Trauma & Addiction: Why It’s Not About the Substance
When we talk about addiction, it’s easy to get stuck in the obvious. Drugs. Alcohol. Gambling. But the reality of addictive behaviours is far broader, and far more human, than we’re often willing to admit.
We all have ways we try to regulate pain—some are just more socially acceptable than others.
What often gets missed in public conversations is this: for many people, addiction doesn’t start with pleasure-seeking. It starts with pain-soothing. And beneath that pain, often, is trauma.
But trauma and addiction don’t just co-exist. They interlock. They feed each other. And sometimes, they camouflage each other—making both harder to treat unless we see the link clearly.
Addiction Is a Response, Not a Character Flaw
For someone carrying unresolved trauma, addictive behaviour is rarely about getting high or escaping reality in the stereotypical sense. It's about survival.
This might mean:
Using alcohol to calm a body that’s constantly hypervigilant.
Overeating to feel emotionally “full” in a nervous system that learned hunger early—emotional or physical.
Losing hours to porn, shopping, or social media to dissociate from the internal chaos that hasn’t been named yet.
Working compulsively to avoid stillness that might bring up long-buried pain.
These patterns are attempts to self-soothe. To create temporary safety. And they make sense in the context of a nervous system shaped by threat, neglect, or unpredictability.
Trauma Wires the Brain for Imbalance
One of trauma’s deepest impacts is that it reshapes the reward system in the brain.
Early trauma—especially attachment trauma or chronic relational disruption—can cause the brain to release stress hormones (like cortisol) in high doses and dial down the production of feel-good chemicals like dopamine or oxytocin.
What does this mean? The baseline for “normal” becomes dysregulated. People who’ve experienced trauma often feel flat, foggy, chronically anxious, or emotionally numb. Their nervous system is in survival mode, not presence.
So when something—anything—temporarily lights up the dopamine system, it can feel like relief. Like aliveness. Like control.
Addictive behaviour fills that neurochemical gap. But the brain quickly adjusts, needing more of the substance or activity to achieve the same effect. Over time, this creates a cycle where the person becomes less able to generate those good feelings naturally.
It’s Not Always About the Big “T” Trauma
Not everyone who struggles with addiction has a history of abuse, neglect, or dramatic events. Sometimes trauma is subtle. Chronic invalidation. Emotional absence. The kind of family system where feelings were shut down, achievements were everything, or connection was conditional.
We sometimes refer to this as developmental trauma—where core needs for safety, attunement, and emotional regulation weren’t consistently met during critical periods of growth.
In these cases, addictive behaviours can emerge as attempts to:
Create a sense of identity when one wasn’t mirrored back.
Control a world that once felt chaotic or emotionally unsafe.
Avoid internal criticism that mimics old external voices.
Why Addiction Can Feel Like Love
Here’s a nuance that often surprises people: for many trauma survivors, their addiction is the most reliable thing they’ve ever known. It shows up. It delivers (at first). It doesn’t abandon, reject, or shame—until it does.
That’s why talking someone out of addictive behaviour with logic rarely works. It's not just a habit. It's a relationship. Sometimes, it’s the only dependable source of comfort they’ve had.
So in therapy, we don’t just focus on the behaviour. We focus on what the behaviour represents:
What need is it meeting?
What feeling is it muting?
What memory or belief is it protecting you from revisiting?
Only by understanding the emotional function of addiction can we begin to support new, healthier forms of regulation that feel safe and sustainable.
Healing Requires More Than Abstinence
Stopping the addictive behaviour is a part of healing—but it’s not the end goal.
Trauma-informed therapy focuses on helping individuals:
Identify the original wounds and unmet needs driving the behaviour.
Build safety in the body through grounding, somatic awareness, and emotional regulation.
Learn alternative ways of managing stress, loneliness, shame, or dysphoria.
Develop compassionate self-understanding, rather than shame-driven narratives.
Because the truth is—people don’t give up addictions just because they “know better.” They let go when they feel safe enough to.
Final Thoughts
Addiction isn’t about bad choices. It’s about coping. And often, it’s a brilliant (if costly) strategy from a time when someone was trying to survive something too big to handle alone.
If you or someone you know is stuck in this cycle, therapy can offer more than just insight. It can offer a new relationship—with your emotions, with your body, and with parts of yourself that learned long ago that soothing had to be outsourced to something else.