How’s that for a controversial title?
This is a blog reflecting on my time working within addictions for over 20 years and the conclusions that I have personally drawn from this experience. It’s not meant to be an essay on the subject, only my opinion. Hopefully it will shed some light on to why I think Addiction is a solution and not the “problem”.
As a fledgling drugs worker back in the early 2000s it was instilled in me that the substance use and its associated behaviours were the problems that needed to be primarily addressed. Many years later, on some level I still believe that to be true, the cost to the individual, families and society can be huge. The consequences of addiction can often end in someone’s death, families being torn apart and the erosion of communities. But to focus on stopping or reducing the end result has always felt counterintuitive to me, I’ll go out on a limb further and say that it could contribute to the further stigmatisation and marginalising of someone with an addiction.
Addiction comes in many forms, not just someone” flat out” on Spice in a city centre. It can include someone who gambles, over works, over exercises or over eats. As I’m writing this I’m considering why it is people who indulge in the last three behaviours aren’t generally labelled as an “addict” by society… In my experience many of the reasons that someone may turn to substances can be the same as someone who chooses to work excessively, but more of that later.
When I say “addiction is the solution,” it can sound provocative—especially in a world where addiction is usually seen as the central problem. But this statement is neither a justification nor a romanticisation. It is a recognition of psychological intelligence. Addiction is the best answer the person has been able to find to a problem they cannot yet name, and for which they have no better tools. It is a response to inner disorganisation, emotional overwhelm, or developmental wounds that have gone unprocessed.
It means that addiction is not meaningless. It is serving a purpose—often a vital one. Understanding addiction as the solution invites compassion and slows the rush to fix. It opens up the therapeutic space in which healing can begin.
Regulation.
One of the most common functions of addiction is to regulate emotion. Many people who come to therapy for addiction describe early life experiences where emotions were:
In these environments, someone can learn that: Feelings are dangerous. Connection is not reliable. I must manage this alone. And so the body, brilliant in its adaptive design, finds a way. Alcohol, heroin, food, sex, shopping, or workaholism each offer different forms of regulation:
These are not moral failings. They are survival strategies. In this context, addiction is not a breakdown. It is a solution to a system that was never supported to feel safely. It’s an external regulation of what was never allowed to be internally known.
Creating Contact.
In Gestalt therapy, we talk about contact—meaningful engagement with self, other, and the environment. For many clients, addiction is a way to feel something in a world where connection has felt inaccessible or unreliable. Some examples:
These moments of intensity can simulate contact. For a brief time, the person may feel more themselves, more real, more connected. The solution works—until it doesn’t. And when the cost outweighs the benefit, they often seek help. But at first, the addictive behaviour may have been the only thing that brought them into contact with their aliveness. Gestalt therapy honours this. It does not strip away the behaviour before first understanding what it is doing for the person. We ask, gently: What do you get from this behaviour that you don't get anywhere else? This question alone often begins a deeper process of self-awareness and integration.
Survival.
Addiction is often the solution when no other support is available. Many clients have lived through environments where they had:
In these cases, addiction can become:
The phrase “addiction is the solution” comes to life most clearly here. It is not a choice made with freedom. It is a strategy chosen in constraint—a brilliant, if ultimately costly, way of surviving what might otherwise be unbearable. From this perspective, addiction is not a defect. It’s a protective adaptation.
Filling a gap.
In therapy, we often find that addiction fills a developmental gap. These gaps might include:
In the absence of these, addiction becomes the proxy. It mimics:
When we see addiction in this light, it becomes a form of remembering—a substitute for what should have been present all along. The work of long-term therapy is not just to remove the substance or behaviour, but to build new, embodied experiences that can meet those same needs more sustainably and relationally.
Many clients arrive in therapy feeling ashamed, defeated, or scared. They may have been told over and over that their addiction is their fault, a weakness, or a lack of self-control. Respect the role the addiction has played—perhaps it even saved the person at some point. It does not push the person into premature change. It begins with awareness. We ask:
When someone feels understood in this way, change becomes more possible—not through force, but through integration. As awareness grows, so too does choice. The person begins to develop new ways of feeling, relating, and coping. The solution—addiction—no longer needs to do all the work. In this way, therapy doesn’t just remove the behaviour. It can rebuild the conditions where the behaviour is no longer necessary.