Addiction in The Inner World: IFS & Trauma-Informed Perspectives on Substance Use & Addictive Processes

Exploring the cycle of addiction as a cycle of traumatization & a parts mapping practice for you

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Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS) is an evidence-based, compassion-focused therapy that supports healing from trauma and addictive processes. IFS is based on the assumption that we all have parts, that all parts make sense when we learn their origin story, and that all parts are doing the best they can to protect you, the best way they know how (even if this strategy is outdated no longer helpful). You can think of a part as a version of yourself, a lived experience, or a personal quality. Together, parts comprise your internal system, an inner grouping of parts with complex relationships sometimes referred to in IFS as your inner family.

THE ADDICTED SUB-SYSTEM: ADDICTION AS A GROUP OF PARTS

With an IFS lens, you can consider addiction as a sub-system, or a grouping of parts in the larger inner system. These parts function in different ways to promote an addictive process, which can occur in relationship to substances, shopping, sex, gambling, and more. For example, in relationship to substances, you might have a part of you that can be perfectionistic in your recovery, a part that is stressed out by dealing with the consequences of substances, and a part that is ready to blow your recovery up with relapse if you get too anxious, afraid, or uncomfortable.

HOW BURDENS PERPETUATE ADDICTION

Parts that function in the addictive sub-system are often burdened parts. When parts take on extreme beliefs, behaviors, and emotions, we call this a burden in IFS. Burdens show up in automatic, often intense responses. Burdens almost always come to be due to trauma because trauma fractures one’s sense of self and results in extreme beliefs, behaviors, and emotions. Something is traumatizing when it overwhelms your capacity to cope. The healthy natural response to threat is fight or flight – but what happens when you go through something that you can’t outrun or fight against, such as neglect as a child, an assault, or the sudden death of a loved one?

In these scenarios, the nervous system gets overwhelmed. This results in:

(1) extreme, distressed emotions, such as rage, depression, and helplessness

(2) extreme negative internalized beliefs which show up because your understanding of life is fundamentally altered, and

(3) extreme, automatic coping mechanisms such as impulsive, addictive, and dissociative behaviors.

Burdens are the vestiges of trauma which materialize as extreme emotions, beliefs, and behaviors.

ADDICTION AS TRAUMA AND TRAUMA RESPONSE

Addictive parts take on burdens and burdens both respond to trauma and perpetuate it. With this framework in mind, you can think of addiction as both a trauma response and trauma itself. A history of trauma makes you susceptible to addiction and then addiction creates trauma once it has been developed. Early childhood trauma is a risk factor for addiction and PTSD and substance use disorders are one of the most common comorbidities. Addiction traumatizes people by negatively affecting relationships, financial security, health, and self-esteem, amongst many other effects.

Addiction is a powerful strategy for suppressing and regulating profound emotional pain. Addiction helps you suppress distressing emotion and offers an outlet for coping through substance use or addictive behavioral processes, which function as a distraction, escape, or control mechanism. The only trouble with this strategy is that it creates more pain through the very means by which it was trying to relieve it, resulting in the need for more of the substance or addictive behavior.

THE CYCLE OF ADDICTION THROUGH THE PARTS WORK MODEL

In IFS, we provide the language of parts work to describe this cycle of addiction. Traumatized exile parts are in emotional pain and extreme, dishinibited protector parts called firefighters reach for behaviors and substances to extinguish this emotional pain. This creates behavioral consequences that inhibited protector parts called managers have to clean up with strategies such as perfectionism and intellectualization. Managers want to prevent the firefighters from acting out and inhibit the exiles from spilling their emotion everywhere and initiating the firefighters. Managers shut out and suppress the exiles, which only inflames the exiles’ extreme emotions and reinforces the exile’s extreme beliefs, resulting in more emotional intensity, which then triggers the firefighters and resets the addictive cycle all over again.

HOW TO WORK WITH ADDICTIVE PARTS USING IFS

In IFS, we work with addictive parts by first clarifying the nature of how these extreme beliefs, emotions, and behaviors hold hands. Instead of attacking, judging, or banishing these parts, we try to listen respectfully and understand. Understanding is not the same thing as enabling. It does not mean that we approve of how the addictive part is acting out or avoid setting limits on how it expresses itself. Understanding does mean that we try to have a clear perspective on why the addictive part is doing what it is doing and how it affects other parts of us and others. This helps us develop awareness and mindfully work with the part to meet its underlying needs with skill, insight, and a healthy sober mind.

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An IFS Practice For You: Parts Mapping Your Cycle of Use

List the beliefs, emotions, and behaviors that accompany your addictive cycle: before, during, and after. If you have had a history of sobriety, you might want to look at your “cycle of use” as a “cycle of relapse.” After you have listed them, see if you can access a sense of felt compassion for your parts and clarify ways you can support them by answering the italicized question in each category.

A word on addictive parts: you might have parts of you that reach for extreme behaviors like substances, gambling, shopping, sex, or food even if you don’t meet diagnostic criteria for a mental health disorder. You are encouraged to consider your cycle of use with these behaviors in navigating the exercise.

I. Before Use/Addictive Behavior/Relapse

Behaviors (how you act, what you do)

Emotions (what you feel inside)

Beliefs (internal dialogue, thoughts, what I tell myself, what I believe about myself)

What are your parts really needing from you when they act, feel, and think this way? From others? From your Higher Power?

II. During Use/Addictive Behavior/Relapse

Behaviors (how you act, what you do)

Emotions (what you feel inside)

Beliefs (internal dialogue, thoughts, what I tell myself, what I believe about myself)

What are your parts really needing from you when they act, feel, and think this way? From others? From your Higher Power?

III. After Use/Addictive Behavior/Relapse

Behaviors (how you act, what you do)

Emotions (what you feel inside)

Beliefs (internal dialogue, thoughts, what I tell myself, what I believe about myself)

What are your parts really needing from you when they act, feel, and think this way? From others? From your Higher Power?

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