Over the past 50 years, addiction treatment specialists have come to understand the role that early-life attachment wounds (i.e., childhood trauma) can play in the formation and maintenance of addiction. Today we understand that early attachment wounds impact a person’s ability to trust, to be emotionally vulnerable, and to bond with others. We also know that this fear of intimacy greatly increases the risk for all forms of addiction.
In recent years, Dr. Rob Weiss, Chief Clinical Officer of Seeking Integrity, has begun to think and talk about addiction as an intimacy disorder, noting that the antidote to active addiction is not willpower or babysitters or endless rounds of rehab, it’s healthy connection with loved ones, other recovering addicts, and society. Dr. Weiss and like-minded clinicians are now finding that addicts who enter recovery and focus on the development of intimate connections tend to stay sober, while addicts who enter recovery and simply white-knuckle it without any type of social bonding tend to struggle. For an easy-to-follow explanation of this, we recommend watching Johann Hari’s excellent TED Talk, Everything You Think You About Addiction is Wrong.
Troy Love LCSW, CSAT
Based on this, Seeking Integrity’s treatment approach is to break through denial and establish tools for sobriety while simultaneously building a support network in recovery. After that, it’s time to look at the trauma and attachment wounds that have, prior to recovery, pushed the addict away from connection with other people and toward connection with an addictive substance or behavior. Basically, for long-term sobriety, we want to uncover and heal the attachment wounds that keep addicts apart from rather than a part of.
It is our sincere belief that therapist Troy Love’s Finding Peace Model is one of the best, if not the best, route to such healing. Troy’s techniques have helped countless individuals, both addicted and non-addicted, explore and heal their childhood wounds, unresolved pain, and adult-life dysfunctional behaviors. So, needless to say, we are pleased to have Troy onboard as a Consulting Therapist at our residential treatment center, Seeking Integrity: Los Angeles, and now as the creator and facilitator of a six-week online workgroup for recovering sex and porn addicts, Healing Attachment Wounds Using the Finding Peace Model.
This six-week course is open to male addicts in recovery from sex, porn, and substance/sex addiction who want to identify their childhood trauma, along with their negative core beliefs and emotions, and resolve these issues. Addicts who participate in this group will begin the lifelong process of moving beyond the dysfunction of trauma, shame, and numbing behaviors to live a more fulfilling life. To learn more about this low-cost online workgroup, click this link.