Drug Addiction Filling The Emptiness

When you go through your childhood just trying to cope with chaos, you can grow up not really knowing yourself.  You have been so busy doing duck-and-cover that you have pushed aside your dreams, hopes, and your feeling of self worth.  You are a woman living with great emptiness inside. 

Emotional Needs Not Met Can Lead To Big Problems

Children have many needs growing up.  It isn’t enough to have shelter, food, and clothing.  They need emotional security, consistent guidance, close connections for building trust, emotional freedom to explore themselves.  When a child is dealing with sexual abuse, divorcing parents, a mental illness, or some other distracting tragedy, the emptiness can grow. 

Instead of trust, there is fear.  Instead of closeness, there is emotional distance for self-protection.  Instead of self discovery, there is people pleasing and low self worth.  Instead of discipline and principles, there is chaos and rebellion.  These defensive responses are probably helpful for a child dealing with constant emotional distress.  It allows them some distance, escape, or making up for what has been lost.  

Women Have Emptiness Inside Sometimes Choose Drug Addiction

The problem is this – once the crisis or distressing situation is over, these habits often stay around anyway.  The adult continues to use solutions for past problems in the present moment.  As long as they are fighting the battle, they might not have the ability to notice how empty they are inside.  Once those battles are over, they become like a soldier without a war. 

These feelings of emptiness become overwhelming since there is nothing to distract from them.  No battle, just other things that don’t seem to be working out now.  In particular, women have an increased sensitivity to intense emotion.  And it is widely accepted that women enter addiction because of emotional pathways.  The emptiness from fighting emotional battles since childhood can be one of those pathways. 

Drug Treatment Can Address Addiction and Emotional Pain

Drugs and alcohol may be used as a temporary bandaid to take the pain away, but it quickly grows into a completely new problem.  In fact, some women try to fill this emptiness with food, with shopping, with new relationships, attention from others, etc.  At this point, you can see how only solid drug treatmentcould help untangle this web.  The drug addiction is just the tip of the iceberg.

Drug rehab will not only address the drug or alcohol addiction itself, it will also help the woman understand her emotional problems with greater clarity.  She may or may not have a lot of insight at first.  Drug rehab counselors are there to help with each step of discovery. 

Drug Rehab Challenging Experience But Helps With Emptiness

Drug rehab can be a challenging experience, some real hard work.  Women who go to drug rehab have been spending a lot of energy just trying to hold themselves together the only ways they knew how.  Drug rehab helps untie the knots and weave the pieces of the woman’s life together in healthier ways.  The emptiness can slowly be filled in with rejuvinated life.