Transforming Jealousy: Navigating Relationships in Addiction Recovery

Escaping the drama triangle

According to researchers Chung and Harris, jealousy always involves the presence of a rival; a rival for your loved one’s attention or affection.

I think that the standard go-to when thinking about jealousy is a romantic relationship or maybe a sibling relationship, but I wanted to mix things up a bit and link it into my work with addiction.

Enchanting him with her seductive charms

His lips flame with desire

Inhaling her perfume,

Collapsing into her sweet caress,

Collapsing, collapsing, collapsing.

Into his senseless liquor love. 

When someone is in their addiction they are lost to it and for family and friends of the addict it can bring up feelings of jealousy and resentment. Even if the person gets sober and works hard on their sobriety through regularly attending 12 step meetings or SMART groups, that can bring up jealousy too.

It can feel like the recovering addict is still ‘lost’; but rather than being lost to their addiction they are now seemingly ‘lost’ to their recovery, putting the necessary care and attention to their sobriety.

Of course, such care and attention is vital, but it can mean that their capacity for other important relationships can be compromised. This often causes arguments and tension because often the partner or family member has already been feeling the fall out from someone’s addiction. They may initially sense some relief at the addict admitting their need for help, but didn’t quite envisage that this would mean that they would remain unavailable to them in a different way.

In this kind of situation the drama triangle is often at play. The drama triangle comes from the work of Dr. Stephen Karpman and falls within the modality of therapy called Transactional Analysis. As conflict arises, people easily fall into a dynamic where they take on a particular role. This could be:

The Rescuer: ‘I’ll do it’, ‘What you should do is’, ‘Move over, I’ve got this’.

The rescuer wants the pain to go away, but this can be at the expense of solving the core issue. Solving the core issue takes time, resources and understanding which can all feel too much. If you hear yourself impatiently saying, ‘Here, I’ll do it’ then you can be sure that you’ve caped up.

We can also have an internal rescuer. In addiction, the little voice that says, ‘Aha! I’ve got this, I can take that social anxiety away for you as we step into this party. It’s simple, head to the bar. Head to the baaaaarrrrrr, do not pass go, do not collect £200’. The substance, the behaviour, partly becomes so addictive because it works; it rescues the person from the shame, emotional dysregulation and sense of hopelessness.

Next up is the Persecutor:

Persecutor: ‘I know best’, ‘Who do you think you are’, ‘As if I’m listening to you’.

For the persecutor blame is the name of the game. Their sense of superiority is so great they must be getting altitude sickness. Their job is to take control and get things done according to their agenda. They can often act as if they are a victim whilst in this role, as beautifully demonstrated by Mother Gothel here.

In our own internal world. this shows up as the inner critic or critical parent voice. When this rears up it can be helpful to THINK. Asking, ‘Is it:

True

Helpful

Inspiring

Necessary 

Kind?’¹

That inner voice is trying to tell us something. Befriend it, thank it for being there, invite it to tell you once and for ALL what is so vital that it needs to constantly nag at you 24/7. Then apply THINK and integrate what you have learned. After all, we are in control of what we think!

As I mentioned, if the persecutor is challenged then they can easily slip into the final role; that of the

Victim: ‘What’s the point’, ‘It always happens to me’, ‘I can’t because of…’

The victim lives in helpless hopeless hapless woe. Internally the voice will be one of shame, ‘I’m useless’ or ‘I don’t matter’.

It doesn’t take much for people to move around the triangle quite easily whilst in conflict. For example, the rescuer gets resentful, but can’t state their needs because they gain esteem from being the rescuer, so soon you hear ‘I’ll do it, it’s always me’ with an eye roll which, oops, look, they have slipped into victim and then give it a while and the narrative can change into ‘I have to pick up the pieces because YOU don’t man up! ‘ Ooh, hello persecutor.

So how can we get out of it? Well, here’s one I prepared earlier (yes, I did always want to be a Blue Peter presenter, but I only ever managed to help my youngest son get a diamond Blue Peter Badge a few years ago…anyway, I digress):

David Emerald saw that drama triangle and flipped it on its head quicker than you can say ‘Do you want fries with that?’. He suggested a different path for each of the roles:

Victim → Creator

Victims move to creators when they get curious, understanding their vulnerabilities and needs. They work on seeing their own strengths so that they can use those to move towards a sense of purpose, taking responsibility for their life by thinking about what they DO want and moving towards that.

That can be done through asking, ‘What do I want and what do I need in order to get that?’ It may very well involve boundaries that they need to set for themselves which can be tricky, but keeping the focus on what they want and why will help them stay the course.

Rescuer→Coach

Rather than taking over, the rescuer can use their skills to coach another. They develop compassion for the other person as they begin to listen and understand the person that they are trying to help. In addiction recovery this is what is often referred to as offering people your ‘experience, strength and hope’. It is not a case of saying ‘Do this’, but instead saying, ‘This is what has worked for me.’ They remember that giving advice without being asked for it is interfering. The coach role is about encouraging others to take responsibility for what they want. ‘What do you think you need to handle that’ is a great question for the coach to ask.

Persecutor→ Challenger

Finally the good old persecutor can become the challenger,

Now they swap their railroading with taking a minute or two to pause, reflect and respond with clarity. They can still problem solve through asking questions to help others gain their own insights and solutions. They can detach their own emotions from the situation and the outcome, understanding that when people have freedom from the fear of blame they are likely to be able to be more creative in the way that they think.

We all have our starting position that we are likely to have adopted thanks to family dynamics and birth order, but having awareness about these roles is the first step to freedom from the drama triangle.

Can you identify which role you normally take on? How have you changed it or what do you think you will do differently now? I definitely danced between rescuer and victim - mmm, and now I am The Therapeutic Poet. According to Emerald’s model I think that’s progress!

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That’s it for now,

‘Til next time!

Jacky x

1. This is taken from British Pastor Alan Redpath.