Addictive Thinking: Understanding Self-Deception

by Abraham J. Twerski

“A codependent person is one who has let another person’s behavior affect him or her, and who is obsessed with controlling that person’s behavior.” 1

definition are the words obsessed and controlling. Obsessive thoughts crowd out all other thoughts, and they drain mental energy.

of oversimplification, we might say that the addicted person is plagued by the compulsion to use substances.

Trying to resist the urge can produce so much anxiety and discomfort that the individual may give in to it simply to get relief from the intense pressure.

addict and the behavior of a codependent are striking. Addicts are usually looking for new ways to continue to use substances while trying to avoid their destructive consequences.

Cause and Effect Does an addict’s distorted thinking cause an addiction, or does the distorted thinking result from the addiction?

CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH the importance of realizing that addicts are taken in by their own distorted thinking and that they are its victims. If we fail to understand this, we may feel frustrated or angry in dealing with the addict.

from normal thinking. Addictive thinking is not affected by intelligence. People functioning at the highest intellectual levels are as vulnerable to these thinking distortions as anyone else. In fact, people of unusually high intellect often have more intense degrees of addictive thinking. Thus, highly intellectual people may be the most difficult patients to treat.

Addictive thinking is different from logical thinking in that it does not reach a conclusion based on the evidence or the facts of a situation but just the reverse! The addict begins with the conclusion “I need a drink” (or a drug) and then builds a case for that conclusion, whether it is logical or not and whether or not the facts support it.

People may have addictive thinking patterns, which block out certain facts, even before they ever use substances.

Ironically, another characteristic of addictive thinking is that while it distorts the thinking of addicts about themselves, it may not affect their attitudes toward others.

Identification of addictive thinking must come from outside the addict.

“Only a Social Drinker and Drug User”

“But not even once,” the doctor said, “not once in those six weeks did it ever occur to me that a social drinker or drug user doesn’t have to pump his stomach every night!”

The anxiety about change can be so intense that people, like those in our examples, contradict themselves.

Much of the denial in addictive, distorted thinking is due to intense resistance to change. As long as someone denies reality, he or she can continue behaving the same as before. Acceptance of reality might commit him or her to the very difficult process of change.

behavior and begin to make changes in themselves, they often back away. They are particularly apt to be turned off when people in Al-Anon, Nar-Anon, or other Twelve Step support groups tell them, “We don’t come here to change our spouse. We come here to change ourselves.” “Change myself?” they may respond. “Why should I change myself? I’m not the one who’s addicted!”

Distorted Perceptions Many of the features of addictive thinking can be seen in codependents as well as addicts because they stem from the same origin: low self-esteem.

Low self-esteem refers to the negative feelings people have about themselves that are not justified by fact. In other words, while some people have a distorted self-perception that includes grandiose delusions about themselves, people with low self-esteem have delusions of inferiority, incompetence, and worthlessness. Strangely enough, these feelings of inadequacy are often particularly intense in people who are the most gifted.

We can only adjust to reality if we have an accurate perception of it. We create a major component of our own reality, and if we have an unrealistic view of ourselves, we have distorted reality.

Some people react to feelings of low self-esteem by escaping from life’s challenges and distresses into substances, and some may find a redeeming feeling of worth and adequacy by being the sober and controlling or suffering significant other of an addicted person.

rule of the Three Cs: You did not cause it, you cannot control it, and you cannot cure it.

Rule to follow: 3'Cs

The self-deceptive features of addictive thinking and codependency have much in common. In both, there are often denial, rationalization, and projection. In both, contradictory ideas can coexist, and there is fierce resistance to change oneself and a desire to change others. In both, there is a delusion of control, and in both there is, invariably, low self-esteem. Thus, all the features of addictive thinking are present in both, and the only distinguishing feature may be the substance use.

Addictive Thinking & Codependency similarities

Abstinence

Abstinence - a practice of restraining from something (she had an abstinence from alcohol for a year)

addictive thinking is every bit as destructive as addictive drinking.

distorted, addictive thinking wreaks havoc.

An Addict’s Version of Dyslexia

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Felicia claims that she drinks and uses pills because her home life is intolerable. She is telling what she perceives to be the truth. Her husband has withdrawn from her, is unresponsive to her, and makes caustic comments. Her children are ashamed of her and treat her with disrespect. She believes this emotional torture causes her to drink and use drugs. She says, “When work is over and you know you’ve already experienced your high for the day and there’s nothing to look forward to, of course you want a few drinks or pills.”

We’ve all seen cartoons of a man complaining to a woman in a bar. Man: My wife doesn’t understand me. Woman: What doesn’t she understand? Man: She doesn’t understand why I drink. Woman: Why do you drink? Man: Because my wife doesn’t understand me.

Why does this sound like me when im drunk

The attitude of the family, pressure on the job, insensitivity of an authoritarian boss, callousness of friends, anxiety attacks, headache or nagging backache, a financial squeeze—or any other problem—whatever the addict claims is the reason for using substances, the formula is always the same.

The fact is that substances usually cause the problems, but the addicted person believes that p...

an addicted person’s perception of reality will continue to be distorted with or without active use of alcohol or other drugs until the addictive thinking process is corrected.

Note this down

on how addictive thinking develops was presented in a 1983 article by Dr. David Sedlacek.1 He describes addictive thinking as a person’s inability to make consistently healthy decisions on his or her own behalf. He points out that this is not a moral failure of a person’s willpower but rather a disease of the will and inability to use the will. Sedlacek stresses that this unique thinking disorder does not affect other kinds of reasoning.

a person who develops a thinking disorder may be intelligent, intuitive, persuasive, and capable of valid philosophical and scientific reasoning. The peculiarity of addictive thinking, he says, is the inability to reason with oneself. This can apply to various emotional and behavioral problems but is invariably found in addiction:

People develop values and principles from their culture as well as from their home. For instance, a young man growing up with family or cultural values that say that a man proves his masculinity by being able to hold his liquor may be expected to drink excessively.

Successful parenting requires a knowledge of what a child can and cannot do at various stages of development, and parents should encourage their children to use their capacities.

Incidentally, when parents do much for the child that he or she can do alone, they are acting codependently. A child who says, “I can’t do word problems” and who is allowed to get away with it has the feeling of inadequacy reconfirmed.

Feeling insecure and inadequate makes a person more vulnerable to escapism, so often accomplished via mood-altering drugs. The person feels different from the rest of the world, as if he or she doesn’t belong anywhere. Alcohol or other drugs, or other objects of addiction, anesthetize the pain and allow this person to feel part of the “normal world.”

many alcoholics or other addicts state they did not seek a “high” but only to feel normal.

fear of rejection, anxiety, isolation, and despair often result from low self-esteem.

quirks of addictive thinking are psychological defenses against these painful feelings, and these symptoms are due to the persistence of the distorted self-image that began in childhood.

THE THREE MOST COMMON ELEMENTS in addictive thinking are denial, rationalization, and projection.

Lying is a willful and conscious distortion of facts or concealment of truth. A liar is aware of lying.

denial of an addictive thinker is neither conscious nor willful, and the addict may sincerely believe that he or she is telling the truth.

While they are often gross distortions of truth, they are the truth to the addict. The addict’s behavior can be understood only in the light of the unconscious nature of these mechanisms. This is why confronting the denial, rationalization, and projection with facts to the contrary is ineffective.

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The Role of Faulty Perceptions

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Addicts react according to their unconscious perceptions. If these perceptions were valid, their behavior would be perfectly understandable.

addict’s defense mechanisms are unconscious, and their function is to protect the addict from some intolerable, unacceptable, and catastrophic awareness.

It is therefore futile as well as nonsensical to tell people with addictions to “stop denying,” “stop rationalizing,” or “stop projecting,” when they are not aware that they are doing so. They must first be helped to become aware of what they are doing.

defensive nature of unconscious denial.