September 5, 2014
Chaos
When assessing if someone is addicted — to either a substance (like alcohol) or a behavior (like controlling) — I pay close attention to the level of chaos in their life.
Addicts are uniquely vulnerable to chaos, mainly because they don’t know how to deal with feelings (except to numb them temporarily).
Since life is full of feeling-triggers, it tends to hand the addict one emotional problem after another after another.
Thus (a) life triggers feelings, which (b) trigger the addiction, which (c) causes the addict new problems, which (d) trigger more feelings.
And the addict lurches from crisis to crisis, living a life that feels increasingly chaotic and out of control.
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