Defensive Solitude in Men

All of us long for deep and sustaining romantic relationships but some of us due to severe unconscious conflicts shy away from them. For some men, relationships are such a huge psychological threat that they prefer to live with loneliness and emptiness. There are others who despite these dilemmas struggle hard to form close relationships but inevitably their unresolved personality issues play a spoilsport. They may become inconsistent, clingy, suspicious, aggressive, withdrawn as the relationship deepens and thus begin problems in the relationship which ultimately go on to dismantle it. These men go from one relationship to another and repeat the same pattern unwittingly. Though externally, solitude or loneliness may appear to be a conscious choice of these men, it is defensive and destructive in nature- as it guards against subterranean dreads and leads to a diffuse and pervasive pain.

Clinical experience and research studies have concluded that men are more likely to use abuse and get dependent on psychoactive drugs as compared to women. Typically, men develop addictions at an early age, experience difficulties in their career due to addictions, develop aggressive, impulsive, antisocial and socially inappropriate behaviors as a result of substance use, are bad at recognizing addiction as a problem and seeking help and have poor strategies to cope with stressors. The commonly used psychoactive substances are: alcohol, opioids, cannabis, sedatives, cocaine, hallucinogens, tobacco and volatile solvents. Apart from addiction to nicotine, alcohol dependence is the most common disorder of addiction.