Can addicts develop empathy?  Do addicts naturally have empathy but are so self-focused they refuse to see their partners feeling side of an issue?  Is it appropriate to expect my addict partner to empathize with my pain?  As a sex addict should I have the capacity for empathy – and if I don’t is there something wrong with me? 

These are the questions most couples ask when they begin treatment.  Partners are outraged that their addict in recovery does not express empathy for the pain inflicted upon them.  Addicts feel defective, stupid, irredeemable because they cannot express adequate empathy to their partners.  Worse, the addicts efforts to empathsize seem to cause more pain.   Relational crisis intensifies with each unsuccessful event.  Partners feel trapped – agitated, anxious, tearful, hopeless, angry.  Partners are angry that the addict in recovery appears to have endless empathy for fellow sufferers (fellow addicts) – calling a member in trouble, socializing after meetings, discussing feelings and daily struggles.  Addicts in recovery desperately work to understand themselves, how they fell so deeply into behaviors that are , in the light of day, embarrassing, self-destructive, shaming, degrading, offensive to their own moral core. Addicts working in recovery slowly enter into the world of meetings, step work, sharing their innermost thoughts and feelings  – secrets 10, 20, 40 years in hiding – with strangers, doing work that takes them deeply into feelings they likely have never felt. 

So why do addicts struggle with empathy?  The answer is much too complex to address fully in this forum, however, the first level of understanding takes us back to early childhood and to the point at which the acting out behavior began. In this context we can say the addict most likely lived a childhood of neglect, fear, emotional, physical, sexual, spiritual abuse.  Under such conditions a child  is surviving, not thriving.  Often there is little tolerance for feelings in the home - parents feelings dominate and define the home.  The child grows up suppressing feeling.  Years of suppressing feelings deaden the child emotionally.  The child may self-soothe to manage feelings through masturbation, ritualized routines, drugs, alcohol “self-medicating” - any means to not feel.

As the child becomes a teenager the habit of suppressing , or “medicating” feelings becomes “hard-wired”.  The teenager, and then young adult  is deeply engaged in the self-soothing behavior – partying, masturbating, sexually acting out.  The young adults’range of emotion is limited to anger, perhaps loneliness , sadness.

Empathy is  defined as the ability to understand someones ‘ thoughts and feelings from their point of view - stepping inside their shoes .  Taking into account the full  context of the others’ side.  Viewing the situation as the other.

Empathy is not a primary emotion.  Children cannot feel empathy.  Teenagers are unable to feel empathy. Children are self-focused.     Their job is to navigate childhood to become independent adults.  Empathy is developed in young adulthood – in the early to mid 20″s.  Empathy is an emotion developed only after the self is fully formed. 

Addicts, unfortunately, are deeply entrenched in their addictions by young adulthood.  There are no emotional resources available .  Addicts do not pass through crucial developmental stages to develop the capacity to empathize – with self or other.  If they were they would not engage in self-destructive behavior.

So, the answer to the question.  Addicts are able to develop empathy.  It is not the first order of business of recovery, though.  Empathy comes, slowly and with many missteps.  Discovering, identifying and feeling ones’ feelings is the precursor to understanding the feelings of others.

In  therapy, increased tolerance for facing childhood pain and truths enable the addict to slowly move out the state of numbness and toward full entegration of thoughts, feelings, behaviors, self.  It is here that empathy  develops.  When it arrives the feeling is overwhelming, sensational.  The wall has come down and and the self is liberated.

Coupleships that withstand the trauma of the first year of recovery with even the smallest amount of good will and affection are able move into deeper work toward forgiveness, exhonoration and empathy.

With peace and serenity,

Michele Saffier

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