This comes in large part from growing up with a family that did the same. With the horrors of my father's war experience freshly on him when my brother and I were born and little, we grew up in a state of nervous anxiety, always waiting for the other shoe to drop. He suffered from what we now know as PTSD.
What I know about myself from my experience is that I understand people who use anything, and I mean anything, not to feel their feelings. I know where that comes from and as long as it does not involve hurting other people....but it always does.
No matter what we think about substance abuse, for instance, it hurts the one doing it in a physical and soul way, but it also damages relationships or makes them impossible. Children grow up wounded and damaged in families that don't communicate, or communicate badly.
So for these last 50 years, I have been collecting data on healthy and friendly ways to make up for some of the things I missed, or wish I had missed, growing up. And you know what? They seem to be working! I will spend the rest of my life sharing what I have learned.