Trauma and Addiction: How Past Wounds Fuel Substance Abuse

Addiction rarely begins in the way people imagine. It often starts quietly, innocent enough. Sometimes in the background, sometimes as a way to cope when life feels too heavy.

At White River Manor, we’ve worked with many people who’ve found themselves in the bondage of addiction, wondering how things got to this point. What we’ve come to understand is that for so many, substance use isn’t the core issue—it’s simply a response to something deeper. Pain that was never acknowledged. Emotions that were buried. Experiences that left their mark.

When we begin to explore what’s really going on underneath, we often find trauma sitting at the centre of it all. Not always the kind that makes headlines, but the kind that lingers quietly in the nervous system, affecting how a person feels, thinks, and connects with the world.

When we treat addiction without tending to those inner wounds, we’re only addressing half the story. This is why understanding the connection between trauma and addiction is so important—it helps us see what’s really beneath the surface.

As world-renowned addiction specialist Gabor Maté puts it, “The question is not why the addiction, but why the pain.” That shift in perspective changes everything. It invites compassion, not judgement. It reminds us that behind most substance use, there’s a story that deserves to be heard.

Let’s explore how past pain can shape our relationship with substances—and why, no matter your history, healing is absolutely possible.

What do we mean by trauma?

When people hear the word trauma, they often think of major, life-shattering events—things like war, a car accident, or physical assault. And yes, those things are traumatic. But trauma isn’t always loud or obvious. Sometimes it’s subtle. Sometimes, it’s what didn’t happen rather than what did.

It might be growing up in a home where you never felt truly safe. Or being told to “get over it” when you were clearly hurting. Maybe it was feeling constantly overlooked, criticised, or unsupported. Maybe it was losing someone too soon or being expected to hold everything together while no one asked how you were coping.

In simple terms, trauma is anything that overwhelms your ability to cope and leaves a lasting impact on your emotional and physical wellbeing. It’s less about the event itself and more about how it made you feel, how alone or supported you felt in it, and how it continues to affect you today.

How trauma and addiction are connected

So, how does trauma tie into addiction?

When someone has been through trauma, especially the kind that hasn’t been processed, it can leave a lasting sense that something just isn’t right. It’s not always easy to explain. Sometimes, it shows up as tension you can’t shake or a kind of heaviness you carry around. You might feel uneasy, disconnected from people, or like you’re constantly bracing for something to go wrong.

These feelings don’t always fade on their own. They have a way of settling in and becoming part of the background of daily life. For many people, this emotional weight becomes too much to carry on their own.

That’s often when substances come in. People might start drinking more than they mean to or using something to help them sleep, calm their nerves, or just feel a bit more at ease in their own skin. At first, it might feel like it helps, like it takes the edge off and makes things feel more manageable.

But what starts as a way to cope can gradually turn into something else. What once felt like a solution starts to cause its own problems. That’s when people often find themselves stuck in a cycle that’s hard to break, even when they want to.

The kind of trauma that often sits behind substance use

Everyone experiences trauma differently. What affects one person deeply might barely register for another. But in our work with people who are struggling with addiction, there are certain life experiences that tend to come up again and again—experiences that leave emotional wounds many carry quietly for years.

These may include:

• Growing up without consistent care or emotional support—feeling ignored, unwanted, or unsafe during childhood
• Living in a home where a parent misused alcohol or drugs or where mental health struggles were never addressed
• Going through sexual abuse or assault, whether in childhood or adulthood
• Experiencing violence at home or witnessing it happening to someone else in the family
• Losing a parent, sibling, or someone close—especially at a young age, before there was a way to make sense of it
• Being bullied, excluded, or made to feel like you didn’t belong
• Suffering a serious illness or accident that changed your sense of safety in the world
• Living through war, conflict, or being forced to leave home and start over somewhere unfamiliar

Even just one of these experiences can leave lasting emotional scars. When there’s more than one, it can start to feel overwhelming. For many, using substances becomes a way to try and manage that pain, something to help numb the memories and simply make it through the day.

And in that context, addiction doesn’t look like a personal failure. It looks like a survival response to something that was never meant to be carried alone.

Why standard addiction treatment isn’t always enough

Traditionally, many addiction treatment approaches have focused purely on the behaviour—stop drinking, avoid triggers, and go to meetings. And while these steps can be helpful, they often don’t go far enough. They don’t ask why someone started using substances in the first place.

If someone is using substances to soothe old emotional wounds, simply taking the substance away isn’t enough. It leaves a void. This is one of the reasons why relapse is so common when treatment doesn’t take trauma into account. It’s not that people lack the will to stay sober. In most cases, they’re doing the best they can—but they’ve never been shown how to work through the pain that’s driving the addiction in the first place.

At White River Manor, we approach things differently. Recovery, to us, isn’t just about getting someone to stop using a substance. It’s about helping them understand why they’ve been relying on it and giving them the support to heal what’s underneath.

What does trauma-specific treatment look like?

A trauma-specific approach, also known as a trauma-informed approach, means treating the whole person, not just the addiction. It’s about understanding that beneath every behaviour is a feeling, and beneath every feeling is a need that deserves to be seen and heard.

Here’s what trauma-informed care looks like in practice:

• Emotional safety – Healing can only happen in a space where people feel safe, respected and understood. No judgement, no pressure. Just a calm, supportive environment.
• The nervous system – Trauma affects the body as much as the mind. We use techniques to help regulate the nervous system so you’re not stuck in that fight-or-flight mode all the time.
• Mind-body therapies – Trauma lives in the body, so healing needs to involve more than just talking. We integrate things like yoga, art therapy, somatic work, massage and movement to help release what words can’t always reach.
• Personalised therapy – Everyone’s story is different. We offer a range of approaches—from one-to-one counselling and group therapy, to EMDR, CBT and more.
• Healthy coping tools – Recovery isn’t just about what you stop doing; it’s also about what you start doing. We help you find new ways to manage emotions, stress and relationships that don’t involve substances.

You’re not broken—you’re human

One of the most powerful parts of recovery is realising that addiction isn’t a sign of weakness—it’s a response to pain. Often, it’s the only way someone knew how to survive at the time. When you shift your perspective from “What’s wrong with me?” to “What happened to me?”—everything starts to change.

You’re not broken. You’re human. And you’ve done the best you could with the tools you had. Now it’s time to build new tools—and start healing the part of you that’s been carrying the weight alone for far too long.

Healing trauma changes everything

When people begin to work through their trauma, it’s not just their substance use that changes—it’s their whole way of life.  They start feeling more present, less reactive, more connected to themselves and others. They start feeling alive again, not just surviving but truly living.

We’ve seen it happen over and over again at White River Manor. People arrive feeling exhausted, broken, unsure of how to move forward. And with the right care, support and space to heal, they find themselves again. Often, they discover strength and peace they didn’t even know was possible.

You don’t have to carry this alone

If you’ve recognised yourself in any of what we’ve talked about here, please know you’re not alone. So many people carry the weight of trauma in silence, thinking they just need to “get over it” or “move on.” But you don’t have to carry it on your own—and you don’t have to keep numbing the pain just to get through the day.

At White River Manor, our work goes beyond helping people stop using drugs or alcohol. What we really offer is space—space to pause, to reflect, and to start making sense of what’s been carried for far too long.

Everyone arrives with their own story, and we take the time to listen. There’s no rush, no one-size-fits-all approach. Just the right support to help you find your footing and begin to feel more like yourself again.

Whether you’re just starting out or you’ve been on the road to recovery for some time, we’ll meet you where you are. And we’ll walk alongside you as you begin to build something steadier, something that lasts.

Contact us today to see how we can help.