Addiction to Drama

 

“Don’t feed the drama monster. It’s insatiable and has no friends.”

Donna Goddard.

A young lady walked in for a session; quite distraught and helpless about the mess in her life. I listened for a while and asked, “what would there be in your life if all this chaos was not there?” She took a while to answer and then honestly replied, “If I didn’t have this mess where would the spark be? How boring my life would be!”

 

It got me thinking....we all say we ‘hate drama’ but let’s face it, at least it’s interesting and can be stimulating even in its horribleness! There’s no chance of being bored in the midst of drama!

 

But, sadly, the undeniable component of drama is STRESS. According to Dr. Heidi Hanna, stress may even be as addictive as drugs since the adrenaline produced by the stress response also releases dopamine along with it. The interesting thing is that dopamine encourages repeat behaviour by activating the reward center in the brain and that is at the heart of addiction.

 

Stress may be undesirable, but it is the adrenaline-squirting, hyperventilating and dizzying feeling too. The problem is that it’s also damn addictive. Though paradoxically cortisol has brilliant effects...it can pull you through being kidnapped or survive sexual abuse or keep you going when life seems helpless. But the danger is that it doesn’t stop even when the stress is over...it’s a good servant but a very poor master.

 

Let’s see what addiction really is. It’s the realisation of a big gaping hole in one’s life and the feeling is that if there’s no drama this hole will be uncomfortably unfulfilled. Drama is a very real addiction; it’s not merely a mental habit but a desperate need to fill that hole...and it doesn’t matter what you’re filling it with, drugs, alcohol, approval_anything! Then it’s fearful and unbearable to suffer the withdrawals that would come from the absence of that heart-pounding excitement.

 

The addiction is to the adrenaline rush of the next life situation. Many of us are like that...moving from one life situation to the next, seeking the next high....keeping our attention focused and our awareness muted. That way we can remain above and outside; that way we can remain safe and untouched from introspection...untouched by pain.

 

Most drama and the subsequent stories we tell ourselves are typically a way of dealing with pain....we get so involved with our stories and don’t realise that the drama is our fix! It is the need to constantly have things in life that are ‘in flux’.

It is the ‘extreme theme’ culture that has become the norm, where intensity equals being alive! And that is how we get wired for drama but starved for meaningful purpose.

 

So, the moral of this story is ageless...instead of looking outside ourselves for happiness, joy, money or love we need to begin to look within. By looking within and find our center. The net result is that one no longer needs the stimulation of the recurrent drama and one can restructure one’s life to include more time for personal renewal.

 

Regular exercise and meditation help to produce bio-chemical changes that can quiet the mind. New neuro-pathways can be scripted and life begins to change.

 

Cheers!