Hey Puzzclar...

I went round and round with sort of that same question of the chicken and the egg too...fight the addiction or the emotional hole you're trying to fill with the control found in the process addiction...

Best answer that I have found that made sense was that you have to be working on stopping the behaviours and get some small amount of control over the behaviour so that as you work on the emotions arising out of the emotional work, you don't continue to hurt yourself. You may obviously stumble or slip, but knowing that you can get up and get ahold of it again is key. So some sort of sobriety under your belt even if it is white knuckling it is helpful so you begin to get a little confidence so that you can also learn more techniques for self-soothing and emotional release with the proper T for you.

There is ALWAYS a right T out there if you keep looking. Obviously you know that I'm dealing with this issue right now. I still have my wonderful T and needed to be able to make it work with this DBT T as well...but I just don't think I can...I don't ..I don't know... But my primary T is a blessing. Went through 6-8 to get to him and took a very, very long time to trust him...but now I realize he was meant to help me. He is safe.

Don't know if this helps or hurts or if I've bothered you...hope it's ok..
Take care of you..
Hugs,

Wysteria Blue