David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

psychology

Every addiction is heart’s effort to fill inner hole that requires love

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It’s easy for me to be disdainful of your addiction, whatever it is.

I don’t want to admit that I sometimes feel this way about others, but it’s true. I’m probably just being defensive, because disdaining others’ addictions is a good distraction from dealing with the core issues involved with my own.

People are addicted to all sorts of things. Alcohol. Gambling. Sex. Shopping. Other recreational drugs. Television. Gaming. Social media. The list is endless. It seems as though almost anything pleasant can be turned into an addiction.

For me, it’s food, especially sugar. I keep myself overweight and sluggish when I’m unhappy, all because I’m pulled back again and again to the bizarre compulsion to eat when I’m not hungry. At the heart of the matter, it’s not about taste or gluttony or brain chemistry. It’s all about the need to find the love and understanding and security which I’ve never had.

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Whether it makes sense or not, I’ve learned to expect miracles

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The little placard was a fixture at my Aunt Bessie’s house when I was young. She was really my great aunt, so she seemed old for my entire life. She wasn’t an educated woman, so she couldn’t have explained the theology behind it, but she had a powerful faith in God. On top of her huge old wooden console television, the words were always there in her living room.

“Expect a miracle.”

I didn’t really understand that in real-world terms. I knew about miracles from stories in the Bible, but I didn’t expect Moses to come along and part the Red Sea. I didn’t expect God to keep three young men from burning to death in a fiery furnace. I didn’t expect Jesus to come heal the sick.

But my Aunt Bessie did expect miracles. It took me awhile to understand, but Aunt Bessie’s influence finally rubbed off on me — because I expect miracles today, whether they make sense or not.

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Why do so many find it funny to embarrass the people they love?

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I grew up in a family where insults were the dominant form of humor. We made fun of each other all the time. If you had listened to our insults, you would have assumed we were all ugly and stupid and useless.

It’s all fun. Laugh it up. Don’t be hurt. Just throw an insult back at the other person. Be as cruel as you want. Make fun of her face. Tell him how stupid he is. Whatever. Just laugh and don’t complain.

I was really good at insults. I’d practiced all my life and honed my skills. If I found out you worried that your nose was too big — a real example with a friend in high school — I would mercilessly attack you and make fun of your “big nose.” Isn’t it funny? Don’t you love it?

It wasn’t until I was in college that I realized I had been hurting other people. What’s more, I realized how much I’d been hurt by all the mindless insults. I completely changed the way I used humor. I was not going to hurt people anymore.

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