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Key points
- Addiction leads many to aggressively defend against needing abstinence to solve their problems.
- Efforts to dominate the effects of addiction through willpower resemble the dynamic of toxic masculinity.
- Recovery requires feminine powers of connection to self and others, not combative domination.
Addiction therapists commonly encounter the quixotic efforts of patients to continue drinking or using other drugs without negative consequences. Talking to patients with substance use disorders often spins uselessly through questions of why—why people think they are addicted, why they can't control their use, why them?
Searching for answers is driven by a belief that addictive use can be controlled through force of will if only its causes could be understood. This effort to aggressively dominate the impact of excessive alcohol or other drug use through willpower calls to mind (i.e., "rhymes" with) what has been labeled toxic masculinity when seen in other contexts. Since men are culturally influenced in this direction as a measure of their manliness, toxic masculinity is more commonly pronounced in men, but addiction changes all the rules.
An equal opportunity destroyer, addiction leads both men and women to measure themselves by their ability to dominate the effects of addictive substances by a mixture of denial and willful efforts to overcome the disease without having to resort to abstinence. Both their self-esteem and their continued use depend on aggressive domination of what is essentially a brain disease.
Aggressive dominance comes in different forms, including blatant force, gaslighting, and playing the victim. Many people with a substance use disorder demand family members never speak ill of them. Family loyalty is measured by how well addiction is kept secret. Denial is required to prevent embarrassment for the person with a substance use disorder.
The truth is buried, and anyone rocking the boat pays a price. As a 10-year-old, I was told bad children received coal in their Christmas stockings, so I wrapped a piece of coal as a present for my father, who drank, only to be aggressively shamed for my insolence. Loyalty trumped the truth in my family.
Domination can also be asserted by gaslighting, which consists of calling other people's perceptions into question. When accused of sneaking drinks, the person with substance use disorder accuses others of exaggerating or being paranoid. When seen taking a swig from a liquor bottle, the drinker acts indignant, saying they were only checking to see if the bottle should be thrown into recycling.
Gaslighting means lying and challenging other people's reality. It attacks another's sanity. The crazy-making caused by being gaslighted is a form of domination.
"Poor me, no one understands the stress I am under" is another, more paradoxical, form of dominance. Playing the victim of overwhelming bad luck and mistreatment by a spouse, a boss, or merely by fate makes it difficult to confront someone's addiction. Confrontation of the truth is postponed to avoid adding to the addict's already back-breaking burden of suffering. Victimhood dominates by manipulating family members into silence in the guise of "caring." Underneath the victim's frailty, however, is often the threat of aggressive retaliation if pressed too hard.
There are two primary ways people respond to addiction. Aggressive domination, which is also the hallmark of toxic masculinity, turns inward and pulls up emotional draw bridges to defend against embarrassing truths. It cuts connections with others and isolates the person with a substance use disorder within the fortress of their willfulness. Like lone cowboys out on the range, they rely only on themselves and others like-minded to decide if their substance use is a problem.
All forms of toxic domination reduce intimacy and severe connections with others. As a person with substance use disorder willfully tries to defeat or deny their addiction, they become progressively more isolated. While trying to wrestle with addiction on one's own may feel noble, it prevents receiving the help needed to break free of captivity to a drug. Finding sobriety requires turning in an entirely different direction.
This different direction, called recovery, depends on the feminine power within each of us. This power was succinctly expressed by Gloria Steinem's phrase, "God may be in the details, but the Goddess is in the connections.". Feminine power reaches out beyond oneself to connect with others. In recovery, this means accepting the help needed to deal realistically with being addicted and joining the sober community.
The first step in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is the antidote to domination. It flatly acknowledges that a person with substance use disorder is utterly powerless to use alcohol or other drugs safely. Their brain is not wired for moderation.
While acknowledging such powerlessness over all drugs initially feels like devastating impotence, attending AA meetings and connecting with others in recovery gradually transforms impotence into realistic and healthy humility. Such humility is needed to connect to a "Higher Power," to a trusted sponsor, and to reconnect with those to whom amends must be made. This is the way of the goddess, of the feminine power of connections.
No one gets emotionally sober until they relinquish toxic masculinity's desire for dominance in favor of a more feminine reliance on mutual connectivity. Sobriety reconnects persons with substance abuse disorders not only with others but also to a humbler part of themselves that is comfortable with being one among many. Humility connects us to our emotional core.
Not all people who achieve abstinence through AA achieve emotional sobriety. For some, this is a step too far. This is unfortunate because it prevents them from reaching deeper levels of serenity when we find an easy balance between the two sides of our nature. Recovery is filled with paradoxes, including the fact that human nature contains masculine and feminine qualities. Only when these two sides are no longer seen as opposites but rather as necessary complements can we enter truly mutual relationships.
We need to use both our right and our left feet to walk in a straight line. In the same way, we need both the mature masculine and feminine sides of our nature to balance desire and reason effectively. Overreliance on one side while neglecting the other pushes us out of integrity, and we lose our way.
