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Ben Affleck blames Jennifer Garner for bailing on their marriage when in actuality he was struggling with his own personal issues. These issues, mainly depression, have plagued Affleck for far longer than his marriage to Jennifer Garner. In fact, Affleck admits to being on antidepressants since he was 26, according to Yahoo news.
“I get depressed,” he admitted. “I take antidepressants. They’re very helpful for me.” In 2005, when he married Garner, Affleck would have been around 33 years of age, therefore, we can conclude that his mental illness existed before he entered into his marriage to Garner. Though depression is a very difficult mental issue to cope with, it cannot be used as a crutch for one’s choice to turn to substance abuse for comfort.
The fact that Ben Affleck blames Jennifer Garner for his decision to turn to drinking as a coping mechanism for his depression is not only selfish and delusional but downright unfair. Using alcohol to drown his pain was a personal choice he made on his own, as there were several other ways to cope with his issues.
To begin, Affleck has a family history of alcoholism. Affleck lost his grandmother to alcohol addiction and his aunt also battled with addiction. Most importantly, Ben witnessed his father struggle with his own battle with alcoholism. “He was drunk every day and that was just life,” was the way he described his father’s alcohol abuse in a report done in the LA Times. In all actuality, addictive behavior was a problem for Affleck long before he even met Garner.
As an addict in recovery, Affleck will learn that his addiction is fueled by resentment, and his resentment was caused by some unfulfilled, unrealistic expectation he had. Again, his problem is not one that can be blamed on Jennifer Garner.
In fact, addiction therapy teaches that addicts play a vital role in their own resentment. Addicts are selfish, and all their behaviors, people-pleasing included, are deeply rooted in their own selfish attempts to gain what they expect from others. When this expectation is not fulfilled, resentment starts to build.
The pain from these resentments becomes unbearable, addicts are prone to resort to substance abuse to ease their discomfort. They then develop a self-imposed sense of entitlement to engage in the addictive behavior of their choice, not considering the people they hurt around them. Completing a 12-step program that includes taking a fearless moral inventory of self will help all addicts realize that they are actually the problem; not everyone else. Ben Affleck may have already come to this realization at some point after his divorce.
“The biggest regret of my life is this divorce,” he states in Yahoo! News about his separation and eventual divorce from Jennifer Garner. He goes on to admit that it was his drinking that led to him and Garner splitting and divorcing.
You’re trying to make yourself feel better with eating or drinking or sex or gambling or shopping or whatever. But that ends up making your life worse. Then you do more of it to make that discomfort go away. Then the real pain starts. It becomes a vicious cycle you can’t break. That’s at least what happened to me. I drank relatively normally for a long time. What happened was that I started drinking more and more when my marriage was falling apart. This was 2015, 2016. My drinking, of course, created more marital problems.
That statement was given by Affleck about how it was his addiction that destroyed his marriage, and not his marriage that caused his addiction.
The fact that he, and anyone else dealing with addiction, would blame anyone other than themselves for their addiction is reckless and futile for their sobriety, which will also lead to relapse and furthering of their addiction.
Written by Hyleia Kidd
Sources:
Yahoo! News: Ben Affleck has been on antidepressants since age 26: ‘They’re very helpful for me’
Yahoo! News: Ben Affleck calls Jennifer Garner divorce ‘the biggest regret of my life’
The Los Angeles Times: Ben Affleck opens up about alcohol addiction, depression and his biggest disappointment
Alcoholics Anonymous: The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous
Top and Featured Image Courtesy of Gage Skidmore’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
Inset Image Courtesy of Naser Chawroka’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License