By: Alaina Halbur, LMFT, CLC, MT-BC
The first time I heard the phrase, “self-medicating with success”, I had one of those mind blown, shock and awe moments. I had never thought about the possibility of misusing success. So I sat with the thought, as I often do, to give myself time to assess myself and better understand how it may apply in the context of therapy as well.
The first thing I thought about was ‘what is my definition of success?’. I quickly realized how we all probably have different definitions of what success is. So if you’re asking yourself this question too, here are the questions that I used to define success for myself:
Who/what determines if I have been successful in a day?
What activities do I do that bring the greatest satisfaction/feeling of success?
What things or reactions create feelings of failure?
What do I do when I feel unsuccessful/like a failure?
How do I build/create a healthy mindset around success and failure?
What will my response be when other’s project their perceptions about my success and/or failures?
Depending on your answers, you may start to see a pattern. You may also realize how you judge yourself or believe others judge you on a daily basis. I quickly realized I needed to find a more consistent way of 'assigning' success in my day to day life. If you're wondering what self-medicating with success may look like in day to day life, here is an example:
You’ve been trying to put the kids to bed, it’s not going well. You finally get them settled in, it’s 9:00p.m., and you go out to the living room, open your laptop, and do some work.
Opening that laptop to do work after a “failed attempt at getting the kids to bed on time”, could be an example of self-medicating with success. For some, when they fail, they look for a way to succeed in order to get rid of (medicate) the feeling of failure. Being productive/getting work done now becomes a way to treat and mask failure instead of decompress and rest/recover. An alternative option would be to spend 10 minutes decompressing and processing what happened during the bedtime routine. This includes your feelings, what your kids were feeling, and what you may try moving forward. The difference here is that you’re taking time to attend to the “failure” before moving on to something else. You’re not looking to success, productivity, or someone else in order to deal with your struggle. Now, I’m not saying that if you don’t get your kids to bed on time with happy faces it’s a failure, it’s not, it’s a very common thing. However, some parents may internalize this experience as a failure without even knowing it.
We can apply this concept to many situations. Here are a few more examples below:
Applying to hundreds of jobs and not getting a response/interview so you keep doing more and trying harder (medicating with success in hopes of achieving the result you want--finding a job=value/stability).
Putting yourself out there in the dating world but not finding anyone that you connect with so you decide this is as good as it’s going to get and keep seeing someone you don’t really see a future with but “it’s better than being alone” (medicating with the perceived success that if I have a significant other, I’m valuable/normal/accepted).
In order for us to determine if we are self-medicating with success, we have to be honest with ourselves and ask some deep questions. The more we understand ourselves, the easier it is to remain in a place of contentment and peace in our lives without feeling the pressure to do more/be better/achieve the next thing in life. It’s important to have goals and strive to be the best version of yourself, but success is not what makes you valuable. It’s a false sense of value based on your perception and the perception of what other people believe is successful—and that can change depending on the day. Contentment comes from believing you’ve done your best in every circumstance, and if you realize you didn’t do your best, instead of self-medicating with success (achieving more/avoiding/shaming/etc.), take responsibility, attend to whatever feelings have come up, and be intentional about what steps you will take to respond/act differently next time.

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