Trauma, Addiction and Recovery by the Reverend Sally Brown, Board Certified Clinical Chaplain, United Church of Christ
Addiction to alcohol or drugs is now recognized as a frequent outcome of a traumatic experience or experiences. Sexual trauma and cult-abuse trauma are important activators of addiction to alcohol, drugs or other substances.
The human body tends to remember the event or events although conscious memory may not. Whenever either a conscious or unconscious traumatic memory is triggered, an individual may try desperately to short-circuit the emotional and spiritual pain by numbing it with readily available alcohol and drugs. Many become physically addicted to their drug of choice. Until an individual receives informed help, however, he or she may not even remember, much less recognize or be able to address, the underlying traumatic processes adversely affecting one's whole life.
Because severe addiction to alcohol or drugs eventually becomes so obvious to both the individual and those around him or her, treatment for addictive disease is often the entry point in the healing process for trauma as well. Even then, it may take months or years before the traumatic memories surface and the person is psychically and spiritually strong enough to address them with the help of knowledgeable counseling. Often with such individuals, there are periods of relapse into renewed or occasional alcohol or drug use, simply to relieve the memories.
Addictive disease is chronic but controllable as long as the person doesn't drink or use nonprescribed psychoactive drugs. Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and similar Twelve Step groups are the major avenue for long-term recovery. AA has a proven, seventy-year record in helping people recover from addictive disease.
In recent years AA members began to learn that a substantial majority of their women members had experienced sexual trauma, frequently in childhood. It is now known that addicted men have not escaped similar traumas, though probably not in such large numbers.
Fortuitously, AA offers a unique environment for healing from both addictive disease and trauma. AA's Twelve Step program recognizes that recovery is behavioral (physical, mental, and emotional) as well as spiritual. The same recovery principles apply to trauma. People in Twelve Step recovery learn they are no longer victims, that they have choices and the capacity for mature responsibility. They discover the relief of being able to share their experiences and thus draw strength and hope from others. Sometimes sooner, sometimes later, they find a healthy spiritual path that will sustain and strengthen them. It is especially important that a deeply-embedded experience of an evil, punishing, all-powerful God be replaced in time with a personal Higher Power of love, justice, and compassion.
Strength To Heal offers hope, inspiration and healing for survivors of ritual abuse, satanic ritual abuse, mind control, torture, programming and sexual abuse. Ritual abuse is commonly repetitive abuse, which can be multi-generational and associated with ritual beliefs and practices. Our goal is to provide hope, inspiration, and healing for survivors of ritual abuse, satanic ritual abuse, mind control, torture, programming and sexual abuse by sharing survivor and caregiver stories, clinicians' helpful tools and comprehensive resources that the author has found helpful in her own recovery from ritual abuse. Ritual abuse is a brutal form of abuse of children, adolescents, and adults, consisting of physical, sexual, psychological and spiritual abuse, and the use of rituals, though not necessarily satanic. This website is based on the soon to be published book "Your Strength to Heal".
