When Emotional Pain Leads to Escape: Understanding Addiction, Trauma, and Struggling Teens

Noah was a great man. The Torah describes him as: “A righteous and wholehearted man.”

That is an extraordinarily high spiritual status. Noah survived the flood, and during the months inside the ark he continued growing spiritually. But immediately after the flood, instead of continuing to rise emotionally and spiritually, he falls.

The verse itself describes this descent: “And Noah, the man of the earth, began and planted a vineyard.” (Genesis 9:20)

Noah became drunk. Drunkenness is portrayed in the Torah as a serious disgrace, which raises a difficult question: how could a person on such a high spiritual level fall into intoxication?

Noah and Lot Shared the Same Pain

Interestingly, Noah was not the only person in the Torah who fell into drunkenness. Lot also reached that state.

There is a profound connection between Noah and Lot: both lost their entire world.

Noah witnessed the destruction of humanity through the flood. Lot witnessed the destruction of Sodom and everything familiar to him. Both endured unbearable loss and emotional devastation.

Addiction Is Often an Attempt to Escape Pain

I know someone who lost many members of his community and many close friends during the tragedy of Simchat Torah on October 7.

He told me that living with the memories feels unbearably painful, and that the temptation to escape into a world without worry is incredibly strong, even if the escape itself is temporary and ultimately false.

There are countless forms of escape. Alcohol is one of them.

In fact, the Book of Proverbs says explicitly: “Give strong drink to one who is perishing, and wine to the bitter of soul.” (Proverbs 31:6)

The escape into addiction is often not driven primarily by pleasure or desire. It is usually an attempt to numb deep emotional pain.

The Search for Emotional Painkillers

All human beings are exposed to temptations. But emotionally healthy people generally know how to manage those temptations without becoming consumed by them. When they notice that a certain behavior is harming themselves or the people around them, they are able to stop.

When a person cannot stop, it is often because something much deeper is happening internally.

Sometimes the person feels emotionally lost, overwhelmed by grief, consumed by guilt, or buried beneath frustration and pain. And so the person begins searching for emotional painkillers.

Fighting only the symptoms is usually ineffective. It becomes an endless exhausting war. The deeper wisdom is learning to heal the root of the pain itself.

Seeing the Pain Beneath the Behavior

As parents of teenagers struggling in these ways, we often feel helpless watching someone we love behave so destructively toward themselves.

Ignoring the situation and pretending it is not happening does not help. But constant criticism, lectures, blame, or attempts to frighten them about the severity of their behavior are usually not effective either.

If we truly want to help teenagers in dangerous emotional states, we first need to understand the root of what they are experiencing.

We must learn to see the trauma, the loneliness, and the emotional pain driving them to escape from themselves.

Even if we do not yet fully understand the exact source of the pain, the pain itself is almost certainly there.

From Blame to Empathy

The moment we begin understanding that there is deep suffering beneath the behavior, everything changes.

Instead of reacting from anger, blame, disappointment, or frustration, which usually pushes the teenager even further away, we can begin responding with empathy, patience, emotional containment, and support.

That does not instantly solve everything. The road is still long.

Helping struggling teenagers often requires rebuilding emotional connection, strengthening trust, showing love and acceptance, creating experiences of success, finding healthier educational environments, and sometimes seeking professional treatment and guidance.

But the first step always begins in the same place: Awareness, empathy, and strengthening the emotional bond with the struggling child.

May we merit to become good messengers in the journey of the precious souls we have been chosen to accompany.