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Addiction may begin as an attempt to soothe unmet needs for connection and relief from pain.

Loneliness and substance misuse can reinforce each other, deepening disconnection.

Recovery isn't based on willpower alone; it can require healing unresolved pain and building safe connections.

Nearly half of U.S. adults showed problematic signs of at least one addiction in a given year. That was the finding of a 2011 study by Sussman, Lisha, and Griffiths. It predates the smartphone era, engagement-optimized algorithms, and legalized sports betting. I suspect the number has only grown. Epic Research (2026) found that diagnosed gambling disorder rose more than 60 percent in states that legalized sports betting since 2018, while it fell in states that did not.

So why is addiction so widespread?

Genetics gets much of the attention. While some people do inherit a nervous system more vulnerable to addiction, vulnerability isn’t destiny. What happens in our relationships and environments powerfully shapes whether that vulnerability develops into addiction.

Most of my clients struggling with addiction tell me that they want to stop but don’t know how. One client turns to whiskey, especially when stressors involving his children, partner, and work begin to collide, even though he knows it compromises his sleep, marriage, health, and ability to focus. We’ve been working together on learning to turn toward other people for support rather than whiskey. That shift gets at something I believe is central to understanding addiction.

As Gabor Maté has suggested, perhaps the more useful question isn’t simply why the addiction, but why the pain behind it? What is the addiction doing for the person? What is it helping them escape or relieve? I believe the answers to these questions bring us closer to its roots.

After 15 years in this work, I’ve often seen addiction begin as an attempt to fulfill two deeply intertwined needs. By the time someone seeks help, that attempted solution has become a serious problem of its own. Understanding what drew them toward it can help us see what’s actually missing.

Root one: disconnection

This isn’t always one isolated in a basement. Sometimes it’s the executive who has 30 Teams channels open but zero people he’d feel comfortable reaching out to, and limited people who’d show up for him if he called in a pinch. I’ve come to see addiction as less exclusively a chemistry problem and more a relationship problem, often wearing a brain-chemistry costume. The substance, the scroll, the cake, the bet—they’re reliable. People, unfortunately, are far more complicated, but also far more substantive. They........

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