When, owing to internal demons arising from their own childhoods or to external stressors in their lives, parents are unable to regulate—that is, keep within a tolerable range—the emotional milieu of the infant, the child’s brain has to adapt: by tuning out, by emotional shutting down, and by learning to find ways to self-soothe through rocking, thumb-sucking, eating, sleeping, or constantly looking to external sources of comfort. This is the ever-agitated, ever-yawning emptiness that lies at the heart of addiction.
