The Link Between Trauma and Addiction

January 3, 2026

8:37 am

Link between trauma and addiction

Table of contents

The vast majority of those caught up in the madness of addiction have unresolved trauma.

Trauma due to abuse in childhood, neglect, emotional pain or violence. Sometimes a combination of or all of the above.

Link Between Trauma and Addiction

Trauma, left to fester can play a pivotal role in why someone becomes addicted to drugs, alcohol or both.

Nobody chooses to become an addict: It is not a conscious choice. No one wakes up one day and decides to become addicted.

People turn to drugs to escape from emotional pain. A few hours, even a few minutes, away from the grim reality of life provides just a small glimpse of an existence free from turmoil.

The problem is, if you keep taking drugs and alcohol your brain develops a tolerance to substances meaning you need more and more to have the same effect as the amount you first started with.

Try and stop by yourself and you put yourself at extreme risk of a medical emergency or fatality.

If you address the trauma you can break the cycle of addiction.

Addiction Is Not a Moral Failing—It’s a Brain Disorder

Addiction is a very serious illness. Latterly, it has been characterised as a chronic brain disorder.

Your brain adapts to trauma in a way that it thinks will protect you but actually cause you great amounts of stress.

Some people are genetically pre-disposed to addiction, especially if it runs in your family. Your environment also plays a very significant part. Add these components together and you have little chance of escaping addiction.

Trauma shapes brain development and our coping mechanisms. It also massively affects how safe we feel in our surroundings.

The more trauma a child experiences, then the higher the chances they will develop an addiction in later life.

The Benefit of Trauma Informed Care

Group therapy for addiction has been around for nearly one hundred years. Every centre in the world uses it. Why? Because it works.

While group therapy is the core of recovery, new therapies have evolved and trauma informed care now plays a pivotal role in addiction treatment and recovery.

Trauma informed care works on a persons strengths. It works from a premise that recognises the devastating impact that trauma has on an individual and works on the understanding that trauma has impact even if the person hasn’t been able to describe it.

Link Between Trauma and Addiction

Using this approach, the therapist helps the person to look beyond the addiction to why they are using. It helps the person to see that drugs and alcohol are a crutch, a life jacket and not a long term solution to a problem.

Trauma informed care is about exploring what has happened to you rather than what is wrong with you.

it is not about making a diagnosis of PTSD. Therapists are not qualified to make diagnosis. In any event, not everyone with trauma will experience flashbacks or hypervigilance. Trauma informed care is about helping someone to see that there are other ways of coping and that using was a way of stopping them from drowning under pressure.

Why Do People with PTSD Develop Addiction and Substance Abuse?

When you experience trauma your amygdala in the brain is over-stimulated. The amygdala is part of the brains fright, flight or fight response.

With the amygdala in a constant state of over stimulation, the chemical release leads you to experience constant anxiety, hypervigilance and fear.

Using drugs and alcohol, in the short term, can quieten this over stimulation and thus reduce the symptoms.

Link Between Trauma and Addiction

The problem is, if you stop using, the symptoms of trauma you suppressed will reappear far more vividly than they did before.

Treating addiction without addressing the reasons for it is like pouring radiator fluid into the reservoir in your car but not fixing the leak.

Key Takeaways

  • Unresolved trauma plays a critical role in addiction, making it essential to address it for effective recovery.
  • Addiction is a chronic brain disorder, not a moral failing, often influenced by traumatic experiences and genetic predisposition.
  • Trauma-informed care focuses on understanding the impact of trauma, helping individuals find healthier coping mechanisms beyond substance use.
  • To treat addiction long-term, individuals need safety, awareness of triggers, evidence-based therapy, coping skills training, and a gradual recovery pace.
  • Therapy aims to provide alternatives to substance use, recognizing that stopping isn’t straightforward due to the pain of unresolved trauma.

How to Treat Trauma and Addiction at the Same Time

For long term abstinence and sobriety, the following five elements can get you where you need to be:

  • Feeling safe: Recovery is not just about being in a physically safe environment, but about internal safety. Rehab offers a warm, wholly non-judgemental environment. This promotes recovery.
  • Knowing what triggers you: If you can learn to identify what feelings lead to you wanting to use (and the places and people that lead to relapse) you can learn to avoid them.
  • Evidence based therapy: There are a number of evidenced based therapies that have been shown to help process trauma such as Eye Movement Desensitisation Reprocessing (EMDR) and Internal Family Systems
  • Coping Skills Training: Learning tools to deal with the void created by not taking substances. This can be yoga, mindfulness, peer support and medication
  • Setting the right pace: Recovery is a trajectory that can’t be timed. Trying to speed things up won’t work and will be counterproductive.

Why Can’t You “Just Stop Using”?

Because it simply won’t work.

When someone suffers from the pain of trauma drugs and alcohol may be the one thing that keeps them going.

Imagine you are on the deck of a cruise ship. You see someone in the water, surrounded by sharks wearing a life jacket. Would you ask them to take it off because it isn’t good for them?

You know that the life jacket is keeping them in one position and that they will become prey but for the person with it on they think it will save them.

Therapy is about finding an alternative to the life jacket.

Final Thoughts

Addiction is as complicated as trauma.

With the right approach, compassion, empathy and a positive focus on looking at the behaviour underneath the pain, healing really is possible.

Change doesn’t happen overnight, just as the trauma behind addiction didn’t happen in an instant.

Link Between Trauma and Addiction

Speak to an Experienced Addictions Clinician For Free Advice

We are experienced addictions clinicians who deal with addiction: daily.

Our advice is free, confidential and impartial. We can advise you on what you need, and what you don’t.

Having your shakra realigned while doing yoga with a miniature goat after a gong bath is all well and good but you don’t need it and it will cost more than you need to spend.

If you need a referral to a rehab, we do not charge for this. As clinicians, we only charge for private at home treatment.

Our service is registered with the Information Commissioners Office. As it is a legal requirement for rehabs to be registered with the appropriate inspectorate for the area, we only signpost those that are.

Need help finding the right rehab for you or a loved one? Get in touch today and take the first step toward recovery.

Speak to us