Trauma, Addiction, and the Body’s Search for Relief
Addiction is often seen as a weakness, a lack of willpower or a poor choice. People who struggle with addiction are frequently met with judgment or shame, as if they simply need to make different choices. However, this view completely disregards the fact that addiction is a reflection of inner suffering and the visible symptom of invisible pain.
Our collective understanding often lacks a trauma-informed perspective regarding the roots of addictive behavior. This becomes especially clear when we look at how some addictions are rewarded. Overworking, constant productivity, and perfectionism are usually praised as discipline, success, or ambition. Yet, in truth, they can serve the same protective function as alcohol, drugs or compulsive behaviors through numbing emotional pain and keeping us disconnected from what we truly feel.
This blog article explores addiction as a survival mechanism, how it develops from unresolved trauma, what purpose it serves in the psyche and body, and how modern society often reinforces these patterns.
When does something become an addiction?
From a trauma-informed perspective, addiction is not the problem itself but an attempt to solve a deeper problem, which are usually unbearable feelings, bodily sensations, or unmet needs. It is a survival strategy that helps our nervous system to regulate, numb, and find moments of relief when internal distress feels too overwhelming (Maté, 2012).
The main dynamics of addiction are:
Automaticity and compulsion: We start engaging in the behavior without thinking and it becomes an autopilot response to certain feelings, sensations, or situations. The behavior feels like a reflex rather than a choice (Maté, 2018).
Dependence and tolerance: We need more of it to feel the same relief, pleasure, or stimulation. Our nervous system adapts, making the absence of it feel uncomfortable or even threatening.
Withdrawal and restlessness: When we cannot engage in the addictive behavior, we can experience intense craving (Maté, 2018) and might feel anxious, irritated, empty, or disconnected.
Denial and minimization: We might rationalize the behavior (everyone does this, it is not that bad) or do not even notice it is there, because it has become part of our identity or daily routine.
The loop of shame and relief: The behavior often leads to temporary relief which can be followed by guilt or shame, which in turn triggers the need for more relief, thereby reinforcing the cycle (Batchelder et al., 2022).
Loss of genuine choice: We experience impaired control over the behavior (Maté, 2018) and it begins to shape our moods, our rhythms, and our self-perception as we become deeply dependent on it for regulation.
Addiction as temporary regulation
Every addiction, whether it is considered harmful or harmless, has a regulating function. It affects biochemical processes in our body and helps us to soothe inner stress, tension, and discomfort at least for a while.
Below are some examples of how addictive patterns can serve our body and nervous system. The key is not to judge the pattern, but invite curiosity and to gently explore: What pain or unmet need is this helping me manage right now?
Shopping / Consumerism: Dopamine creates excitement and a brief sense of aliveness. Often, this distracts from emptiness or feelings of inadequacy. We gain temporary pleasure, satisfaction, and identity through external things.
Overworking / Productivity: Adrenaline and cortisol increase focus and a sense of control, but stillness feels unsafe. This can help avoid shame, anxiety, or vulnerability. We gain validation, structure, and belonging through achievement.
Food / Sugar: Dopamine stimulates the reward system, giving comfort and a sense of calm. It can numb loneliness or emotional pain. We gain warmth, pleasure, and temporary relief.
Alcohol / Substances: Numbing the nervous system temporarily relieves anxiety, grief, or stress. We gain calm, disconnection, and a brief sense of ease or comfort.
Over-exercise / Movement: Endorphins, adrenaline, and dopamine release help regulate the nervous system and discharge tension. This can avoid stillness or helplessness. We gain strength, relief, and a sense of control over the body.
Perfectionism / Control: Focus, tension, and order give the illusion of safety and help manage underlying fear. This avoids shame or unpredictability. We gain temporary security, structure, and relief.
Social Media / Scrolling: Micro-doses of dopamine from constant stimulation keep the brain in a loop, shortening our attention span. This avoids boredom or discomfort with being present. We gain distraction, connection, and brief excitement or comfort.
Unhealthy Relationships / Drama: Emotional highs and lows mirror early attachment wounds, releasing adrenaline, cortisol, and oxytocin. This can avoid loneliness or fear of abandonment. We gain intensity, a sense of aliveness, and perceived connection.
Adrenaline / Risk-taking (gambling, extreme sports): Adrenaline and dopamine activate the sympathetic nervous system, creating a rush. This avoids numbness or emptiness. We gain excitement, stimulation, and a feeling of being alive.
How trauma shapes who we become
Research has shown that there is a clear link between childhood trauma and addiction in adulthood (Khoury et al., 2010; Bhuptani, 2024). When we look at addiction through this trauma-informed lens, it becomes clear that no pattern exists in isolation. Addiction is the visible expression of many invisible layers, like our early environment, our attachment patterns, personal and generational trauma, and the unique way our nervous system learned to adapt to what was once overwhelming (Maté, 2018).
Two people can grow up in the same family and live entirely different realities. One might find safety through control, performance, and achievement; the other might lose themselves in substances, fantasy, or self-destruction. From the outside, society often applauds the high-functioning survivor and judges the one who struggles for example with substances or compulsive behavior, without understanding that both are responding to the same inner disconnection, each with the resources available to them at that time.
Trauma fragments our inner world (Ruppert, 2012; Fisher, 2017). This is especially well illustrated when looking at the ‘‘Inner Split Model of the Psyche After Traumatization’’, developed by Professor Dr. Franz Ruppert as one of the foundational parts of Identity-oriented Psychotrauma Theory (IoPT). It shows how our psyche and identity splits into different parts as a consequence of experiencing trauma.
The Traumatized Self: these inner parts are frozen at the stage of emotional development when the original trauma occurred, holding unbearable emotions such as fear, shame, loneliness, or despair, as well as unexpressed bodily sensations.
The Survival Self: these inner parts serve as protective mechanisms and help us to suppress the painful trauma feelings, for example through distraction, denial, numbing or avoidance.
The Healthy Self: these parts seek connection, truth, and vitality. They want to live authentically, can express emotions adequately and feel connected with their wants and needs.
From this inner parts model (Ruppert, 2012) it becomes clear, that our survival parts do whatever it takes to keep us away from our suppressed trauma feelings, and consequently, one of our strongest coping mechanisms becomes addiction. Gabor Maté (2012) describes that clearly: “Childhood emotional loss and trauma, provide both the experiential, psychoemotional and physiological template for addiction”.
The underlying core wound of not feeling wanted
When love and safety depend on who we become rather than who we are, our attention turns outward. Unconsciously, we start scanning the world around us for cues: Who do I need to be to stay connected and feel safe? What parts of me are allowed? Which parts do I need to hide and suppress?
In IoPT this is described as the Trauma of Identity, the disconnection from our authentic sense of self (Ruppert, 2019). Depending on the environment, our psyche finds different ways to adapt, regulate, and protect us from the pain of being unwanted, unseen, or unsafe in who we are. The following examples illustrate how this can lead to various addictions in different life contexts. Please note that these examples are not categories or diagnoses but should simply describe different ways of how our system can adapt.
Example 1: Addiction to achievement and performance
In some families, love and approval are tied strongly to success, obedience, or high performance. A child who learns that they can ‘‘earn’’ love and belonging by being good, quiet, or excellent may find safety in achievement. Later in life, being addicted to perfectionism or overworking can become a way to regulate anxiety, underlying feelings of low self-worth, and a feeling that they need to earn the right to exist through work and productivity.
For others, the same drive toward achievement may arise not from parental reward but from the opposite, an environment of chaos, neglect, or poverty. In this case, striving and success serve as a way to escape, to prove worth, or to build safety in a world that once felt unstable.
Example 2: Addiction to being needed
When a child has to become their parents parent, for example by calming their distress, becoming “the responsible one”, and caring for their parents emotional wellbeing, love and safety can become linked to being needed. As adults, this can turn into chronic people-pleasing, over-responsibility, or being addicted to the feeling of being needed. The body learns to regulate through attuning to others rather than oneself, and any moment of rest or self-focus can feel unsafe or selfish. At the core of this pattern lies the trauma of identity. When love depended on being useful, the child internalized the belief that as long as I am needed, I am wanted, but if I am not needed, I might disappear (‘‘die’’).
Example 3: Addiction to escaping reality
In environments where no form of adaptation brought connection, where the child’s needs were constantly ignored or met with rejection, the only way to cope with this deep loneliness and emotional pain may be to leave the body. Escaping into fantasy, screens, substances, or emotional intensity provides a temporary sense of freedom from the unbearable emptiness of being unwanted and unseen. Here, addiction functions to escape the pain of reality.
Example 4: Unconsciously reenacting trauma through addiction
When early boundaries were violated, for example through sexual abuse, violence, manipulation, or exposure to sexuality before emotional readiness, this can be deeply traumatizing as our body’s natural sense of ownership and safety becomes disrupted. In adulthood, this can manifest as addictions to sex, pornography, or control (Longpré et al., 2022). These behaviors are not so much about desire, but rather about reclaiming a lost sense of power, agency, or aliveness. The person unconsciously reenacts what once happened to them in an attempt to regain control over what feels unbearable.
The social aspect of addiction
When we hear the word addiction, many people think of things like alcohol, drugs, pornography, or gambling; behaviors that are openly associated with harm or complete loss of control. These are the addictions that carry a lot of moral judgment and people struggling with them are often met with shame, rejection, or pity.
But there are also addictions that society praises and which are the ones our culture is built upon. We celebrate the high-functioning workaholic, the person who never rests, the athlete who pushes past pain, and the entrepreneur who thrives on adrenaline and risk. They are socially rewarded because they fit into the collective values of efficiency, performance, and consumption.
Yet, these patterns serve the same purpose as any other addiction, that is to escape, avoid, numb vulnerability, or emotional pain. This shows how collective trauma and societal values reinforce our survival strategies by creating and rewarding the very patterns that keep us disconnected.
Healing addictions
When we begin to look at our addictive patterns through a trauma-informed lens, healing starts with awareness and not with control or force. Instead of asking “How can I stop this?”, we can begin to ask “What is this part of me trying to tell me?”
Every addictive behavior, whether it is work, substances, food, or relationships, has its own logic of survival. It is a message from parts of us that still carry pain, longing, and unmet needs. Bringing awareness to these patterns means starting to notice what happens inside us, the sensations, emotions, and impulses that arise right before we reach for something to soothe ourselves. It is about gently becoming conscious of the triggers, the states we try to escape, and the feelings we long for underneath.
This journey is not one we can always walk alone, and we may need the support of a trauma-informed therapist or a safe relational space. The more we come in contact with our suppressed feelings, bodily sensations and unmet needs and learn how to regulate the different inner states, the less we will need the addictive behavior as a coping mechanism. It is important to remember that our body, psyche and nervous system have an innate capacity to heal and to restore connection.
✍🏻 Questions for Self-Reflection:
When I feel the pull toward my addictive pattern, what is happening in my body (what sensations, emotions, or impulses do I notice)?
What might this behavior be helping me to avoid, numb, or control?
What short-term relief does this behavior give me, and what does it cost me afterward?
What triggers tend to activate this behavior, for example certain emotions, situations, relationships, or memories?
If this article resonated with you, I would love to hear your reflections. You are warmly invited to share a comment below or send me a message. And if you feel called to explore your own healing journey more deeply, I offer trauma-informed therapy and self-exploration sessions, both online and in Oslo. Together, we can gently explore the roots of your patterns, connect with your inner truth, and support your nervous system in finding more safety, balance, and authenticity.
With warmth,
Julia 💙
References
Batchelder, A. W., Glynn, T. R., Moskowitz, J. L., Neilands, T. W., Dilworth, S. J., Rodriguez, S. J., & Carrico, A. J. (2022). The shame spiral of addiction: Negative self-conscious emotion and substance use. PLoS One, 17(3).
Bhuptani, P. H., Zhang, Y., Danzey, L., Bali, A., Langdon, K., & Orchowski, L. M. (2024). Interpersonal trauma, shame, and substance use: A systematic review. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 259, 111349.
Fisher, J. (2017). Healing the fragmented selves of trauma survivors: Overcoming internal self-alienation. Routledge.
Khoury, L., Tang, Y. L., Bradley, B., Cubells, J. F., & Ressler, K. J. (2010). Substance use, childhood traumatic experience, and posttraumatic stress disorder in an urban civilian population. Depression and Anxiety, 27(12), 1077–1086.
Longpré, N., Burdis Galiano, C., & Guay, J.-P. (2022). The impact of childhood trauma, personality, and sexuality on the development of paraphilias. Journal of Criminal Justice, 82, 101981.
Maté, G. (2012). Addiction: Childhood trauma, stress, and the biology of addiction. Journal of Restorative Medicine, 1(1), 56–63.
Maté, G. (2018). In the realm of hungry ghosts: Close encounters with addiction. Penguin Random House UK.
Ruppert, F. (2012). Symbiosis and Autonomy: Symbiotic Trauma and Love Beyond Entanglements. Green Balloon Publishing.
Ruppert, F. (2019). Who am I in a traumatised and traumatising society? Green Pharmacy Balloon Publishing.