The many versions of repression

You talk too much about trauma.

You talk too much about suicide.

I both have heard this and wondered that others thought this about me - only to have it confirmed.

And I’ve thought about this a lot and here’s the thing -

We don’t heal when we repress.

I certainly have learned that the hard way. I repressed pain through drinking and alcohol abuse.

And while that is easy to say - she’s just an alcoholic and got drinking her problems, I’m astounded the ways that others repress.

When we fail to address our issues, our big traumas, then we don’t heal.

Humans repress in all sorts of different ways -

I can’t talk about that right now.

“That didn’t happen.”

“I didn’t even admit to it until a few years ago.”

“I haven’t dealt with that yet.”

It took me a while to admit that I had the same genetic predisposition to alcoholism that my father had, that many of my relatives have had.

But, what I’ve learned is this - and I wish I had learned it sooner.

It’s not a bad thing to be an alcoholic.

Is it a disease? Sure, it is. It’s deadly, especially when denied.

But it’s also what you do with it.

A member of my AA group who has been sober for 37 years frequently says this:

“When I first came they said, being an alcoholic is your greatest asset. Thank God you’re an alcoholic.”

Now, that’s not the only part of alcoholism, sure.

But it’s an important message and one that I wish I had learned sooner.

Why?

Because what it means is that you’ve hit your rock bottom to admit this. Non-alcoholics have had to confront their self-destruction and the reasons that drove them to drink.

Many times it is said - my drinking was not the problem; it was the symptom.

My drinking was a desperate desire to escape, to sleep, to self-medicate - all of which are various ways of saying repression.

I am reminded of that quote from Dr. Gabor Mate’s book on addiction that said - I can’t say I don’t know how to live, so I drink.

But the truth is - we all have our shit we want to repress and don’t want to address or heal from.

Many try to cover it up in other ways or repress it until their whole bodies give out on them, their anxiety levels are through the roof or they “forget” that big traumatic events happen in their life or their bodies start to break down.

Humans repress in an endless amount of ways, to avoid the pain of what healing and taking the issue face-on entails.

Alcoholism is just one of them. Substance abuse is just one of them.

It’s not to make light of the seriousness that is SUD - Substance abuse order. But it is to say that it’s easy to scapegoat those as worse or “just weaker” because of their maladapative ways of repression.

But, it’s perspective in that - it’s taken me awhile but I do finally see what my fellow AA member means when his mentors told him -

The worst thing about you is that you’re an alcoholic; the best thing about you is that you’re an alcoholic.

It can certainly be the biggest opportunity of your life - to face it head-on, to stop repressing, to finally heal. It’s even the ways in which I’ve also dealt with intergenerational trauma, as I come from a long-line of alcoholics.

I come by the disease honestly - through genetics, trauma and years of alcohol abuse.

I’m the pickle that can no longer be a cucumber. I’ve fermented too long.

But it’s freeing - sobriety is amazing in that - I’ve had the spiritual awakening to understand what I’ve gained and been saved from, what I could have lost due to my alcoholism.

It’s strengthened my relationship with God to realize that it was all unmanageable and I can easily say I wasn’t in control. But He took care of me and helped me to get the help I need and to learn things that I could never put into words. What a relief not to have to pretend to be something that I am not! To not have to repress.

I can feel all the things now, in being sober, my defenses against barriers- the ways that I stopped myself from feeling now eliminated.

I can understand why Lauren McKowen calls us “the luckiest” and why Jamie Lee Curtis credits her biggest accomplishment to getting sober.

To see our rock bottom and come to terms with what we’re capable of, what we’ve been hiding from - then to not repress, to hold on to things, it’s amazingly freeing. It’s the missing puzzle piece of the healing that I needed.

I’ve heard it said, “oh, she’s just an alcoholic.”

I am.

But, to say that is also to reduce my story to a single story. And the danger of the single story has been well-documented. I use that TED talk by Adichie in my college classes to encourage critical thinking.

Are all ever “just” anything? Just one thing?

No.

I am also a sober alcoholic.

I am also a recovering alcoholic.

I am also an alcoholic with cPTSD.

I am also an alcoholic on step 10.

I am also an alcoholic who has undergone a tremendous amount of mental health help in CBT, DBT, EMDR, cranial sacral therapy, biofield tuning, light therapy, etc.

I am an alcoholic professor.

I am an alcoholic who no longer represses and who understands that this is both my blessing and gift, if I take hold of it and learn from it.

To be an alcoholic also means I can admit that between my genes and my trauma and my alcohol abuse it has all resulted in alcoholism that I cannot deny and don’t want to deny.

We frequently call alcoholism an allergy in AA - one drink is too much enough and a hundred is not enough. That one drink triggers a desire to numb more, to keep feeling the escape. It’s my allergy. I can’t have it.

But, it’s also a truth of human nature - we all want to hide. Some do it in bed.

From time to time - we all want to repress. Others just do it perhaps by binge watching kitty videos or napping or shopping or eating.

Are those more benign? The temptation is to think so. And sure, you can make the argument that no one ever died because you watched too many kitty videos. You didn’t end up in jail.

So, sure, —but did it also make you stop doing the thing and face your shit, to heal you? Did doing those things stop your repression? Did it make you address your wounds and traumas? Or not just because it was too benign.

I was made to have to address my shit- and if that healing comes with alcoholism and sobriety, I’ll take it.

I’m an alcoholic, so I just can’t drink and that’s okay.

/Shrugs.

Though American culture tries to convince it otherwise, that drinking is the only way to relax, the truth is - not putting a toxin in my body regularly also has made me feel pretty great.

My sleep is amazing and so is my anxiety and PTSD symptoms are alleviated.

My skin looks youthful and fresh.

And I’ve started healing in totality. To do so, I cried and felt it all, admitted it all, and I stopped repressing the pain of the deaths of my family members, many reasons why I drank, branching all the way back to my dysfunctional and mentally unstable family members growing up and childhood.

Healing is a remarkable thing. It starts with addressing the wounds and repression.

I am glad I am an alcoholic because I’m a sober and recovering one. And because I no longer repress.

Laura McKowen was right: “We truly are the luckiest.”