Addictive Thinking: Understanding Self-Deception

by Abraham J. Twerski

An Inability to Reason with Oneself The most convincing theory on how addictive thinking develops was presented in a 1983 article by Dr. David Sedlak.* Sedlak describes addictive thinking as a person’s inability to make consistently healthy decisions in 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. Sedlak stresses that this unique thinking disorder does not affect other kinds of reasoning. Thus, 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: alcoholism, other drug addiction, compulsive gambling, sexual addiction, eating disorders, nicotine addiction, and codependency.