The younger self

Almost every long-term opioid addiction has a younger self in it somewhere. Not always literally a child — sometimes a teenager, sometimes a young adult — but always a version of you that did not yet have the tools to handle what was happening, and reached for what was offered.

For me, that younger self was a twenty-six-year-old in a paper hospital gown, a back that would not stop screaming, a job to get back to, two small children at home, and no concept that the bottle in the nurse's hand had any meaning beyond 'this will stop the pain.' That version of me did the best she could with what she had. I have spent years being angry at her. That anger was not helping either of us.

Shadow work in recovery is the slow practice of turning toward that younger self rather than away from her. Not approving of every decision she made. Just refusing to abandon her again. She was abandoned enough.

There is a specific practice that helps. Picture yourself at the age the addiction began. See where you were sitting, what you were wearing, what was happening around you. Put your adult hand on her shoulder, in your mind. Say out loud, 'I see what you were trying to do. You are safe now. I am not leaving.'

This will feel ridiculous the first time you do it. Do it anyway. It is one of the most documented interventions in trauma-informed addiction treatment. Internal Family Systems therapy, attachment-based therapy, somatic experiencing — they all converge on some version of this practice. There is a reason for that.

Your younger self is not the enemy. She is the patient. The pills were never about her being broken. They were about her not being held.