The Addiction of Becoming Someone Else
Sam McDonald's new book
What if addiction isn't always to something we think we're addicted to?
Sam McDonald's new book exploring identity, addiction, shame, adaptation and the human need to become someone who feels worthy of belonging.
You don't have to consider yourself an addict to read this book, you may simply recognise something familiar in the idea of becoming very good at being the person you learned you needed to be, instead of the authenticity you wanted to be.
You may relate to being the successful one, the responsible one, the strong one, the achiever, the rescuer, the perfectionist, the person everyone needs, the one who keeps everything together... these identities can work remarkably well, until they don't.
This book invites you to look beyond the behaviour and ask a different question:
"How did I become who I became?" and perhaps, more importantly: "Who might I become if I no longer needed to become someone else?"
What the book explores
The Addiction of Becoming Someone Else explores what may lie beneath the behaviours we commonly describe as addiction. It asks whether the substance or behaviour is always the whole story - or whether, sometimes, it is also an attempt to meet deeper human needs: to feel safe, significant, connected, worthy, wanted or real.
The book brings together questions about addiction, shame, self-abandonment, identity, adaptation, relationships, belonging and the environments in which we become ourselves. It does not suggest that addiction can be reduced to identity or that biology and neuroscience are irrelevant. It does, however, suggest a substance is not always the whole story, even though its pharmacological effects add another layer that cannot be overlooked.
Instead, the book asks us to look at the whole human being. Behind the behaviour is a person and behind the person is a history where there are relationships, experiences, adaptations, environments and meanings and beneath all of these is a question we may rarely ask:
"How did this person become who they became?" Perhaps understanding that question can open another:
"Who might they become if they no longer needed to become someone else?"
The addiction of becoming someone else©
The title is deliberately provocative, because addiction does not always look like addiction. It can look like success, productivity, perfectionism, or like being the person everyone depends upon. It can look like constantly achieving, helping, people pleasing or proving that we are enough. These behaviours may be strengths, but equally they may also be adaptations, sometimes they may be both.
The question is not simply whether a behaviour is good or bad. The deeper question is What is driving it? What happens when the identity that helped us belong, succeed or feel safe becomes the identity we can no longer escape? And what happens when we begin to discover that we have spent years becoming someone we thought we needed to be?
Who is this book for?
You don't have to consider yourself an addict to read this book.
This book is for anyone who has ever wondered whether the person they have become is the person they were capable of becoming.
Perhaps you are:
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successful but disconnected from your life
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constantly busy but unsure what you are moving towards
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the person everyone needs
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driven by achievement or perfectionism
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repeatedly drawn into the same relationship patterns
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struggling with an addictive or dependent behaviour
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supporting someone whose behaviour you don't understand
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questioning an identity that once seemed to fit
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beginning to wonder whether your greatest strengths are also adaptations you learned along the way
Or perhaps you simply have a question you cannot quite put into words - you know something is wrong but you can't quite put your finger on it. Something about the person you have become no longer makes sense.
If so, this book is an invitation to become curious.
The questions at the heart of the book
Who am I beneath the identity I have learned to inhabit?
Why do I keep doing things that no longer seem to serve me?
Why am I so good at something that doesn't necessarily make me happy?
What if some of the things I am most praised for are also adaptations I learned along the way?
What is genuinely mine?
What have I learned to become?
And ultimately:
Who might I become if I no longer needed to become someone else?
From addiction to Intrinsic Identity©️
These questions led me towards the work I now call Intrinsic Identity©️ This is not another personality label, diagnosis or fixed definition of who you are.It is an invitation to explore the relationship between:
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who you are
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who you have learned to be
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and who you might become
It asks us to become more conscious of the patterns, motivations, Needs and Contributions that may be genuinely ours, while also understanding how relationships, environments and experiences have shaped the identities we have learned to inhabit. The book is therefore part of a much larger enquiry into human development.
It is about what becomes possible when we stop asking only:
“What is wrong?” and begin asking: “How did I become who I became?” and: “Who might I become when I allow my Intrinsic Identity© to emerge?”
About the author
Sam McDonald
Sam McDonald is a Futurist, Systems Thinker and independent researcher exploring human development, identity, relationships and the environments in which human beings become themselves.
Her work brings together Futures Studies, systems thinking, CliftonStrengths®, talent and strengths development, individuation, relationships and her developing framework of Intrinsic Identity© and Interdependent Rules of Engagement© as our moral operating system.
Her journey began with a simple idea her mother gave her when she was ten years old: “Everyone has talents. You just have to discover what they are.”
Decades later, that question has evolved into a much bigger one: What happens when human beings are given the freedom to become who they are capable of becoming?
The Addiction of Becoming Someone Else© brings together many of the questions that have emerged through that journey.
If this book raises questions for you
You don't need to know exactly what you need before you begin, you may simply want to understand yourself differently or you may want to explore why you keep repeating certain patterns. You may be questioning your work, relationships or direction or recovering from an addictive or dependent patterns. Or you may simply be curious about who you might become if you stopped trying to become someone else.
That is where my work with Intrinsic Identity©️ begins.
You can explore the individual pathways through:
Awareness
Can I see myself differently?
Discovery
How did I become who I became?
Deep Dive
What is genuinely mine, and how do I integrate it?
Emergence
Who might I become?
The book
The Addiction of Becoming Someone Else©
Sam McDonald's new book
What if addiction isn't always to something we think we're addicted to - but to becoming someone else?
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Contact
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