebuild their fiscal lives but unless the partners learn to take their selves seriously and trust their selves as capable of rebuilding their lives, they will continue to over spend.

     We all have indispensable needs to find meaning, joy, happiness and serenity in our existences.  We all have needs to change and grow; to be transformed and to transform others by relating to each other with love, acceptance, encouragement, compassion, empathy, respect and consideration.  The more we use, value, nurture, and invest in ourselves and our partners the more we make reality for ourselves that we are investment vehicles with much greater promise than let’s say even shares of Google stock a few years ago.   I say this because when we learn to trust ourselves, take ourselves seriously and invest in our most divine aspirations we create unimaginable riches in personal meaning, happiness, love, and joy.  Hope and personal empowerment replace hopelessness and helplessness.   Meanwhile our new found wellsprings of self esteem dramatically change the way we relate to money. Our desire to get something for nothing which is at the root of accumulating debt loses its power over us.

     When we spend as if we have limitless resources and experience ourselves as if we are not worth anything more than the retail value of the goods and services purchased, we are devaluing our self interest and devaluing the self interest of all those impacted by our excesses.  I have learned in my years of practicing psychotherapy that debt accumulation is an expression of an unrealistic wish to try and buy what can’t be bought with money.   Debt accumulation simultaneously reflects the fear of paying a very stiff price should reality intrude on our denial of needing others.  No one can buy love, appreciation or self esteem.   Many folks have a fear of being taken advantage and taken for granted.  We simply will not leave such a dreaded apprehension to chance.  We dance in tandem to make our worst fears a self-fulfilling prophecy.

     Those of us who tango into debt conspire with each other to preserve sacred and self defeating patterns learned early in life.  They are impoverished by their unwillingness to acknowledge the overwhelming evidence that the gospels that have guided their lives were written by false prophets; imperfect family members like everybody.  The fear is that if they reflect on and reevaluate how flawed and self defeating are their dance steps, they will be lost as to how to dance with each other.  

     By helping my clients to appreciate and use their selves to grow beyond and free themselves from feeling devalued they learn to invest in and create lives of prosperity. Then, their engines of debt accumulation are shut down.  This watershed event leads to the willingness to develop new skills that may eliminate their tangos of debt accumulation for good. 

Weighty Matters
  
There is no doubt that divorce like other stressful events in our lives can be a weighty matter both literally and figuratively.  This often calamitous and life changing event can flood us with emotions and render our defenses as porous as Swiss cheese.  During these times of crisis the ambush of poorly understood and thus often, unacceptable feelings, fantasies and impulses trigger stinging self rebukes.  When we reflexively turn on ourselves with limited if any, awareness of being our own worst enemy, its human nature to react to such helplessness by looking outside ourselves for someone to blame.  This is why when our children voice normal age-appropriate complaints, make demands or lodge protests that have nothing to do with the impact of divorce on their lives, we may become very defensive.
 
Did you ever notice the tendency at times like these to head straight for the kitchen cupboard and anesthetize emotional wounds or soothe anxieties with some chemically enhanced chocolate treat you wouldnt think of feeding to an alley cat?   Or maybe you have thought about shoving such sweet morsels down our childrens throats to shut them up in anticipation of hearing shame or guilt provoking messages.
 
As you may infer from my last remark it is easy for human beings to confuse signals from our  "emotional guts," with signals from our appetite regulating mechanisms wired to our physical guts.  The emotional gut when fully functional acts like a tuning fork that we locate inside our bellies.  It channels all kinds of "vibes" to higher centers of the brain where they can be translated, thought about and discharged in constructive ways.  If these energies are not thought about, dysfunctional forms of feeding ourselves and our children may ensue.  Psychosomatic symptoms that mimic hunger, nausea, indigestion and bloating may trick us into disordered habits of feeding.   When these circumstances arise many of us no longer "eat to live," and either live to eat and/or eat largely to cope with stress in our lives.
 
Our emotional vulnerabilities post divorce may create an internal environment ripe for unhealthy dependencies on eating and feeding others.  Eating dysfunctions, even in their most benign forms, are perhaps the most insidious, because in a society where obesity is quickly becoming the norm, they go easily undetected.  One cant go "cold turkey" on eating; right or wrong?  Furthermore, this activity is an acceptable social activity, a source of great pleasure and steeped in meaning based on life long associations to the earliest and most powerful experiences of being loved and cared for by trusted others.  How easy it is to then, deny, minimize and rationalize this life affirming activity gone haywire.  We do not run the risk of getting arrested for binge eating or dieting to the point of malnutrition.  We will in all likelihood not walk around in a stupor as result of over eating or be too hung over to get our kids up for school.  Have you ever heard of anyone getting busted for buying a loaf of bread on the street?
 
Still, dysfunctional eating patterns may for some become powerfully injurious psychological and physical addictions, and for good reasons.  Just imagine for a moment, after the end of your marriage you are uncomfortable with feeling needy, too anxious to empower yourself to take on functions formerly served by a spouse, too guilty to be proactive in caring for yourself, or maybe too depressed and ashamed to the point of wishing to isolate and withdraw from valued relationships for protection from further painful disappointments and rejections.  Any of these emotional scenarios may lead to us taking refuge in unhealthy dependencies on eating.  Just think for a moment how we can eat to enjoy pleasurable stimulation and satisfaction, to anesthetize us to pain, to soothe anxieties, to fill inner voids, to bury and defend against toxic messages, to punish ourselves, to discharge and defend against hostile impulses, to deny shamefully excessive dependency needs, etc., etc., etc.  If you dont buy into my argument, just listen for a minute to common expressions that underscore the psychological importance of eating in our lives so as to invite an over reliance on food to protect ourselves from hostile aggression turned inward and/or outward.
 
Perhaps, you are familiar with some or all of the following remarks:  "Why dont you stuff your face and shut up."  "Im afraid Im so hungry Ill devour you." "Im going to chew you up and spit you out."  "I need some comfort food like a Ring Ding."  "I ate non-stop all night and was still hungry."  " I have no idea what Im hungry for."   "Im so frustrated I want to bite your head off."  "What you just told me made me sick to my stomach."  "Youre so delicious I want to eat you up."  "Stop shoving that garbage down my throat."  "I lost my appetite when I heard he was leaving."  "I spend a lot of time during work thinking about what I will cook for dinner."

The answer to the problems created for ourselves and our children by unhealthy relationships to food is, for us as single parents, to cultivate reliable and consistent support systems that will hear us out, respect our capacities to change and grow, be non-judgmental and offer feedback in compassionate ways so as not to reinforce dysfunctional eating patterns.  There is nothing that resides in our imaginations that is inherently damning.  It is only our reactions to such stimuli that we have cause to be concerned about.  To learn to connect with, contain, think about, reflect on and talk to trusted others about what goes on in our minds is the best insurance against disordered patterns of eating or other dysfunctional patterns of coping with stress.  If we can learn to tolerate and embrace what goes on inside of us, then we will be more available to hear our children out and support them to process life experiences in healthy ways.  We all deserve forgiveness for using food in defensive ways as these patterns imply that "we dont know what we do."  However, if we dont break these patterns when our children are young, they may forgive us, but they will never forget us for the angst-filled obsessions and compulsions with food they may inherit from us.

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