Some say that people who are addicts are stuck at the age they first started using until they not only stop using drugs, alcohol, sex, etc. and begin recovery but also do the emotional work that is entailed in the full concept of recovery. Social and emotional development is halted. This is also referred to as a "dry drunk". Some also say that trauma can create sticky points in social and emotional development, particularly when a person is under stress. I've seen a seventeen year old boy suck his thumb and sit and rock, urinate on someone else's clothes when that person irritated him, talk in the high pitched, musical cadence of toddlerhood when feeling powerless.
Georgette Wonders was my minister at the UU church I attended for about five years. She and I got to be friends for a while until I got a bit overwhelmed in various areas of my life and stopped attending church. She once told me when she sees me, she sees my "inner" 13 year old boy. She expected to see a slingshot in my pocket whenever I turned around. My thought was, "Yeah. She sees me." I repeated her impression to my very good friend Jeannine. Her face lit up a bit and she said, "Well that makes all kinds of sense!" Am I stuck at age thirteen in some measure, for whatever reason? I doubt that, since I am successful at maintaining a large amount of responsibility. That part of me, the responsible part that mostly runs my life, is a durable but semi-porous wall containing my real self, that mischievous kid. So who is stuck, "him" or "me"?
