Models of Attachment and Relationships in Recovery

I started the process of becoming a marriage and family therapist thirty years ago. Went back to school to get a Masters in psych and did a marriage and family internship at a psychiatric hospital. There are no accidents about addiction because my internship was in an inpatient treatment program for drug addiction. But this place didn't believe that addiction is a primary disease which must be treated first before there's any hope of making positive changes in relationships. So we brought families and couples together and tried to treat the addictions that way. Surprise, surprise, no one ever made it into ongoing recovery and none of the relationship improvements survived more than a few months. The place did, however, bring my own addiction to pot and booze to full bloom---my dealer was a fellow staff member and getting high at staff parties was a given.

I got clean and sober when I finally accepted that my addiction to pot and booze was a disease. I accepted that I was powerless over the stuff and could readily see how unmanageable my life had become. My mom was addicted to opiate prescription drugs and both of her sisters drank alcoholically, so I could see where the genetic predisposition came from. With this new perspective I came to believe that relationship problems were a result of alcohol and drug addiction. Working the steps and clearing up the wreckage of the past would take care of those problems. Being restored to sanity would include being restored to satisfying relationships.

That's not what happened. Doing an inventory, seeing my character defects, and making amends were not enough. I had to learn how to be in a close relationship. I hadn't learned that in my family, and I hadn't learned that in my first marriage. In sobriety I realized my problems with relationships began long before my first drink.

I kept hearing the same thing at meetings. People talked about growing up in alcoholic families and never learning how to trust. A therapist who has worked with recovering women for years told me she has yet to meet one who was not sexually and/or physically abused as a child. Even the people who say they had a great childhood can't remember much of their childhood and are not able to provide much detail about what made life in their family so positive.

Our ability to form and maintain close relationships is impaired. Our problems began long before we picked up the first drink or smoked our first joint. The impairment began during the first few years of our lives when we failed to develop secure bonds with our parents. Some of us grew up anxiously preoccupied with our parent's availability and approval. Others of us came to believe that we were alright on on our own and didn't need our parents. And some of us wanted a connection with our parents but were afraid of negative consequences if we sought it. All of us developed an insecure model of attachment.

All human beings appear to be hard-wired to need the help of others to regulate their emotions during times of stress. People who grow up with parents who are attuned and appropriately responsive to them feel confident that their need for comfort and support will be available from people close to them when they are upset. As adults they expect their partners will be a safe haven when times are rough. They know they can rely on their partners as a secure base from which to go out and engage the world. They operate from a secure model of attachment.

We alcoholics and addicts lack that kind of attachment model. We don't feel confident we can always count on our partner for comfort and support. The relationship with our partner does not serve as a secure base from which we operate out in the world. We either deny we have such needs, constantly need reassurance from our partners that we are loved, or fear rejection if we reach out for support. No wonder we and our partners find it so difficult to make our relationships work in recovery.