Drug Use Begins Somewhere
In this very frank account, John has pinpointed a moment of trauma in his life that, in looking back, led to his future drug use. I am going to let John tell this in his own words…
I am one of those
While reading through a book that we use for the Men’s Sexual Issues Support group called: Sexual Sanity for Men, by David White, I arrived at a place where the author speaks about ‘relational estrangement’.
In the common use of the term, it seems to primarily focus on family relations almost exclusively; how relationships within the family become strained due to opinions, or actions enacted by a specific member of the family, and the consequences of those actions from within the family unit. Most of us are probably familiar with this within our own family, and may have actually been the perpetrator of such actions ourselves, I know I have, on both counts.
But I think there is more to ‘relational estrangement’ than just in families, especially for those, who from a very young age, have always struggled to ‘fit in’; introverted; and have hidden from social interaction.
I am one of those.
Blackmail
As I think back on the past, at a very young age, 5 or 6 years old, things changed.
I did something wrong, I knew it was wrong, and I hid it.
A neighbourhood girl 6 or 7 years older than me, found out, and she blackmailed me. She told me that unless I displayed my private parts to her, she would tell my folks!
I was terrified!
I did as she asked.
I knew that was wrong.
Now I felt shame on 2 accounts…
Relational Estrangement
Ever since then my relationship with women has been strained. I think that this can be called relationship estrangement.
As I aged, and got into my teenage years, it only worsened. I was so afraid of girls I couldn’t ask one out. I was able to talk superficially, sometimes, but that was about it.
The same was true through high school and college. To try to overcome this, I started using drugs and alcohol.
Quite frankly, it really didn’t work, although that didn’t deter my usage, and
addiction. I am sure psychologists would have another name for all of this, but I think
relationship estrangement fits too, as part of the consequences.
Now that I have been married for nearly 20 years, it doesn’t affect me quite as much; but sometimes, in a crowded room, for instance, at church after the service, it is very easy for me to just watch, like an observer, and not participate.
I guess this could be seen as trauma, too, and its consequences.
None-the-less, this event was seemingly the cause of my use of drugs and alcohol, and the subsequent addiction that grew out of it…
Can you relate? Has something happened in your life that has influenced your future choices?
In the work of Free! Recovery we have a very significant Bible verse at the core:
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Galatians 5:1
God can reach the deepest and most hidden places in our lives, and longs for us to be free; nothing is too far away, too far gone or too shameful for him to reach.
Maybe the eternal and definitive next verse will speak to you:
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
2 Corinthians 5:17
John Childress
Author of The Addict's Choices and Co-founder of Free! Recovery