The Real Addiction Nobody Talks About: Avoidance

And yes, it’s killing your body, your voice, and your capacity to live whole.

By Kim Brassor

One Voice Evolving | Trouble with 12-Step

We talk a lot about substance addiction.

Even behavioral addiction.

But let’s tell the whole truth:

One of the most accepted, rewarded, and normalized addiction in our culture is avoidance.

Avoiding discomfort. Avoiding confrontation. Avoiding grief. Avoiding truth.

And the wild part?

Most of us were taught to call that healing.

We learned to avoid early.

It looked like “being a good kid.”

It looked like “keeping the peace.”

It looked like “letting it go.”

And it worked — for a while.

Because when you’re a child (or a recovering child in a grown-ass body), avoiding your truth feels safer than losing love, losing approval, losing belonging.

But here’s the thing: Avoidance is a short-term strategy with long-term side effects.

It keeps us alive at first. Then it keeps us from living.

How avoidance shows up now:

• Ghosting your own needs

• Explaining instead of expressing

• Numbing with “wellness”

• Saying “it’s fine” while your chest tightens

• Using gratitude as a muzzle

• Obsessing over someone else’s healing so you don’t have to face your own

Avoidance wears costumes: Politeness. Humility. Optimism. Non-attachment. Even “spiritual maturity.”

And if you grew up around trauma, codependency, or the performance of recovery?

Avoidance probably became your survival artform. But survival is not the same as embodiment.

And spiritual bypassing is just avoidance in a prettier outfit.

Avoidance is a body-based addiction.

Here’s what I mean: It gives you a chemical hit. Just like any drug. Dopamine from “not rocking the boat.” Cortisol from staying quiet. The false safety of shrinking.

But eventually… the body keeps the score.

In your fatigue, resentment, low-grade grief, or your personal “I’m fine” that tastes like surrender.

Your nervous system isn’t confused. It’s just done playing dead.

So what now?

You stop performing safety.

You stop letting silence parent you.

You get honest — out loud.

Even if your voice shakes. Especially then.

This is the real work:

• Confront the story you were raised with.

• Stay present when you want to run.

• Let your body say what your mouth’s been trained to swallow.

This isn’t self-help. This isn’t survival. This is reconstruction.

One Voice Evolving helps you lean in instead of hide out.

Avoidance taught us to delay our truth.

Liberation teaches us to move toward it — even when it’s messy, loud, and not universally approved.

Avoidance won’t keep you safe. It’ll just keep you small.

You deserve to outgrow your silence, grieve without apologizing, and tell the truth without repercussions.

And if no one ever told you this? I will.

You’re allowed to feel it all and not collapse.

You’re allowed to stay present and still protect yourself.

You’re allowed to come home to yourself — even if it costs you a system you were never meant to belong to.

💌 Want help breaking the avoidance loop?

The Speak Up Starter Pack is made for this.

It’s not about yelling.

It’s about returning to your voice,

with clarity, safety, and zero performance.

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🔹 Reframe everyday gaslighting

🔹 Tell your truth without spiraling

🔹 Nervous system-aware practices for speaking while shaking

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Because truth doesn’t require perfection. Just presence.

Still here? That’s not nothing.

Tell me — what’s one truth you’ve been avoiding?

No shame. Just name it. That’s where the power starts.

Hugs,

—Kim

P.S.-I wanted to let you know that I've got something special brewing. It's called "The Trouble with 12-Step" and it will be on Substack soon. Stay tuned.