The best metaphor I’ve been able to discover that applies to the feelings of addiction is a tidal one.
Different moods and circumstances can bring out different aspects of someone’s personality in an addictive state, just as moon phases determine tides. Contact with loved ones, environment, health, employment, all of these factors can affect addiction and it’s severity within the same person. Even the time of day can affect an addicted person, whether early morning or right before bedtime is a struggle or not.
The waves of addiction, where anxious feelings surpass the tolerance threshold for the addicted person, are akin to the waves of the sea. The above factors affect both the threshold and the ability to handle addictive anxieties. A low tide or low waves are akin to addict feeling as though they are doing well or may be healed. A high tide or rough waves are akin to the addict feeling completely helpless and at the total mercy of their addictive anxieties and feelings.
It is commonly observed that an addict may seem completely healed right before a massive relapse. This is similar to a tsunami, where the tide goes out completely, only to come crashing back in and cause enormous destruction.
Just as it is difficult to control tide, it is difficult for some addicts to control how they feel and how high their anxiety thresholds are. Some folks are biologically more susceptible to addiction than others, just as some coastal locations are geographically susceptible to more storms or more destructive waves.
The job of recovery is to get addicts out of the see-sawing boat trying to navigate the tides and onto calmer shores. The stimuli and anxieties and temptations may still remain for the addict, but the first step is learning to cope with them (understanding and anticipating tides), creating defenses to keep them from happening (like levees in some coastal regions), and replacing addictive behaviors with positive ones (just as the tides are used to collect wave energy).
When the non-addict can understand the addict’s mindset and, essentially, what it feels like to be in the addict’s shoes, then the process of recovery can begin. Therefore, every effort to make mutual understanding, communication, and trust between an addict and a counselor or loved one who is helping them is absolutely paramount to recovery.
