Mel Robbins explains how a critical, emotionally unavailable mother creates a hunger for connection that can drive addiction later in life. When a child doesn't get seen and valued at home, substances that trigger dopamine can feel like the only way to fill that void, eventually becoming compulsive.
Chapters
What does an unkind mother look like? A mother who would look at your developing body, let's say, and say something really cruel about your body. You're too fat to wear that. Or, um, a mother who would purposefully pit your siblings against each other, um, in service to her. A mother who routinely wasn't there to pick you up. And when you got home and you were upset, she would yell at you. A mother who, when you came home from school, let's say you're in second grade, you're a little girl, and you've had a rough day at school. The teacher criticized you, or maybe your best friends all sat at a different table and you weren't invited. And you go to your mom wanting comfort, and she says, "Well, who would want to be your friend anyway? You're such a mean little girl. I don't know how you have friends." That's what I mean. A mother who literally cannot attune and will be critical, that kind of abuse, every daughter that I've worked with that has grown up with that will have an addiction. Why? Because an addiction gives us a sense of connection. If you think about the signs of early addiction, here are the symptoms. Well, there's a dopamine hit, so you feel higher, you feel happier. Connection does the same thing. When you connect with someone who likes you, you feel a little bit higher for that moment. You get energy from it. You get energy from an addiction as well. And then you get more clarity, like an addiction early on before it becomes a problem. You're thinking more clearly. You feel like, oh, I got this. Now I understand and I've got a goal. Same when you're in connection with someone who likes you, who's tuning in. After that connection, you don't feel depleted. You'll have lunch and you'll come out energized. You know yourself better. You know where you're gonna go next. That's connection. Every substance in its original form feels like connection. It takes the place of a human connect. It works. It's working on the same dopaminergic kind of synapses in our brain that a good friend would, that a good partner would. But then we want more and we go get more. And addiction is meant to cause a craving and we have the craving anyway if we have mother hunger, right? So we're gonna go get more and eventually addiction's gonna start kicking our butt. Mm. And that's usually when they end up in my office.
