Episode Details

SYNOPSIS:
What if addiction is not only something to overcome, but an attempt to meet needs we have lost touch with?

In this rich and deeply embodied conversation, Ali speaks with somatic healing practitioner, integrative counselor and author Nina Pick about the life force beneath addiction, and what becomes possible when recovery includes not only the mind, but the body.

Nina expands the conversation about trauma and addiction beyond obvious traumatic events to include early attachment wounds, ancestral and intergenerational trauma, prenatal experience, and the subtle ways our earliest environments shape our sense of safety, belonging and connection.

Together, Ali and Nina explore addiction as an adaptation: an attempt to make the unbearable bearable, create connection, protect sensitivity, or meet needs for safety, soothing and belonging. Rather than shaming the wanting beneath addiction, they ask what our cravings may be trying to tell us about our deeper longings.

Their conversation moves into the particular sensitivity often found beneath addiction, the difference between craving and genuine desire, and the challenge of learning to want without shame.

And then, sober sex.

Nina and Ali explore why sexuality can become one of the most vulnerable territories of recovery, particularly when substances have previously made it possible to bypass sensation, boundaries, communication or fear. What might sex become when we begin again from “square one,” learning to listen to the body’s yes, no and maybe, develop interoception, communicate what we want, and discover pleasure without having to leave ourselves to experience it?

They also explore the difference between craving and pleasure, the heart-sexuality split, the relationship between presence and safety, and the possibility that recovery is not about becoming less alive, but becoming capable of inhabiting more of our aliveness.

Nina Pick is a somatic healing practitioner and integrative counselor and the author of Sober Secure: An Attachment-Based Guide to Dating, Sex, and Love in Recovery.

In this episode:

• Addiction as adaptation rather than simply pathology
• The life force and integrity beneath addictive behavior
• Attachment wounds, ancestral trauma and intergenerational patterns
• Why sensitivity can be both a vulnerability and a gift
• What addictive substances may reveal about unmet needs
• The difference between craving, longing, wanting and pleasure
• Reclaiming desire without shame
• Why sober sex can feel like starting from square one
• Sexuality as a meeting place for attachment wounds
• Listening to the body’s yes, no and maybe
• Interoception, proprioception and embodied sexuality
• Safety, presence, pleasure and the capacity for aliveness
• Finding life-giving ways to meet the needs addiction once tried to meet

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