Conference on problems of dependence

Below are papers read at the conference on Theological Understanding of the Addiction Problem:
Orthodox and Catholic Approaches
October 1-2, 2018, Sankt Petersburg (continuation)

Different influences made by modern and archaic ideas of dependence and co-dependence on the formation of theological conceptions of these phenomena

Yevgeniy Protsenko, Psychologist, Director of Christian Charitable Foundation 'Old World'

The illness of dependence and the sin of abuse

The illness of dependence differs from abuse, though externally very similar to it, in that dependence is an inborn peculiarity of a particular organism. It is conditioned only in a small degree by social or psychological factors that can only influence the age in which a dependence manifests itself and some peculiarities of its manifestation.

A dependence as an illness, unlike abuse, is non self-inflicted (is not self-provoked or self-inflicted), that is, it manifests itself not as a result of particular 'sinful' forms of individual behavior, but as a result of genetically conditioned peculiarities of an organism. Therefore, there are no reasons to explain it in terms of personal sin (for instance, hard drinking) and to hope that recovery is achieved only through rejection of the use.

'The easy inclination of soul towards sin', as it is described in the patristic literature, is certainly a quality inherent in every individual. However, the specifics of the biological peculiarities of an organism (primarily, the structure and function of an individual central nervous system) are determined above all genetically. Therefore, the presence or absence of specific forms of dependence - precisely dependence, not the attitude to particular substances or processes (for instance, alcohol or other psychoactive substances) depends on the genetic factor being inborn.

Already since the 80s, studies were published (for instance, Sharon Popovich, 1988, MA: Lexington Books, or Schaef, Anne Wilson. Co-Dependence: Misunderstood-Mistreated. - New York: Harper & Row, 1986), which show that the longer an addictologist works providing in practical assistance to dependents, the rarer he holds that dependency is a 'self-inflicted' illness; on the contrary, he believes it to be an inborn illness conditioned primarily by genetics (while understanding that the age in which symptoms begin to show, their peculiarities and the pace of development are determined by mental as well as micro- and macro-social factors).

Therefore, 'the vows of abstinence' or other approaches focused exclusively on the refusal to use psychoactive substances while failing to solve the problems causing this use, can in some cases solve or make less serious the problems of a user, but they cannot deliver anyone from the dependence or remove the causes of the dependence.

The notion of co-dependence in modern science

In recent decades, the term 'co-dependence' has come to be ever more solidly included in the vocabulary of specialists in various areas and to gain popularity in the awareness of the mass-reader. However, the vast majority of publications in our country share archaic views of co-dependence, which became obsolete long ago, and regrettably replicate them ever more broadly as a problem linked with the existence in a family of the dependence on alcohol and drugs. It is believed that co-dependants are relatives and other people in a dependent environment, and the cause of the symptoms of their co-dependence is often seen in their reaction to the 'wrong' behaviour of a dependent person.

It should be said that this view developed to become very popular in Western literature in the last century mid-50s. However, already by the end of the 80s, that is, 30-35 years ago, as the problems of dependence were studied, the world science came to understand co-dependence as a universal quality of EACH person born to our fallen world. This quality, unlike the relations of true community, is a psychological basis and a condition for forming any pathological behaviour including dependence.

Then the problems of relatives of alcoholics, drug addicts and other dependents, on closer examination, prove to be a specific form of dependence in which an object of this dependence, for instance, unlike heroin for a drug addict, is another person. It is important to understand that the nature of such dependence is precisely as destructive as consequences for an addict's family and all the society to which it leads. A dependence is formed from various types of relationships - psychological, notional, sexual - with a particular person, a group of people or other people in general.

Given this archaic understanding of the term 'co-dependence', what happens is a confusion and substitution of notions, a distortion of the real picture of this problem, thus preventing its adequate practical solution and affecting the theoretical, including theological, comprehension of this phenomenon.

For instance, in adopting this system of views, a co-dependent person begins to feel his moral incapacity, personal guilt for the manifestation of co-dependence symptoms in his life and seeks to atone this guilt instead of admitting the impossibility for him to cope with this illness on his own and turning for help to God and people. Moreover, this view of one's problems cultivates in one grievances against God and consolidates one's ideas of Him as a vicious and vindictive tyrant or a Maker of people's fates, distant, inaccessible and indifferent towards particular people.

Co-dependence, however, in the modern scientific usage of the word (in western professional and popular literature), is a much more universal notion implying one's perception of oneself through 'a distorting mirror' of other people's reactions to it, primarily those who have been around from one's infancy. This perception is strongly distorted, does not correspond to reality and, therefore, gives rise to various kinds of pathology and primarily various forms of dependence.

There is still no generally accepted definition of co-dependence. There are many different definitions, and each of them points out only one aspect of the problem (see, for instance, Schaef, Anne Wilson. Co-Dependence: Misunderstood-Mistreated. - New York: Harper & Row, 1986). As one of the Russian researchers of co-dependence, Rev. Sergiy Nikolenko, having familiarized himself with foreign and Russian studies of co-dependence, aptly put it, 'Co-dependence is a psychological mechanism of handing down the original sin'.