Becoming Less Zombified: Addiction, Shame, and Healing

“A passion for music can harden into an addiction to applause, a passion for lovemaking can cheapen into addiction to sexual relief. From a mythic way of looking at it, an overriding addiction would be a demon. A demon being something that wants us not to be liberated, not to cleave to heaven in this life. It’s a word for an energy that does not wish you well. And a very wily thing to do is to make us think we are ever freer as our addictions get an even further hold.

So what do we do? We kick the robbers out of the house.

…To be addicted to porn is to tie yourself up in knots: It’s another kind of folly to sleeping around, but it’s still knot tying, there’s no greater liberation in it. Another element is control. Real sex can be unexpected, intimate, vulnerable. Porn’s going to remove the risk and heighten the safety. Somehow the animal of the body will mutiny, I’m sure of it. There are already more cases of impotence among young men than ever before, and the join-the-dots connection between all of them is heavy porn use. In the end, porn wilts, rather than inflames, desire. It deadens. May take a while to get there, may take a few stops to see where the train is heading, but that’s the destination. We become less ‘creaturely’ and more zombified.”

— Liturgies of the Wild by Martin Shaw

Addiction Is Often a Young Part Looking for Safety

Addiction is rarely random.

Most addictions begin as an attempt at protection.

Something inside us discovers a behavior, substance, fantasy, relationship, achievement, or escape that seems to offer relief from pain, shame, loneliness, fear, rejection, numbness, or chaos. For a moment, it works. The nervous system settles. The ache quiets. The body feels safer. And so a young part of us learns: this helps me survive.

That is why shame alone almost never heals addiction.

You cannot bully a terrified part of yourself into freedom.

In Liturgies of the Wild, Martin Shaw writes about addiction as something that slowly possesses and narrows us. He describes how what begins as passion can “harden” into compulsion, and how addictions often convince us we are becoming freer while we are actually becoming more trapped.

There is truth in that.

But from an Internal Family Systems perspective, we also have to ask a deeper question:

What was the addiction trying to protect in the first place?

Because most addicted parts are not evil. They are desperate.

The Addicted Part Is Usually Not the Enemy

IFS teaches that we are made up of many “parts” or inner systems.

Some parts manage life carefully. Some avoid vulnerability. Some carry wounds from childhood. Some become firefighters, rushing in impulsively to stop overwhelming pain.

Addictive behaviors are often firefighter strategies.

Porn. Alcohol. Overworking. Doom scrolling. Affairs. Food. Gambling. Weed. Shopping. Emotional numbing. Validation seeking. Even compulsive productivity.

These behaviors often emerge because some young part inside learned:

• “This helps me not feel abandoned.”

• “This keeps me from collapsing.”

• “This gives me control.”

• “This helps me not feel unwanted.”

• “This helps me escape shame.”

• “This is safer than vulnerability.”

The problem is not merely the behavior.

The problem is that eventually the strategy that once protected us begins imprisoning us.

As Shaw writes, “In the end, porn wilts, rather than inflames, desire. It deadens.”

That deadening happens emotionally too.

People often come into therapy saying:

• “I don’t feel alive anymore.”

• “I feel numb.”

• “I don’t know how to connect.”

• “I don’t know what I actually feel.”

• “I keep doing things I hate and I don’t know why.”

The protective strategy became a cage.

Compassion Is Not Permission

This is important: compassion is not the same thing as excusing destructive behavior.

IFS does not say:

“Your addiction is fine.”

It says:

“Your addiction makes sense in context.”

That is very different.

Many people are terrified that if they stop shaming themselves, they will lose control entirely. But shame often fuels the cycle. The more hated the addicted part becomes, the more isolated and desperate it feels — and the more it reaches for relief.

Healing begins when we can become curious instead of purely condemning.

Not:

“What’s wrong with me?”

But:

“What happened to me that made this feel necessary?”

Not:

“Why am I so weak?”

But:

“What is this part trying to protect me from?”

That shift matters.

Because the addicted part usually formed long before the adult self had better options.

Why Porn Often Becomes About Safety and Control

Shaw’s observation about porn and control is especially insightful.

“Real sex can be unexpected, intimate, vulnerable. Porn’s going to remove the risk and heighten the safety.”

That lands deeply for many people.

Real intimacy requires:

• mutuality

• uncertainty

• emotional exposure

• attunement

• rejection risk

• embodiment

• patience

Porn offers stimulation without vulnerability.

It creates the illusion of connection without requiring the terror of being fully known.

For many people, especially those carrying attachment wounds, rejection trauma, shame, or emotional neglect, that can feel profoundly regulating at first.

Again: the nervous system is not stupid.

It is trying to survive.

But eventually the protective strategy narrows desire instead of expanding it. People often report feeling less emotionally present, less relationally alive, and more disconnected from their own bodies over time.

Not because they are monsters.

Because the strategy stopped working.

The Goal Is Not Self-Hatred. It Is Liberation.

The goal of therapy is not to crush parts of yourself into submission.

It is to help your internal system no longer need those extreme protections.

That means helping wounded parts finally experience:

• safety

• grief

• attachment

• connection

• embodiment

• regulation

• vulnerability

• secure relationships

• self compassion

• meaning

When those deeper needs are met, compulsions often begin loosening naturally.

Not overnight.

Not magically.

But steadily.

The young parts no longer have to scream so loudly for relief.

Becoming More “Creaturely” Again

One of the most haunting lines in Shaw’s passage is this:

“We become less ‘creaturely’ and more zombified.”

Many people know exactly what that feels like.

Disembodied.

Disconnected.

Numb.

Performing life instead of inhabiting it.

Healing often looks like becoming creaturely again.

Feeling the body again.

Laughing again.

Connecting again.

Risking intimacy again.

Being present again.

Wanting real relationship again.

That journey usually does not begin with harsher self-hatred.

It begins with honesty, compassion, and courage.

The courage to finally turn toward the young parts inside that have been trying, in flawed and costly ways, to keep us alive all along.

———-

If you are struggling with addiction, shame, trauma, or disconnection, therapy can help you understand not just the behavior itself, but the deeper story underneath it.

At Dynamic Counseling, we provide trauma informed therapy in Colorado Springs and virtually across Colorado. Our therapists integrate approaches like Internal Family Systems (IFS), EMDR, addiction counseling, attachment focused therapy, and somatic work to help clients move beyond shame and toward healing, connection, and freedom.