Validation: a cunning, baffling and powerful addiction

A short while ago, I was sitting in a session with a young adult male with more than 18 months sober. He is in counseling to work through some stuck points in his recovery that have recently popped up. He is an avid member of a 12-Step fellowship and maintains a relationship with the alumni association of the facility he attended for treatment. On the surface he is doing everything an addiction professional could dream of, yet he is unhappy, restless and irritable.

One of the factors that became evident through his assessment is that he is on constant guard as to where he falls on the “coolness scale” with all those around him. He has an obsessive preoccupation with how others perceive him. He picks his sexual partners, friends, even acquaintances through a rating scale based on power and dominance. The image he projects to the world is this carefully crafted God among men. “I want to be the guy that guys want to be and girls want to be with, that everyone looks at and knows I have it going on,” he remarked one day.

I looked at him and said, “That certainly seems like a lot of work; I think it is sad.” He looked at me dazed and confused and asked, “What do you mean?” I simply said, “It makes me sad that you don’t have relationships—you have hostages.”

I explained it using addiction-related terms with which he was familiar. Validation is the drug and our hostages are our dealers. We seek out the sick and suffering in order to consummate a parasitic relationship. Sometimes it is sexual in nature; however, it is not about the sex. It is about the tortuous need for validation—soothing the unquenchable thirst reflected in the question, “Am I OK?”

In an overt sense it looks like: Boy sees girl and flirts with her. Girl flirts back; boy receives validation and is elated. He is on top of the world, euphoric with his recent dose of validation. He has received validation of his self-created false self. He does not even need to have sex, but sometimes does in order secure a new validation dealer. Boy says to himself, “I am the man.” When things go wrong, it looks like: Boy sees girl and flirts with her. Girl does not flirt back; boy is rejected and receives validation that he is not OK. Boy is at an all-time low, dejected from the rejection. He just received confirmation that he is his unworthiness. Boy says, “See, I knew I was crap.” His restlessness increases as his need for validation, dressed up as sexual frustration, increases. This feeling of powerlessness fuels a need for power and control.

In a similar but less overt manner: Boy walks into room with other boys and instantly goes into competition mode. Who is the best-looking? Who has the cool factor? Who has slept with the most women? Who can bench the most weight? Who is the most outgoing? And the most important question of all: “How do I rank?” It is all about power and domination.

Like a lion in the Serengeti stalking his prey, he goes after what he perceives as a weak, easy target in his quest for validation. The need for validation creates the drive to be seen as special. Being one among the crowd will never do for our validation junkie. The most skilled of these addicts can relate to fitting into any environment. His peer group and environment define him.

Being everyone but oneself

As we were talking, my client identified with my description, saying that in his closet he has many different types of clothes from all the different types of groups he would hang out with. He knew how to dress to fit in with the preps, or the street kids. He even had a serious hat collection that allowed him to fit in with a group of guys in his sober living environment. These are all the paraphernalia of unworthiness. The internal narrative sounds like, “I on my own am simply not enough.”

Searching, yearning, seeking, running, reaching, craving: These are all tools the ego utilizes to act out our unworthiness. In a culture of unworthiness we are inundated with messages such as “You complete me” and “Average is the enemy.” When we think of ego in Western culture we think of our good friend arrogance. In Eastern culture we are taught that ego is a two-sided coin. On one side we have arrogance and on the other side we have unworthiness. Both are equal manifestations of an inauthentic self.

It is not uncommon to hear this played out in the rooms of 12-Step meetings: “I am an egomaniac with an inferiority complex.” From an Eastern philosophy this is the ego. We are all very familiar with arrogance or the puffing up of ourselves; however, we are less familiar with the other side of the coin, our unworthiness. Unworthiness is the diminishing, contracting and/or covering up of our authentic self. In my work with addiction and persons in recovery, I have found that we use arrogance to cover up our unworthiness. The problem with this is that we actually believe we are our unworthiness. As insight increases, we recognize arrogance as a mask that we use to shield ourselves from the world.

The fact is that neither is true. We are not our arrogance, nor are we our unworthiness. Both are masks we have created in order to fill a need or void. We use arrogance as a coping strategy to deal with the pathology of unworthiness. “If I cover up what I mistakenly believe about myself, maybe they will never know; maybe I won’t be found out.” As with most things, unworthiness is most dangerous when it is unconscious. The more arrogant a person is, the greater the unworthiness—one simply does not exist without the other.

The underbelly of the hunger screams out, “Tell me I am OK.” Validation is the balm that soothes the wound left behind from the injury of shame. At some point we received a message that we are not OK. The message was internalized, as it usually originates from a powerful external source. This source can be our parents or other primary childhood care providers. It can be religious leaders, coaches, teachers, or our peer group. But at some point in our childhood development we internalized the perception that “who I am is not acceptable or pleasing.” The result of this mistaken belief is a natural creation of a false self.

This false self is a mask to hide the undesirable self. The client believes that this undesirable self is who he truly is. Validation helps to reinforce that the false self is working as well as the undesirable self does not work.

I offered a mantra for my client to begin working with: “No better, no worse.” When I explained that the mantra was a simple reminder that “I am no better and no worse than any other human being that has ever walked or will ever walk this planet; and that no human being that has ever walked this planet or will walk this planet is any better or worse than me,” my client's face instantly turned red. I asked what he was feeling and he said, “But that goes against everything I have ever believed.” I simply smiled and encouraged him to try it out.

Connecting with authentic self

Naming the above-referenced egomaniac with an inferiority complex is not enough. We must be equipped to address the situation as well. Vulnerability is both the enemy and the answer. The risk of having the undesirable self revealed is the payment for entry into a life of freedom and authentic acceptance. For only when we are willing to take down a brick from the wall of our defenses can we hope to connect with our authentic self. Clients seem to have trouble accepting the idea that they are not their unworthiness or their arrogance.

One of the definitions of encouragement is “to build courage.” That is exactly what helps give the client enough strength to be willing to take an honest look at him/herself. Being able to hold a vision of the client in a way that speaks to the authentic self actually helps to bring it out more. It requires us as counselors to be in tune with our clients in order to decipher the difference between their authentic self and their arrogance or unworthiness.

Encouraging authenticity actually becomes a balm that soothes the wounded heart. Validating the authentic self is critical, and creates a space where the client can begin to trust the process of authenticity. This sounds contra-indicated but indeed it is not. When we validate the authentic self, we are actually giving clients permission to be themselves, rather than reinforcing the need to hide the truth of who they are.

Marc Pimsler, NCAC, CAC II, ACRPS, CYT, works with ACTS Consulting, Inc., providing trainings for those seeking initial certification and recertification as addiction counselors. Since 2004 he has worked in a variety of counseling and consulting capacities in the metropolitan Atlanta area. Grounded in the belief system that everyone has the capacity to recover, he brings humor and spirituality to everything in which he is involved.