Addiction: A Response to Pain, A Path to Recovery

Addiction as an Adaptation to Pain

When people talk about addiction, the focus is often on everything it destroys—relationships, careers, health, self-worth. The toll can be devastating. When a client comes to me seeking help, they usually begin by listing all the ways their addiction has harmed them:

"It’s ruining my life. It’s destroying my relationships. I lost my job, my family."

But I always ask a different question:

“What does the addiction do right for you?”

At first, there’s a pause—confusion, maybe even resistance. But then the answers come:

"It gives me peace of mind. It numbs the pain. It helps me relax. It helps me connect with others."

This shift in perspective is crucial. Addiction isn’t just about destruction. It exists because, at some point, it worked. It provided relief when nothing else did. And if we ignore that, we miss the deeper truth: addiction is an adaptation to pain.

Understanding Addiction Beyond Disease

The dominant narrative frames addiction as a disease, something inherently harmful that must be eradicated. But this view ignores the wisdom within addiction—the way it functions as a survival mechanism.

I define addiction as any behavior that provides short-term relief, creates cravings and an inability to stop, yet causes long-term harm. While substances like alcohol and drugs are the most recognized forms of addiction, the pattern extends far beyond them. Phones, social media, relationships, high-adrenaline activities, work, status, power—if a behavior numbs pain in the moment but leads to suffering over time, it can become an addiction.

When we step back and ask what addiction actually does for a person, we don’t just see self-destruction—we see self-preservation. Yes, this survival mechanism eventually causes harm, but it was born out of a real need: to escape pain when no other options were available.

Addiction as a Response to Unprocessed Pain

Every addiction I’ve ever encountered is, at its core, a response to suffering. It is a learned way of navigating pain. And more often than not, that pattern starts early in life.

When a child grows up in an environment of chronic stress, fear, or neglect, and there is no way to escape or stop the pain, the mind adapts. The child learns to disconnect—to go numb, to dissociate, to find relief wherever it can. There is no choice involved.

If a child isn’t given the tools to process, express, or soothe their pain, that pain doesn’t just disappear. It lingers, waiting. And as it grows, so does the need for stronger, more immediate ways to escape it.

This is how addiction takes root. It isn’t random, it isn’t weakness, and it isn’t a choice. It is a response to pain that was never given space to heal.

Healing Begins with Understanding

If addiction is an adaptation, then healing isn’t about fighting it—it’s about understanding it. When we recognize that addiction serves a purpose, we can begin to ask deeper questions:

• What pain is this addiction helping to numb?

• What needs have gone unmet for so long that this became the only way to cope?

• What would it take to find relief in a way that doesn’t cause harm?

True healing doesn’t come from shaming or forcing change. It comes from learning how to meet pain in a new way—one that doesn’t require escape.

Because addiction is not the enemy. Pain is not the enemy. The real work is learning how to face that pain, sit with it, and find new ways to process and soothe it, or in other words, to heal.

Recovery: Finding What Was Lost

The word recovery means to find something that has been lost.

When people recover from addiction, they don’t just break a habit—they find themselves again. Beneath the layers of adaptation and coping mechanisms, we usually find something remarkable: genuine, kind, and well-intentioned people. This is who we are before and without the pain.

Addiction may have been a way to survive, but healing allows us to move beyond survival—to reconnect with who we were before the pain.