Cptsd and Addictions: The Body Desperately Seeking Safety

What if addiction wasn’t about weakness... but about safety?

This question changed my life—and it’s one I want to invite you to sit with for a moment.

Because what if your addiction—whatever form it takes—is not a moral failing or a broken will…
…but your nervous system doing exactly what it was wired to do: keep you alive in unsafe conditions?

🚨 Addiction as a Survival Strategy

When we think of addiction, our minds often jump to substances—alcohol, nicotine, pills. But the truth is, addiction wears many faces:

• Overeating or undereating

• Obsessive scrolling

• Porn or shopping

• People-pleasing

• Staying in toxic relationships

• Workaholism or perfectionism

Addictions are not always about pleasure.
They are often about relief—from anxiety, emptiness, loneliness, or the unbearable feeling of being unsafe inside your own skin.

They are the body’s attempt to soothe, to stabilize, to regulate.
Not rationally, but instinctively.

And until we address the need that the addiction is serving, trying to quit through sheer willpower can feel like trying to hold your breath indefinitely. Eventually, the body will override your efforts.

🌪️ My First Addiction Wasn’t a Substance—It Was People-Pleasing

Before I ever had an issue with sugar, overworking, or toxic love—I was addicted to approval.

Fawning was my nervous system’s go-to response to trauma.
It told me:

“If I can just make everyone else happy…
If I can be what they need…
Maybe I’ll finally be safe.”

I became an expert at reading the room, shrinking my needs, and performing peacekeeper in every relationship.
On the outside, I seemed selfless.
On the inside, I was crumbling—trapped in a cycle I couldn’t see, yet couldn’t break.

What I didn’t know then was this:
Fawning is an addiction just like any other.
It’s a coping strategy rooted in fear.
And no amount of self-help books or pep talks were going to heal what lived in my nervous system.

🔄 The Body Remembers

The nervous system is like a security system that never got the memo the danger is over.
If your body doesn’t feel safe, it will reach for whatever helps it cope, even if that thing comes with a cost.

That’s why addiction recovery without nervous system healing often doesn’t stick.
Because the body is still stuck in survival.
And survival always trumps logic.

🌱 So What Actually Works?

Here’s what changed everything for me—and what I now teach in my work:

Compassionate somatic healing.

This means:

• Learning how to recognize the cues your nervous system is sending

• Replacing judgment with curiosity

• Practicing gentle, body-based tools to create internal safety

• Building the capacity to sit with discomfort without needing to numb it

Healing addiction isn’t about punishing the part of you that’s coping.
It’s about loving it into safety, until it no longer needs to reach for something outside of you to feel okay.

🧘‍♀️ You Are Not Broken—You’re Brilliantly Wired to Survive

If you’ve been stuck in a pattern you didn’t choose, I want you to know:
Your body is not your enemy.
Your cravings are not betrayal.
They are a signal—a cry for safety, connection, and peace.

And those things are possible.
They’re not just for other people.
They’re for you, too.

💻 Want to Go Deeper?

If this resonates, I invite you to join my upcoming free live webinar: “Addictions & Safety” where I’ll be guiding you through:

• Why addictions form in the nervous system

• How fawning, numbing, and self-sabotage are trauma loops in disguise

• Gentle somatic tools to begin shifting these patterns

• How the School of Transformation acts like a nervous system gym—helping you rebuild safety from the inside out

This space is for anyone who’s ready to understand themselves instead of fight themselves.
You are welcome here—exactly as you are.

👉 Learn more about the School of Transformation and what we DO .... HERE!

With warmth and deep belief in your healing,
Michele Lee Nieves
Founder of the School of Transformation