Busy, busy, busy!  We all do too busy too well.  Did you know staying super busy can be an addiction, a way of hiding from dealing with something else which often keeps you from reaching higher levels of emotional maturity/intelligence and peace within relationships you maintain with significant others--even friends?  I've been interested in the work of Gabor Mate, a Canadian physician and leading expert in addiction.  Most of us associate addiction with drugs or alcohol--and more recently pornography.  

However, just about anything providing a rush of positive feeling, relief and reward can lead to addiction: shopping (typically women I'd bet), work (typically men I'd bet), exercise, facebook, sex, you name it. As Dr. Mate suggests, most addictions are centered around childhood trauma which causes deep worthiness issues.  More often than not, these issues come from abuse/neglect or even witnessing abuse.  In a study conducted on mice, Mate references, mice were more traumatized by witnessing other mice abused than when they  received the abuse themselves.  

Humans are social creatures--perhaps, I hope, more so than mice.  We're connected.  We suffer when others we love unjustifiably do as well.  If we don't, well then we're socio-paths--and they do exist!  As little children, don't you think we suffer when we witness verbal, emotional or physical abuse between our parents?  Do you think it affects us more than the parent who receives the abuse?  I do.  Do you think, as Dr. Mate suggests, that learning to escape abusive environments early in life, creates behavioral neuro-pathways that automatically go into "tune out" run away mode when overly stressed over time?   Do you think this may be why by the time a child is 8 or 10 we have teachers/doctors prescribing ADHD along with the meds?  I do.  Or at least I see how abuse (especially witnessing it) can contribute to the high number of children with ADHD in a country with soaring divorce rates. 

So maybe, I'm thinking, an addiction is really just something we use or do to check out for awhile, a way to escape dealing with deep-seated issues--often related to early childhood/family trauma--in order to have a temporary state of pleasure/relief and satisfaction.  The problem is after the reward your addiction temporarily gives you, you find yourself in the same hamster wheel of your emotional life, not really satisfied long term. 
 
Then before you know it, you're engaging in the habitual behavior of your addiction--AGAIN!  And let's face it:  We're all addicts to some degree.  My main addiction for sure is escape.  I'm a recovering runner.  I'll admit that.  I just get the hell out of Dodge when whatever it is triggers me.  I'm learning to stick it out, but it's not easy because I've been escaping my whole life.  I've learned my running is about trust/betrayal/loyalty issues around people I've loved deeply who've absolutely trashed my heart by the things they do and say. This likely triggers from the abuse my mother received from my father I witnessed as a child.

My dad was good to me, but a complete asshole to my mother enough for it to damage our family. It was mainly verbal abuse but betrayal as well.  Dad just couldn't keep his penis in his pants.  I saw it going down my entire childhood.  So when I'm triggered by betrayal or fake energy that breaches my trust by either men or women, the easiest thing to do is run, find something "better" instead of sticking it out and working through solutions.  

However, when dealing with a narcissist it's always a good idea to run.  Good news is narcissists aren't as common as good people who make big mistakes sometimes and maybe deserve time to work things out.  At any rate, I'm a work in progress in my addiction department.  So are you!  We all are.  And that's how I see it sometimes.