22 July 2020
It is possible that the hardest part of moving from self-centred addiction to life-centred health involves identity, that is, creating a new and satisfying answer to the question, Who am I? As SMART recovery attendees will know, an equally vexing question is Why did I use? I believe these questions are related; the first is discussed herein, the second, next week.
One of the psychologists best known for studying identity was Erik Erickson. He is cited numerous times in McAdams (2015): “Identity…for the motivated agent (Cf. blog Resilience #5, 3 June 2020)…is about exploring and ultimately committing to specific life goals and values for the long haul (p. 191, italics original).” Identity formation typically happens from adolescence to early adulthood (c. ages 15-25 years). Without research, I would have attributed the related expression, [the] child is father of the man to Freud; it was actually Wm Wordsworth (“My Heart Leaps Up,” 1802). But the point remains: our adult selves owe a huge debt to our formative years and how we acted and reacted to the psycho-social forces in play during that period.
So, when a person confronts her own troubling addictive behaviours at age 30, 50, or 70, with a mind to change same, finding sobriety arrests the destructive behaviours but leaves an extremely vulnerable and frightened self/identity alone in the world without her favourite coping mechanism. As well, that vulnerable soul has approximately the same psycho-social skillset that existed when her addictive behaviours began. (While this makes intuitive sense, it is also backed by about 75 years of 12-step culture but…both sources use anecdotally derived information, i.e., not the product of quantitative or qualitative science.)
All of this is another way of describing what recovery, versus sobriety, is about. The reason I’m so taken with McAdams (2015) is his three-part conception of personality as actor, agent, and author: he holds that the author within each of us creates the meaning and cohesion necessary to hold an identity in place. In sobriety, identity is at maximum vulnerability. In recovery, identity is re-formed per Giddens (1991): “A person’s identity is not to be found in behavior, nor—important though it is—in the reaction of others, but in the capacity to keep a particular narrative going” (emphasis original). That narrative is about the new, outward reaching, healthy-habited you. It ain’t easy but it’s a helluvalot better than the alternative.
Dan Chalykoff facilitates two weekly voluntary group meetings, as well as private appointments, for SMART-based counselling services at danchalykoff@hotmail.com
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