Some individuals struggle with an addiction to chaos, continually seeking out drama and dysfunction even after entering recovery from substance abuse. This stems from being raised in chaotic environments where dysfunction was normalized. Without their substance coping mechanism, these individuals experience anxiety and gravitate towards chaos unconsciously as a way to manage that anxiety in the only way they know. One can become addicted to chaos in a similar way as other addictions, continually engaging in distressing behaviors despite consequences. To manage an addiction to chaos, one should seek help from a mental health professional, learn how to manage anxiety through other means, identify contributing chaotic factors and when most prone to seek them out, and set clear boundaries around what dysfunction they will and will not tolerate in their recovery

1. Are You Addicted to
Chaos?
“I get uncomfortable when everything is going well in my relationship. That’s not normal to me; normal
is boring and I don’t know how to be in relationships that are like that. I continually seek out drama
because that’s what I know how to handle.” Such is a common sentiment expressed by patients
struggling with relational components of their chaotic lives.
Working in an inpatient treatment setting, I find my patients constantly resisting letting go of the chaos
and dysfunction that was part of their lives during their active addiction. They may be immersed in
interpersonal conflict over which residents are not cleaning up after themselves, loudly arguing with
their spouses on the phone, or perseverating on the outside stressors requiring management once
they complete treatment. Some patients are able to maintain a strong focus on gratitude and peace
within their newfound recoveries, but others can’t seem to find a way out of the eye of the storm and
seemingly replace one chaotic situation for another. I used to question why the latter demographic
would actively invite tension into their treatment until I better understood the nature of their overall
addiction.
I believe that addiction – to anything – is just the tip of the iceberg within a person’s life. The addiction
pokes its head out of the surface of the water, but underneath are many layers of unresolved conflict
and trauma that the addiction is hiding below the surface. Furthermore, the addiction serves as a
maladaptive tool to manage anxiety that is derived from the other layers of unresolved dysfunction.
When addicts first become sober, two things can happen: the addict experiences much anxiety over
the heightened awareness of exactly how big their “iceberg” really is, and there is a gravitational pull
toward continuing to surround themselves with any chaos and drama that is available as means to
manage that anxiety.
Many addicts have been raised in environments saturated with intergenerational addiction, abuse,
and mental illness. Within these environments, chaos is as normal as cereal and cartoons on
Saturday mornings. Whether it is constant yelling and screaming, children coming home from school
to find their caregiver(s) severely under the influence and in need of a caregiver themselves, or
people coming and going in rotating-door fashion, chaos and dysfunction can cause much trauma.
Continuous chaos can also be normalized over time as home environments with these characteristics
come to solidify themselves as predictably unpredictable.
A person being raised in an environment with these characteristics also learns how to control the
chaos so that it can become manageable and functional within their lives (the notion of “control” is a
prominent factor in this regard). Moving forward in life, that individual’s viewpoint of the world is
altered in accommodation of dysfunction and their “wires” become crossed: what is chaotic is viewed
as normal, and what is supposed to be normal becomes chaotic and overwhelming within their
perspective. They may further create chaos out of everyday situations to be able to manage their
lives as they had been accustomed to already doing.

2. This leads to the question, “can one become addicted to chaos?”
First of all, an easy way to determine if a behavior is problematic is when it begins to impact an
individual’s daily functioning. If a person is so consumed by engagement in a behavior that it impacts
their ability to eat, sleep, and bathe regularly; the quality of their relationships; their finances and/or
employment; or any other factor that is embodied in the normalcy of a person’s life, we might need to
take a close look at how to manage that behavior. Furthermore, when the individual continues to
engage in that behavior despite the growing consequences and possesses a compulsive craving for
participating in this behavior, we are entering the realm of what we know as “addiction.”
When an individual continues to gravitate toward that which is chaotic to the point of their functioning
being impacted, they may perpetually engage in behaviors that are distressing, traumatic, and
promote overall dysfunction. They may do this despite the consequences resulting from these
behaviors, and the process can also certainly impact their interpersonal relationships.
That all being said, a person can become addicted to chaos just as others become addicted to vodka
or shopping. The concept of “chaos” may be more difficult to pinpoint due to its abstract and
qualitative nature, however, but the addictive pattern it demonstrates can be similar to any other
commonly-known addictive behavior. In fact, an “addiction to chaos” may be underlying a
diagnosable addiction to a substance (for example), because that substance is arguably the coping
mechanism used to maladaptively manage the gravitation toward what is chaotic and dysfunctional.
How does one manage an addiction to chaos?
 Start with a professional.
There needs to be an awareness of this gravitation toward addiction first and foremost. If you, the
reader, resonate with the concepts outlined above, I very much encourage you to speak to a mental
health provider about the nature and patterns of your behaviors for further assessment and
evaluation. As I am cognizant of this concept being much larger than what I am capable of addressing
within this article, any diagnosis or treatment is best left to a clinician that is able to guide and support
you through this journey of treatment for your symptomology.
 Learn how to manage anxiety.
If you are early in recovery, understand that anxiety is typical within this process. Remember that
addiction is serving the purpose of managing anxiety, and when a person discontinues their addictive
behaviors, that anxiety rears its ugly head again. Furthermore, one might seek out chaos to manage

3. the discomfort that comes with the new normal recovery brings. If you have been conditioned to
anticipate chaos in the environment a la “waiting for the other shoe to drop,” you may spearhead
similar behaviors as means to feel that you are in control of your continually dysfunctional
environment. Unfortunately, this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and you are still caught in the
vicious cycle of using chaos to manage unresolved anxiety that was originally derived from the chaos.
For the person accustomed to anxiety, there is a fear in the calm, as it is unknown and foreign. This is
where learning how to sit with this calm, accepting it as being safe, and managing any resulting
anxiety is key. The more you practice this, the more you are empowering yourself by reinforcing that
calm is healthy and that engagement in chaos will only perpetuate the anxiety you wished to avoid in
the first place.
 Identify the contributing factors associated with chaos.
Identify the relationships, environments, and circumstances that are contributing to the overall chaos.
Determine your desire to change these factors, and also understand how and when you are likely to
engage in these patterns. Remember that you may not be able to create immediate change in these
areas (i.e. you may not be able to suddenly quit a job that is contributing to your life’s chaos), but
identifying your goals in changing these patterns opens the door to setting a plan for change.
Furthermore, you may not desire to end a relationship that is chaotic, but it is still important to
understand the dysfunctional patterns embedded in this relationship that requires change.
Understand when you are prone to seek out chaos (the HALT acronym is a helpful tool to increase
awareness), and develop a plan for how you will combat the tendency to immerse yourself in chaos
as means to cope with other unresolved problems.
 Treat engagement in chaotic behaviors the same as you would a
relapse.
If we are looking at chaos through the lens of addiction, why should we look at treatment of chaos in
any other way? For instance, if you are sober from alcohol but continue to seek out and initiate
arguments with your significant other, you are inherently exchanging one addictive behavior with
another. In setting and initiating a relapse prevention plan from a substance, incorporate preventing
chaos into this plan and treat it with the same level of severity that you would any other relapse. As
chaos can precede or follow substance use itself, it’s necessary to use chaos as a marker for relapse
behaviors associated with that use.
 Set your boundaries about what you will and will not tolerate within
your recovery.
Determine your bottom line in regard to what dysfunction you will and won’t allow within your life.
When we determine our bottom lines, we are provided with a pathway for the boundaries we want to

4. set to protect and support those bottom lines. If your bottom line is that you will not allow someone to
affect your mood by their fixation on drama, it’s best not to allow them to share yet another story with
you about an interpersonal conflict they are having. Redirect them or leave the conversation. This
also takes practice, but identifying your bottom line is the first step in applying the boundaries need to
employ in order to protect your overall recovery.
http://www.recovery.org/pro/articles/are-you-addicted-to-chaos/