I'm lurking about tonight. Strangely, my father sounds a lot like your XH. He had a midlife crisis around the age of 40, left my mom, moved in with his secretary and married her in a whirlwind.
He was the same kind of person who always showed up and surprised my mom with expensive things, usually for himself. My H did the same thing.
I was watching this guy talk about addiction as a disease a month ago or so. Dr. Kevin McCauley. He's a recovering addict who has done research on addiction and how the brain reacts to chemicals and so forth.
Anyway, he talks about how some people are lousy at handling stress. He says it may be partly biochemical and partly how they were taught to handle stress.
Well, for the person who can't handle stress, a purchase, drug, sex or whatever becomes the "go to" when stress strikes (like during the depression of MLC).
He's done research, at it's not the frontal lobe like everyone has thought in recent years, but the center of the brain that's affected.
So, in his opinion, it doesn't matter much what the "drug of choice" is, it's the impact it has on relieving the stress. And, the middle brain is where you have the source of your ability to handle relationships, if you will.
It's like the "high" dims the brains ability to remember the consequences of the actions and how they impact your relationships. Your brain becomes trained to seek the high anytime you feel stress and you simply don't remember or connect the dots on the bad consequences you and your family experienced the last time you relied on the "high."
Food for thought. Take what you like and leave the rest. It's helped me understand how Smokey Joe can hurt us all so deeply, over and over with such little regard for our feelings. He simply can't tolerate the stress and he's trained his brain to seek out short fits of relief.
Heather
"You know, it's times like these when I realize what a superhero I am." Tony Stark/Iron Man
“Focus on what you can do, then do it with all your heart.” Lois Wilson
