EP 229: Breaking the Cycle of Numbing with Charmaine

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">This episode is about finding the tools to help you better deal with trauma and breaking the cycle of numbing. Today’s caller, Charmaine, has had multiple traumas in her life and uses marijuana as a coping strategy. But this isn’t a call about stopping marijuana use. When discussing any type of addiction or numbing device, you have to uncover the deeper issue.</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">[For show notes go here:</span> <a href="http://christinehassler.com/episode229"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Christinehassler.com/episode229</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">]</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">From my point of view, we can’t deal with addiction effectively unless we deal with the core issue that is creating the addiction or coping strategy. Most addictions are coping strategies for when we didn’t have the tools to deal with the drama and trauma that’s happened in our life. Addiction to anything is a symptom of a deeper issue.</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">When we speak of addiction, we often just think of drugs and alcohol but there are so many other things we use as coping and numbing strategies that become addictions. Sex, gaming, gambling, food, and even things like work, falling in love, and caretaking. Basically, anything we use to get us out of feeling our pain and feeling our big feelings is a coping strategy that can turn into an addiction.</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Because the way coping strategies work, is you have to keep upping the ante. The feelings get bigger and bigger and then it takes more energy to suppress them. And, there is not much of a difference between emotional, mental, and physical addiction. Because mental and emotional pain is most likely the cause of physical addiction.</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">If you feel like you are addicted to something worse than marijuana, know that you can get to the other side of i