A fragile capacity for attachment

My parents tried to send me to nursery school when I was four. My mother dropped me off and came back to get me several hours later. I told her I didn't want to go back and refused all her efforts to persuade me to return. But I wouldn't or couldn't tell her what had happened, why I was adamant about not returning. I know about this because she told me about it--I have no memory of that day myself.

I also have no memory of the first grade. I have visited my old grade school several times as an adult. When I walk into that room, I recall no memories of that time nor does that room evoke any feelings. It's as if my mind laid down no tracks of that experience.

In the seventh grade, I fell in love with J. Because our last names began with the same last letter, we were often sitting next to each other for the next five years. J and I talked and talked throughout our junior and senior high school years. But I never once asked her out, afraid that she would reject me and end our friendship if I did.

I met A during my sophomore year of college. We dated and became seriously involved within several months. But at the end of that year we separated as I went off to Holland to school for a year and she went to Japan where she remained for two years. I was lonely and miserable; she seemed to be just fine. Then she got a job with the airlines. We saw each other for a brief weekend as she was on her way to New York for training. After that weekend, we got together occasionally when she had a short layover in the area. Although we hardly knew each other, we got engaged and married the day I graduated from college.

Seven years later, after becoming a father and finally completing my PhD dissertation, I discovered the magic of pot. I loved getting high. Pot plus wine/beer gave me the warm, "connected" feeling that was missing in my marriage. I was divorced within two years, beginning a ten-year odyssey of deepening addiction and a series of failed relationships. But as long as I had my pot and booze to keep me warm, I was OK.

My story illustrates what one person has described as the alcoholic/addict's fragile capacity for establishing intimate, satisfactory relationships. It is true that our use of substances (or sex, food, or gambling) impair our ability to be good partners. It is also true, I believe, that our impaired ability to be good partners is one of the major factors that drives our addiction. Alcohol, drugs, sex, food, and gambling fill that emptiness many of us feel when we try to connect emotionally. And, as we often say in meetings, our addiction gives us the "courage" to be in a relationship. In other words, it isn't just our addiction that makes relationships so difficult for us in recovery; it's also our basic difficulty in making relationships work that fuels our addiction.