My relatives were caring people who looked after me as best they could, but I have to imagine that to a year-old infant, they were complete strangers. The small child’s natural response to overwhelming emotional loss is a defensive shut-down. I’ve had a lifelong resistance to receiving love—not to being loved or even to knowing intellectually that I am loved, but to accepting love vulnerably and openly on a visceral, emotional level. People who cannot find or receive love need to find substitutes—and that’s where addictions come in.
