Women with addiction are broken, patched together with whatever is handy and will seem to do the job.  It’s much like repairing a piece of furniture with tape, wire, string, or whatever is nearby.  It only appears that the furniture is held together.  Just because the chair is still standing doesn’t mean it will stay in good shape for the long haul.  Addiction breaks down the relationships in a woman’s life, leaving a woman isolated and vulnerable.

The Facade of Addiction and Emotional Pain

It may seem too hard and confusing to take the chair apart and put it back together properly.  So when there is a crack or something comes loose, more tape and string go on.  After a while, it’s easy to forget what the chair used to look like when it was strong and didn’t have all the extra stuff kind of (but not really) holding it all together.

People accommodate and adjust around this half-broken chair because it is known that the chair is not really that strong; but still, nobody makes the effort to have it properly repaired.  When really put to the test of time, the makeshift repairs eventually show their weakness and the brokenness becomes ever more apparent.  It may seem like it’s too late to save the chair, but it’s not.

I’m not suggesting that addiction recovery is as straightforward as basic carpentry.  Glue this, nail that, and the chair (addiction) is fixed.  I’m speaking to the way addiction is like rigging all kinds of not-quite right things together to make it look like a person is whole.  But in fact, they are still very broken - and getting ever more so as their addiction wears on. (more…)