Dry Drunk | An In Depth Explanation Of The Dry Drunk In Recovery

Dry drunk is a slang expression which describes a person who no longer drinks or drugs but is still behaving in a dysfunctional way.

What is a dry drunk, and the ‘dry drunk syndrome’ as it is sometimes called? It can best be described as someone who fits one of two conditions:

1. The first is someone who has given up drinking and drugging and not made any internal or emotional changes, they stay the same but the substance is gone.
2. Or in the second case, someone who once was abstinent and on a progressive path of recovery, but has slowly returned to chaotic and unrealistic thinking, which may be leading back toward relapse.

Being active in your addiction, sets up many trains of thought, attitudes, feelings, and actions that are destructive. Simply removing the alcohol or drugs without changing these underlying factors will produce a ‘dry drunk syndrome’. The dry drunk really refers to a condition and not the person.

It is important to recognize a reversion back to our old ways of thinking and acting, or lack of progress in moving forward in recovery.The dry drunk can be a precursor to the beginnings of relapse. The AA Big Book describes this condition as being “restless, irritable, and discontented”. This set of attitudes can apply to anyone who is chemically dependent, or even those were not.

A way of looking at the dry drunk syndrome is that it generates two distinct dangers to our recovery:

1. Dangerous attitudes and mental postures that exist or can develop in a person who has not worked on “underlying issues”, or move forward growing in recovery.

If left unchecked or unresolved…

2. These can result in certain sobriety threatening actions or behaviors.

Here are some of the attitudes and mental postures common with the dry drunk syndrome.

Superiority –

Superiority or grandiosity basically means a return to a self-centered, ‘the world revolves around’ me attitude. Chemically dependent people are self centered in the extreme. The key component here is that with grandiosity you are setting yourself up to be the center of attention, either superior to everyone around you, or by playing the victim. Either way, you’re separating yourself and putting distance between yourself and from the people and world around you.  You’re really saying I am not like you; the implication is that I am unique and rules don’t apply to me.  In the 12 step programs they call this believing that I am ‘terminally unique’. The belief that I am so unique, it will eventually kill me. It does not have to necessarily mean that I believe I am the best; it can also be seeking attention through playing the victim or sitting on the pity pot (being inferior).

Impulsivity –

Possibly one of the most common attitudes or observable behaviors of people with addiction problems is poor impulse control and impatience. We tend to do what we want, when we want, with little regard for self harm or hurting others around us. Impulsivity can be linked with grandiosity to engage in behaviors designed to make us the center of attention. Another common feature of impulsivity and lack patience has to do with time frames. We want and expect things to happen within our own time frame. Unfortunately, the time frame we impose on ourselves and others is often quite unrealistic. We expect instant gratification in all areas of our lives. Let’s face it drugs and alcohol work almost instantly, we have conditioned ourselves like Pavlov’s dog, to expect immediate rewards. Unfortunately things don’t happen that way. I heard the phrase “time takes time” so often in early recovery that I wanted to punch somebody in the nose. (No resentments there!).

Being judgmental –

This is a very destructive attitude for people in recovery. When we judge a person as being better than or less than, we are setting up a situation where we inflate our egos feeling better than other people. On the other hand, if we judge ourselves to be on the short end of the comparison, we can feel bitter and generate low self-esteem. Being judgmental is a low self-esteem generator. There is another aspect of being judgmental they can be very defeatist in nature. That is the fact that if we are busy judging other people, and taking their inventories, we are not paying attention to ourselves. Not only that, but we could be judging ourself as the success standard. Who are we to say we are always right? First thought wrong.

Whenever I caught myself being judgmental, I used when I called my centering thought: I am always in the middle. There are people richer than me and poorer than me. There are people smarter than me, and not so smart as me. There are people with junkier cars than mine, and there are people with nicer cars than mine. so, knowing that, I’m always in the middle. What’s the point comparing? Anyway, it works for me.

Complacency –

This is not only an attitude of somebody in dry drunk syndrome, but is a red flag, warning whistle, fireworks shooting, warning sign of someone who is well into the relapse process. An important facet of being in active recovery is just that, being active, and moving forward. It is not how fast you are going but rather the direction in which you are headed. If you become lazy or disinterested and stop being proactive about your recovery, the natural tendency is to fall back into addictive behaviors. Your re-engagement in them is just a short step away.

Once you are lured into any of these attitudes, they start to affect how you think. Once your thinking is affected and you start to buy into self-centered thoughts, chances are you’ll engage in the actions stemming from these self-centered thoughts.

I look at my sobriety and recovery as being always on the move. I am either moving toward a drink and drug, or away from a drug and drink. The key is that left alone, and not moving forward in recovery we are actually sliding toward using. It’s like parking a car on a hill, sooner or later the brakes will give out before that hill flattens out.
I wonder sometimes if complacency is not rooted in laziness, but rather than fear. Are we afraid of success? Are we afraid of failure? Are we just sitting around waiting for things to work out the way we want them to without putting the effort into it?

Becoming Very Negative

I was guilty of this for quite some time in my recovery. I kept asking “when do the good things start happening? Is this all here is?” If negativity sets in, it is real important to look what going on beneath the surface. Is it anger and resentments; is some person place or thing not working out the way you expect it? Could be excessive anxiety and worry setting in?

Possibly one of the most futile of all emotions is worry and anxiety because you’re focusing on what may or may not happen in the future. I do not know any people that are true fortune tellers or can see into the future. Being in a state of high stress or anxiety can consume all of your mental energy. I really don’t think it’s possible to be happy, serene and peaceful what being in a state of high stress and anxiety.

Here are some destructive behaviors and actions that can result from dry drunk thinking:

1. We become restless and irritable and discontent.

Little things start to annoy us. We start to look for differences in those around us, which causes separation. If you remember, this is actually the first stage in the relapse process. It is also is the trickiest because we cannot see it coming. If we do not have a support system of people around us who we freely gave permission to offer us feedback, we could be a world of trouble. Sometimes we are to even aware that we’re acting cranky until somebody pointed out to us.

2. We become bored, dissatisfied

We are easily distracted from productive tasks. I visualize this as having the vivid color go out of recovery. Nothing excites us anymore. This can be likened to returning to Earth from ‘the Pink Cloud’. The initial euphoria when the colors were brighter, the sounds were clearer, and the smells were more fragrant, has dulled into listlessness and a ‘so what’ attitude and perception. We can start to wonder about the whole point of becoming sober and staying that way. This is the time start a gratitude list. If we become unable to see the progress we’re making in recovery, or we start taking it for granted, is very easy for sobriety too lose its priority.
It is my firm is belief that for those in long-term recovery, complacency is the biggest demon we must fight. On the flip side, I believe the most viable asset one can have in recovery is persistence.  When things get rolling along and life seems to be working well, the temptation is to lose focus on maintaining our recovery. A parallel is that many people stop taking their medicine because they’re feeling better, and then wonder why they get sick again.

3. Our emotions and feelings either get listless and dull or we start overreacting.

Either we become emotionally dull or dead or we go hyper or ballistic. The key point here it is that our reactions are out of proportion to the event that caused them. Perhaps, an occurrence that happens every day suddenly sends us into a rage. This can enter the realm of misplaced or misdirected anger or other emotional venting. At this point it is a very good idea to seek some emotional support and get realistic feedback as to your progress. Let’s face it, in recovery and in life there are highs and lows, ups and downs. Maybe these are starting to feel a little more dramatic because we are not using drugs and alcohol to anesthetize ourselves any longer. This may sound corny but we do learn more from our mistakes that are successes. Pain can be a great motivator.

4. We start to the engage in ‘euphoric recall’

Euphoric recall is a real fancy way of saying we only remember the good times. We remember how much fun we had when we’re using, how much more social we were, how clever, witty, and handsome or beautiful.  It really is a journey into the fantasy land of the past.  At the same time we’re engaging in this selective recall of only the good times, another mind game is actually being played. We’re consciously or unconsciously choosing not remember all the pain and misery. We tend to ‘forget’ things like making a fool of ourselves at a party, throwing up all over the place, waking up in strange beds,(or other places), and not having memory of the night before. The best antidote for euphoric recall that I know of is simply to sit down with a piece of paper and make two columns: one for the good things that happened to me when I was using and the second to list the bad things that happened to me when I was using. Make a list. Look at it. Endgame.

5. We start to engage in magical thinking

We get unrealistic and magical expectations and fanciful dreams. This is kind of similar to euphoric recall but is not necessarily confined to the past. Magical thinking can involve unrealistic expectations, and unreasonable goals, and simply believing that things will occur if we wish for them aren’t enough. And example might be if I stay sober my girlfriend will come back to me or I’ve been good so long just one drink won’t hurt. My favorite example of the slide into magical thinking is the following sentence, just fill in the blanks.
It wasn’t____________( drugs, alcohol) that was my problem, it was____________ ( my job, my husband, my anxiety).
If you’re going down that road run, don’t walk, to someone who can remove that magical thinking and give your realistic perspective on how it really was.
Another great example that happened to me was this: I was driving down the road with my best friend in sponsor and started talking about the past by stated, in all sincerity:
“I wasn’t really all that bad.” my friend pulled off the road looked me right in the face, straight in the eyes and said “Yes Bill you were”. Then he started driving again.
That took the wind right out of my sails, brought me back to reality, and I never brought up the subject again.

6. We lose interest in self-improvement.

There’s a fine line between becoming peaceful and serene and, and becoming complacent and lazy. What happened to all those plans for a ‘new you’? Instead of doing more walking the walk we’re doing a lot more talking the talk. The ‘action’ part of the program seems to have deserted us. We have lost the momentum driving us forward in our recovery. We’re content to sit back on our laurels letting other people do the work and simply sit back and receive praise for how well we’re doing.  This is where it is very important to have a sense of reality, and a purpose and some goals and life.

7. We start to become unfulfilled

As a result of any combination of the points already discussed, a feeling of not having our dreams fulfilled can come into play. Many people have an idea that just becoming abstinent will solve all problems. Don’t get me wrong, stopping the use of drugs and alcohol can only improve things. However, there is a good chance that there is a lot of wreckage in the past that will take time to get cleaned up and resolved. This starts to move into the realm of having unrealistic expectations and time frames. We want things to happen quickly. But, without action and continual self-improvement, not much will change.
8. We start acting on our old defense mechanisms

We are not only thinking in terms of old attitudes and thought processes, now we’re starting to act on them. The walls, supports, and the barriers that we erected to support our drinking and drugging are starting to be acted on it again. Things like minimizing, rationalizing, and denial start to become real again. We start acting like we’re bulletproof, and infallible and our recovery. All that’ recovery stuff’ is for other people, on doing quite well without it think you very much.

Looking back at the list of attitudes, thought distortions and actions or behaviors they can generate, it is easy to see how the dry drunk syndrome is simply nothing more then reverting back to the way it was when we were active in our use.

If you are starting to notice some of the attitudes discussed creeping back into your life, it is time to start paying attention to the possibility of relapse and start turning your life in sobriety and recovery around. The ‘dry drunk syndrome’ is a bright red flashing warning sign for relapse.

This week will be looking at self sabotage and self-defeating behaviors common in early addiction recovery. A number of these behaviors may be the contributors, if not the cause of past relapses.

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In this module we’re going to take a look at self-defeating behaviors and self sabotage. We will take a look at the definition of self sabotage, find out why we do it, and give a list of examples of self sabotaging behaviors.

When these self-defeating behavior’s are recognized, it becomes possible to stop the process in its infancy and minimize the chances of having it escalate into a disaster. The ultimate disaster would be a lapse or relapse.

When we examine self-defeating and self sabotaging behaviors, it should become pretty evident that we really are really talking about the behavior that is observed and acted on by those who are chemically dependent.

As I researched information for this section of the program, I found the parallels and similarities astounding.

It’s not too far of a stretch of imagination to say that instead of being addicted to drugs and/or alcohol, we could just as easily say we’re addicted to self- sabotage and self-defeating behaviors.  OK enough with a warm-up let’s get to work.

Self Sabotage And Self-Defeating Behaviors In Addiction Recovery

For people in recovery, thinking about using alcohol or drugs, or actually returning to their use is the ultimate in self-sabotage and self-defeating behavior. I mean, talk about shooting yourself in the foot, what good could possibly come out of a return to the use of drugs and alcohol?As we go through this module I cannot imagine anybody in recovery not having several ‘Aha moments’ or ‘light bulbs going off over your head’. OK, let’s get to it.

A pretty good working definition of self sabotaging behavior is this:

“Self sabotaging thoughts, behaviors, and feelings create a block in the road to success even when there is no rational or logical explanation as to why you cannot achieve your goals.”

An interesting thing about self sabotage is that it is not a lack of knowledge, effort or even desire that keeps you from achieving your goals and out comes.But rather, it is the committee in our head, or our own inner self-dialogue that confuses the issue.

Let’s take a look at some of the characteristics in attitudes of self sabotaging behavior. Daniel G. Amen, in his book, Don’t Shoot Yourself In The Foot came up with the following characteristics and contrasts.

Sabotaging Behavior  vs.  Successful Behavior

Lack of personal responsibility   vs  Taking personal responsibility
Lack of Awareness   vs  Taking initiative to be informed
Poor communication skills  vs  Positive communications with others
Negativity  vs  Setting and working towards goals
Poor choice making   vs  Making good living choices

If I took those contrasts above, and labeled the left side ‘engaging in addictive use’, and the right side in ‘engaging in recovery’, it would fit like a glove. The deeper I get into this, the more realize that engaging in your addiction is the ultimate in self-destructive behavior.

So, self-sabotage can lead you to, and position you in the middle of, “relapse mode”. For us, that is the ultimate danger. Self-defeating behavior can make you frustrated, bring up that feeling of being trapped again, and be very discouraging. Don’t get me wrong, everybody makes a poor decision or does not get the results they want all the time. But this idea of self sabotaging and self-defeating behavior is really problematic when it becomes insidious and a pattern rather than an exception.

What Do Researchers Say?

Great question, I’m glad we asked. In writing material for The Recovery Club I promised jargon free and easy to understand information. I think it is important for you to know that material presented did not just come off the top of my head, there is foundation for it.

Rather than quote sentence by sentence from research papers, I will give you a composite of what was likely to have caused self-defeating behaviors and where they come from. We talked before very briefly about modeling being a very effective means of learning, and that unfortunately, many of us were raised in less than fully functional families.

People with self-defeating and sell sabotaging behaviors often have some of these five characteristics in common:

1. – They may come from family systems where behavior was inconsistent.2. – Often there is a history of abandonment or detachment disorder.

3. – Many have a history of not getting their developmental needs met, or knowing how ask.

4. – Come from families with a ‘no talk’, or ‘don’t let and see you sweat rule.’

5. – They may have incidents of abuse in the past, or present.

One concept that was put forth that we’ll provide for your consideration is this: because our needs were not met as children by our care givers, we have a great deal of low self worth and shame. Shame is a belief that we are defective inside, at the core.

It is only normal to have our needs recognized and met. Unfortunately, that is not happening. What we learn are various ways to get attention.

1. Some to try to be as pleasing, hard working, and worthy as possible… they turn into the overachievers.
OR
2. For others, acting and out in a negative sense is a way to get attention. Unfortunately, this is not the best way to get your internal needs met.

OK, let’s try to string this all together and hopefully, it will make some sense. The dialogue in your head might run like this. Here we go…

“I’ve never been able to get my emotional needs met; as a kid I raising my hand saying Mommy, Daddy, look at me, look at me. I was ignored, or worse belittled, or told I could do better. I tried harder and harder but it was never good enough. This creates the emotion of shame which becomes deeply internalized into the core of my being. I am not worthy, I am never good enough, but ironically I keep trying harder and harder. Now here is where the self sabotage and self-defeating behavior comes in. I am right on the brink of success, finally proving to the people around me, and maybe even myself that I am worthy, capable and good. But because of all that shame that I grew up with, I ‘know inside’ I am not good, so I mess things up just when successes in sight.”

As I said before, if the shoe fits wear it. Maybe not all people in addiction recovery have been through a little life scenario as I’ve described it. But man, as I was writing that it had a definite ring of familiarity within me and from stories of people in recovery that I’ve heard.

You Might Have Self Defeating Behaviors If:

1. Honesty it difficult for you and you exaggerate the truth
2. You continue to engage in unhealthy habits such as smoking, drug or alcohol use, or over indulgence in destructive behavior.
3. Right on the brink of success ‘something happens’ that screws it all up
4. You set goals, but never achieve them
5. You feel superior or inferior to everybody else
6. You’re always making excuses
7. You have a lot of self doubt
8. You have unrealistic expectations
9. You worry too much and have a great deal of anxiety
10. Feelings of rage, anger, shame, or resentment can be overwhelming and paralyze you into inaction
11. I heard this one all the time, ‘You’re not living up to your potential.’
12. You’re a big procrastinator
13. Your view of the world is something like ‘we are all born to suffer and die.’
14. You do things that jeopardize your emotional, physical and financial stability
15. You stay ‘stuck’ in situations and feel there is no way out
16. You have a lot of “poor me’ attitudes, nobody understands me
17. You often belittle yourself and those around you
18. You stay stuck in abusive relationships

OK, that’s enough of that, kind of reminded be of that comedian…’You might be a Redneck if…’ I wanted to give you a flavor of the attitudes and mindsets that can generate a posture of self-sabotage and self defeat. I wasn’t my intention to drive your self-esteem into the ground.Let’s move into the solution…

8 Tips To Help Stop Self-Sabotage

1. What is your payoff?

I am a big believer in the idea that every action we take is done for reason. What is it that you really get from self-defeating behaviors and attitudes? Is it negative attention? A ‘reason’ to go back to using? Ask yourself “What is REALLY going on here?

2. Avoid situations that trigger extreme emotional reactions.

This is one of the items we spoke about in the section on triggers and cues. Extreme emotional reactions can provoke a relapse. If you can’t avoid this situation, at least try to get a realistic perspective on it. Ask yourself “How important is it really?’”

3. Take a look at your past.

Just don’t get stuck there. Try to identify where your belief system came from. Once you have identified where those defeating attitudes came from, let go of them. It is OK to acknowledge the past, but not to use it as an excuse to continue your behavior into the present.

4. Challenge staying in the victim role.

Again, in recognizing the past we’re not denying that bad things may happen to you. Try reclaiming your personal power by reframing your experiences as a source of strength. Not everyone has gone through what you have and survived. The process of growth in recovery is about regaining self empowerment.

5. Stop blaming people.

Being the victim and blaming others, results in one particular sneaky, self destructive attitude. That is the attitude of not needing to change. Recovery is all about change, but, if everything is always somebody else’s fault, why do I need to change? In the victim role, it is ‘poor me, look what they have done to me’ I couldn’t stop it from happening, so I will be a perpetual victim and take no action.

6. First thought wrong.

Man, do I hate this one. My sponsor used to tell me this all the time. People who have a habit of self sabotaging have got to come to accept that they are never upset for the reasons that first come to mind. First thought wrong. We need to look at the underlying issues, again, ask the question ‘What’s really going on here?’ Sometimes we will take those negative thoughts and try to make them come true by doing something really destructive. We create a self-fulfilling prophesy.

7. We need to change the thoughts we have about ourselves.

Stop the negative self talk. Start thoroughly and rigorously questioning where your beliefs and perceptions are coming from. Don’t judge yourself as you’re doing this, become willing to let go of those negative thoughts. Stop defending your ‘right’ to be wrong.

8. Are you done suffering yet?

Just as this question is a key motivator to move from using drugs and alcohol into recovery, it is a prime motivator to start changing our self-defeating attitudes and actions. Nothing changes if nothing changes. How much longer are you willing to keep stepping on your own feet, tripping and falling down? Maybe, just maybe, it’s time to stop the pain.

When we were discussing working with emotions and feelings in the previous module, we introduced the concept of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy. We learned that the key to affecting emotional change is to challenge our beliefs about a particular action or situation. The same principle applies when we start to try to change self-defeating and self sabotaging behaviors.

Looking at the other way around, it might be possible to see that our belief system can be the motivator of our actions. What we mean by this is we act more on our beliefs, then on logical solutions and practical approaches. In fact, you may have tried logic and being reasonable, yet still things somehow get messed up. You continue to make poor and sometimes dangerous decisions and unhealthy choices time after time again.

Your belief system may be thought of as being responsible for what you look for in intimate relationships, the type of lifestyle you lead, and the work you do. If you have internalized messages of shame, being defective, and having low self-esteem, these can influence your actions and out comes.

We keep trying to fill “The hole in the soul” but it never quite works.

I believe honesty is the heart of any addiction recovery plan.

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If we do not have a realistic, clear and honest vision of ourselves, our problems, and what we want to accomplish, we’re could be in a great deal of difficulty.

The very fact that we had continued and are active in addiction for so long, is almost proof positive of our ability to delude ourselves. In the light of day, and with a clear mind, how could we possibly believe that we were not doing ourselves, and those around us serious harm by continuing our addiction.

The only way we could allow ourselves to indulge in our using behavior is to create a fantasy around ourselves which essentially made it OK to use. These fantasies were self delusions that were rooted in dishonesty and self deception. For a long time I had wondered what the word delusion means. I thought it meant ‘crazy’, (and there were certainly times I thought I was). I looked it up, and it simply means believing in something that is not true.

For the purpose of this discussion let’s look at honesty not only in terms of being truthful and not lying, but in not deceiving ourselves. Here is a simple definition of honesty:

”Honesty is the absence of the intention to deceive”

I might add that the person most often deceived is ourselves.

“There’s a lot of talk about the importance of being honest in all our affairs and relationships. I really don’t know where to start it’s been so long since I’ve been honest it’s almost easier to lie.”

Being dishonest can easily become the standard of action, or way of life for most alcoholics or addicts. We deceive ourselves and we lied to others. We lie about how much we used, and how often we used.  We hid our feelings and emotions, or became distant from our relationships, perhaps not in all areas, but certainly in terms of our substance use.

We lied about where we went and what we had been doing. It’s a way of staking our claim to our right to continue drinking or using drugs. The lies, self deception, and self delusions were created for the for the purpose of allowing us to continue to use. Somehow we needed it all to make sense.

Sometimes it was not even our intention to deceive. But it is simply that our thought processes had become so clouded and confused and distorted, that our sense of reality was way off base and we no longer made sense.

Many people have discovered that there is a tendency to continue to be untruthful it just doesn’t go away when your substance use stops.

There are two major challenges concerning dishonesty that must be met and overcome in order to enter into a healthy recovery.

1. The dishonesty and lying has to stop. Unfortunately, for many people, this has become a habit. This behavior needs to be ‘unlearned’ and the habit broken.

2. We must also overcome the fear of the consequences of once again being truthful.

Just as the slide into active addiction was gradual for most people, the slide into a state of being dishonest may have been gradual also.  Rome was not built in a day. It seems reasonable to assume that to be returned to the state of being completely honest as the norm will be gradual also.

1. To clear up the web of dishonesty we need to start being truthful with ourselves, firstly. If we cannot stop the self deception, delusion and lying in our own hearts and minds, we
won’t be able to be truthful with anybody else.

2. To grow and have an enriched recovery is not possible without honesty. Continuing on with a dishonest nature, or deceptive behaviors, can eventually lead us back to our old ways.

3. Being completely honest need not mean being cruel with ourselves. It is just as important to it knowledge our good qualities as well as the qualities that need improvement this can be difficult. A great number of people in recovery have difficulty accepting complements, or thinking well of themselves.

4.”Brutal honesty” that causes pain to others is wrong. The steps of AA speak of an exception to honestly making amends by saying “except when to do so would injure them or others”.

5. Let’s be realistic. No one can be perfectly honest with themselves or others at all times. As stated before, if we look at honesty as the absence of the intention to deceive, we must be aware that we may, at times, be fooling ourselves and others without intentionally doing so. We simply may not have developed or become aware of the ability and tools to learn how to correctly evaluate the moods, feelings, and situations we find ourselves in which we find ourselves.

What makes these points and questions so significant for the chemically dependent person in recovery?

Well, first of all the concept of honesty must be an underlying foundation before we can even start entering recovery. If we are deceiving ourselves about the severity and chronicity of our disease, how it has affected ourselves and others, we will be very unlikely to take appropriate action. Here are some typical modes of thought, that are based on dishonesty, self deception, or just lack of experiential context

For example:

1. If I truly believe that I really do not have an addiction (self deception), what sense does abstinence or recovery make? Why should I apply a solution when a problem does not exist? Especially if the solution or course of action involves a good deal of effort.

2. If I assume the role of blaming other people for my substance use, what motivation is there for me to remain abstinent? After all, if you had my___________( fill in the blank), husband, job, anxiety, you would be using too. it is your fault I continue to use, not mine. Therefore since it is not my fault I do not have to fix it. You have to fix what you’re doing.

3. A tightly related position to blaming, is playing the victim. Again, if I am the victim of circumstances, be it people, places, or things, I can easily get stuck, and not be willing to change. this is a particularly dangerous form of self deception because the reality is life goes on. bad things happen, good things happen, but casting yourself in the role of a helpless victim takes away motivation for change. There is an old saying, “Poor me, poor me, pour me another drink.”

Common Blocks To Honesty

What is so difficult about being honest even when we want to be?

The first reason ….is that we have developed an integrated and complete lifestyle around which dishonesty has been an integral core.

We have come to lie about our drinking or using to the point where we believe our own fabrications ourselves. That makes it difficult for people to communicate or dispute us. Dishonesty has saturated our emotions, minds, and has come to dominate our behavior and actions.

In other words, we had developed a complete life style and we system based on this honesty, delusion, and distorted truths. It had become an integral part of us. We had become so emotionally dishonest we lost the ability to identify, own, and effectively process our feelings and emotions. (This is an entire future topic). To change the very fabric of a belief system will require constant attention, persistence, and perhaps most important of all… change.

The second reason …. is fear.

There is a certain risk that is involved in being honest and frequently we fear the consequences and pain (mostly to ourselves) that may occur if we’re honest. This type of fear is referred to in the 12 steps as self-centered fear the fear that we may lose something we already possess, failed to gain something we want or suffer a loss.

The fear of telling the truth about yourself is almost always groundless. Almost everybody appreciates honesty and sincerity. Your fear can become exaggerated and escalated by worrying more about how people react to you, then by the truth itself.

There is an old saying that says “What other people think about me is none of my business.” Whenever the fear of being honest grips me I tried to remember that. Sometimes, if the people we encounter have difficulty hearing truth and honesty, they may have a problem with it themselves, it may not be us at all.

OK, I’ve seen the light and I’m going to work on becoming honest so everything will be smooth cruising on the recovery road right?

Well, that’s great tiger, but there may be some bumps in the highway…
One of the consequences of having been dishonest and lying to people that we somehow tend to ignore the fact that people may not trust us. This especially applies to family members. How many times in the current the same old song, and why should they believe you now?
After all they say, if you loved me you would have quit sooner. Gulp…I hate that, but from their point of view it makes sense.
I firmly believe that addiction is a disease of isolation. Not only do we lose the trust of people but we also lose their help. At some point, they will stop trying to help and listen to us. And that can make for very lonely life.

Even though that we have sworn that we are done with our addiction and are on the road to recovery, why should they believe us? This can be incredibly frustrating for the person who is sincerely engaged in recovery. “But I really mean it this time.” I believe you, and I sincerely hope it is true. But you have one thing that is undeniably working against you…Are you ready for this, you won’t like it, it’s going to hit you right between the eyes.
Your track record stinks !!!

Blame it on your past behavior; actions speak infinitely louder than words. But let’s move forward. How can people come to believe and trust in you again? The answer is elegant in its simplicity,

To gain peoples trust…Become Trustworthy

The way to become trustworthy is to show consistent action over time. This comes about by “doing the next right thing”, on a consistent basis. It is all about making correct and ethical choices. It will take quite some time for your new found honesty to accept it as normal by the people engaged in relationships with you.

Patience is a quality that surrounds honesty. Again, many of us have been dishonest for so long that despite our intentions to be honest it is difficult to do so. It is also difficult to know the difference between honesty and privacy.

Without active work in trying to grow and progress in our recovery, the tendency is always to slip back into old and established patterns of destructive behavior. In this case being untruthful and self deceptive. A central idea of moving forward into recovery is to change our old established patterns of behavior. One thing that it is very difficult to argue against is that whenever we were doing was not working. We must focus to change those things that need to be changed.

This takes time. It takes time for others to accept our new way of life. It takes time for us to learn how to manage it. It is no small task to change one’s view of the world and ourselves. To move from a position of “everyone’s out to get me and will, we are put on earth to suffer and die” to a position of hope and the realization that happiness may be within our grasp, is the work of a lifetime.

Initially, some of the slogans and sayings I heard in recovery used to drive me bananas. I thought they were trite, for the brain-dead and brainwashed. The reality was that I was not in a position to accept the truth of them.

The slogan that springs to mind when I consider working on the concept of honesty and becoming more and more truthful with myself is this:

The goal is progress not perfection

There’s a certain degree of comfort to be had in that slogan, in that it is OK to make mistakes. By making mistakes we are confirming the ‘diagnosis’ that we’re human. We are said to learn from our mistakes… If that is the case, I may be a certifiable genius, or then again, simply certifiable.

We all have aspirations, goals we wish to accomplish. There are things we wish to accomplish or to have or to quite possibly be. Many hope and wish to get help for a loved one involved with drugs and to see their loved ones stop suffering and reach full potential. You might have similar ambitions. When you know how, that’s really not too difficult. If you can get upon the correct track, break it down into easy steps, it will be easier than you think to get help for a loved one involved with drugs. Should that be one of your objectives, please read on to find a simple 3-step way that one could start the process…

To start with, you will need to do your homework and investigate treatment options ahead of time. This first step is likely to be critical to ensuring your success since you want to have a plan of action in place if your loved one agrees to get help. While you carry out this initial step, you’ll need to avoid confrontation. Simply prepare options.

It’ll be important to accomplish this step one completely and correctly. Failing that, you’ll then expect a time delay and the opportunity for a loved one to back out or change their mind.

The second step is enlist the aid of all people important in the users life. Have them write impact letters to read on how drug use has affected their relationship with the user. Points that you’ll want to carefully avoid here are blaming and being a victim. The idea is to confront with facts and truth, as well as not to blame and shame.

The 3rd and last step is To confront the user with overwhelming evidence of the negative impact of drug use on themselves and their relationships with loved ones. This is crucial because we are trying to break through the defensive posture of denial and force acceptance of treatment. With this final step the point that is essential for one to avoid is arguments. Simply present the option of getting help now, or being cut off from family support. A good approach is the ‘if…then…’approach’.For example, ‘If you get help and stay clean, then you can come back home.’.

All that you should do is to try to stick closely to the three steps recommended here. If you do that you should get help for a loved one involved with drugs easily with few if any problems. This exact plan worked for countless others before you; it will work for you as well! Just do those things you must do, and avoid the potential issues that were noted. Then all which will be left for you to do would be to take pleasure in the benefits of get help for a loved one involved with drugs that are going to accrue to you for your personal success!

What is addictive thinking? Well, the answer is actually quite simple. It is the bridge that allows us to deny what we intellectually know to be true and allows us to continue to engage in addictive substance use.

Intellectually, virtually every addict knows that drinking and drugging is not good for them. At some level they realize that their life is in shambles, they are putting poison in their bodies, health, relationships, and finances are rapidly deteriorating. These are intellectual facts that are difficult to ignore. But the reality is that an addict wants to continue drinking and drugging. How can they make this possible when they know is not a genius thing to be doing?

The answer is to employ addictive thinking.

Addictive thinking is simply the BS, blather, and fantasies that make it appear to be okay or even logical continue to drink and drug. Here are some examples:

1. I’m not that bad.

2. I deserve it.

3. I don’t have a problem, you have a problem.

4. Nobody can tell me what to do, I have a right to do whatever I want.

5. The only person I’m hurting as myself.

6. This is the only way I can have fun.

These addictive thoughts are repeated so often the addict actually believes them to be true. The strange thing about addictive thinking is the one coldly in a reasonably challenged, they fall apart and disintegrate quite readily. For instance, let’s take this statement “I deserve it”. On the surface it appears to make sense but do you really deserve the poisoning your body? T. really deserve to be inflicting pain and hurt on the people you love? Do you really deserve to have low self-esteem, shame and anger as a daily companion?

The trick to combating addictive thinking is to challenge the veracity and reality of the thought. Ask yourself is this really true? One defining principle of addiction that makes challenging addictive thinking very difficult is that addictive thinking and denial go hand-in-hand. The deeper the entrenchment of the addictive thoughts and thought processes the deeper the denial and the more difficult to break through.

• Dopamine: why it’s so hard to “just say no” (psychologytoday.com)

The fancy psychological term for this quick and easy motivation tool for helping people to help themselves with alcoholism and drug addiction recovery is called decisional balancing. It may sound complex, but it is really very simple.

Decisional balancing simply means weighing the costs and the benefits of using or drinking. The object of this quick exercise is to list the pros and cons, the pluses and minuses of using or continuing to use alcohol and drugs.

Simply sit down with a piece of paper and pen and draw a line down the center of the paper forming two columns on the first column lists benefits or pluses of drinking and driving and the next column lists drawbacks were negative consequences of drinking or drugging.

Then just do a brain dump. Just start writing don’t worry about how important or how silly anything sounds just get it all out. We will look at content later.

In the benefits column you might have things like it numbs the pain, I like to get high, it helps me to forget, I feel like I can do more, it helps me to get in. In the negative consequences site you might have it costs a lot of money, I went to jail, it might be causing my depression and anxiety, my health is going down, destroying my relationships.

Now that you have the lists done, they’re a couple questions to ask yourself. The first question is how different are the two lists? Compare the two columns and see if the benefits are still outweighing the negative consequences. Most people will find that the benefits that they use to get out of drinking and drugging I’m no longer occurring, while the negative consequences for the minuses list is growing and growing.

The next couple of questions you should ask when comparing the two lists is how much time does the drinking and drugging occupying your life? Are you spending the vast majority of your life either looking for the high, getting high, or recovering from the high? You might even be doing it to the point where you gave up activities which he used to find enjoyable. That is a sign of addiction.

The final important question to analyze an answer is are you addicted to the drinking and drugging and are you objected to the lifestyle you are currently maintaining, or trying to maintain? How is it working for you?

If the answers to these questions are causing concern it might be time to ramp up the motivation to change. One of the most insidious background features of drug and alcohol addiction the fact that it keeps us” stuck”. We come to believe that we have lost the power to change. But that is not true. The ability to change ourselves and our reaction to life in the situations around us is a fundamental quality of being human.

Is it time for you to change?

When maintaining long term sobriety, you’ll find it important that you do things the right way. If you do not, the consequences could in fact be regrettable. You can end up having a relapse, and even being in worse trouble than you were originally. Here I will discuss a trio of methods to hinder that from taking place.

1. Don’t Drink or Drug No Matter What

You will need to not drink or drug no matter what as it stops Relapse and the inevitable down hill slide. Failing to accomplish this may well ruin everything you have worked so hard for. Therefore please do not make the mistake of disregarding this particular imperative action!

2. Develop A Large Support System

Nearly as vital as not drinking and drugging no matter what whenever dealing with is to develop a large support system. I’m telling you, this is not something to neglect. It can help to having help available in moments of wekness or vulnerability, and that is something everybody involved in sobriety needs.

3. Take It A Day At A Time

Finally, when maintaining long term sobriety you need to be certain and take it a day at a time. This can encourage not getting overwhelmed with not drinking and drugging ‘for the rest of your life’, and that is an important component of sobriety. Should you not, you will relapse — and I’m sure we can agree that this couldn’t be a good thing!

As I said at the beginning, on the subject of maintaining long term sobriety, you desperately want to ensure you never make mistakes which will result in allowing a relapse to occur, and even being in worse trouble than you were originally. What you want is a fierce desire to succeed ‘no matter what’, and you can make that happen by being attentive to the guidelines in this article.

The three most powerful words in addiction recovery are “whatever it takes”. Successful long-term recovery from drug addiction and alcoholism is kind of like having all the planets in the solar system lineup in a row, many pieces have to fall into place in the oriented just right.

I believe one of the most essential and an early component to get right is the strength of commitment and the doggedness to be successful in sobriety. Try this statement on for size, “I will do whatever it takes, to not use drugs or alcohol”. Please notice there are no ‘buts’ or qualifiers in that statement.

The essence of this statement and the concept behind it is simple there are millions of people in recovery and those millions of people have been through millions of experiences. Each one has gone through pleasant experiences life and unpleasant experiences in life. The common denominator is they do not have not use drugs or alcohol to avoid or enjoy. You don’t have to either. There are only two ways to handle what life throws at you: by drinking or drugging or not drinking and drugging. That simplistic view eliminates a lot of confusing and irrelevant choices.

Remember, no matter how complicated life gets you can boil it down to a rather simple fact: you will use drugs or alcohol you will not use drugs or alcohol. The successful people have chosen to do whatever it takes not to resume use of addictive mood altering drugs

• How Do You Know You Are Addicted? (beliefnet.com)
• Do You Have a Drinking Problem? (lifescript.com)

Addiction recovery can often feel like a ‘hurry up and wait’ process.

Sometimes leaving a drug rehab can fell like a graduation. The danger is believing that you have ‘done the recovery thing’ and can get on with life.

While you can certainly start getting on with life, you have entered the recovery process, not completed recovery as an event. Chances are that you experienced one-on-one counseling, group therapy, as well as a variety of other experiences. Those are the growth and education experiences,  that you should continue throughout your addiction and recovery process.

There is probably nothing more dismal to a recovering drug addict then the fact that they are going through a process which seems like it takes forever!  Here are some things that you must do in order to continue to be the recovering drug or alcohol addict that you are today and insure the peace of the future. Virtually everyone I know with long term recovery has made a big investment in time in that crucial first year.

1. Continue Counseling- the best thing that you could do for yourself is to continue counseling outside of the addiction center. Your therapists and counselors will assist in building a solid relapse prevention plan

2. Remember Time! – After you have gotten out of the addiction and recovery center you may be frustrated with the thoughts of alcohol or drugs that are plaguing your mind. However, you must remember that recovery is a process that takes time and there is nothing you can do to speed up the process of time, no matter how dismal or depressing that thought seems!

3. Keep Yourself Occupied – Many recovering addicts often find it hard not to go back to their old lifestyles, but the one thing that can help greatly is to keep yourself preoccupied. Getting a hobby, surrounding yourself with positive friends each day, and filling your day to keep you busy in order to be preoccupied will prevent you from destructive behavior.

4. Take One Day at a Time! - If you are becoming so frustrated that you’re feeling like you just want to have some more alcohol or that one last taste of drugs, stop before you get there! Take a deep breath and realize that your recovery will only go one day at a time! Many people have to force themselves to take one minute, hour, and day at a time simply to keep their heads above water!

5. Find New Behaviors- this is something that many addiction counselors will focus on, but what are you going to do when it should have been the time for your daily dose of alcohol, LSD, marijuana, or other drug? Finding something different to do and replacing that part of your day with something cleaner and better for you will help you in the long run!

6. Let your Family Know! - Many recovering addicts choose not to tell their families, but these are the first people that you should tell. They will help you get back on your feet and stay there and provide a lot of emotional support when you need it the most!

7. Never Give Up! - This is a very old cliché, but has proven to work many times over! A recovering addict is an individual who cannot afford to give up. The drugs and/or alcohol that you just got away from will return to tempt you, so you must remember to never give up in the face of temptation or frustration!

Remembering all of these 7 steps to addiction recovery is crucial to getting past the first days, weeks, and months following your decision to stop the substance abuse in your life! By following all of these steps and surrounding yourself with positive influences will help you now and in the future when you absolutely need it!

There is probably nothing more dismal to a recovering drug addict then the fact that they are going through a process which seems like it takes forever!

If you have just gotten out of an addiction center or other drug and alcohol rehab center, chances are that you experienced one-on-one counseling, group therapy, as well as a variety of other experiences.

Those are the experiences, though, that you should continue throughout your addiction and continuing care process. Here are some things that you must do in order to continue to be the recovering drug or alcohol addict that you are today.

1. Continue Counseling- the best thing that you could do for yourself is to continue counseling outside of the addiction center. Your therapists and counselors will be the main ones to keep you right on track in your recovery efforts!

2. Remember Time! - After you have gotten out of the addiction and recovery center you may be frustrated with the thoughts of alcohol or drugs that are plaguing your mind. However, you must remember that recovery is a process that takes time and there is nothing you can do to speed up the process of time, no matter how dismal or depressing that thought seems!

3. Keep yourself Preoccupied - Many recovering addicts often find it hard not to go back to their old lifestyles, but the one thing that can help greatly is to keep yourself preoccupied. Getting a hobby, surrounding yourself with positive friends each day, and filling your day to keep you busy in order to be preoccupied will prevent you from destructive behavior.

4. Take One Day at a Time! - If you are becoming so frustrated that you’re feeling like you just want to have some more alcohol or that one last taste of drugs, stop before you get there! Take a deep breath and realize that your recovery will only go one day at a time! Many people have to force themselves to take one minute, hour, and day at a time simply to keep their heads above water!

5. Find New Behaviors- this is something that many addiction counselors will focus on, but what are you going to do when it should have been the time for your daily dose of alcohol, LSD, marijuana, or other drug? Finding something different to do and replacing that part of your day with something cleaner and better for you will help you in the long run!

6. Let your Family Know! – Many recovering addicts choose not to tell their families, but these are the first people that you should tell. They will help you get back on your feet and stay there and provide a lot of emotional support when you need it the most!

7. Never Give Up! - This is a very old cliché, but has proven to work many times over! A recovering addict is an individual who cannot afford to give up. The drugs and/or alcohol that you just got away from will return to tempt you, so you must remember to never give up in the face of temptation or frustration!

Remembering all of these 7 steps to addiction recovery is crucial to getting past the first days, weeks, and months following your decision to stop the substance abuse in your life! By following all of these steps and surrounding yourself with positive influences will help you now and in the future when you absolutely need it!

For people in recovery, thinking about using alcohol or drugs, or actually returning to their use is the ultimate in self-sabotage and self-defeating behavior.

I mean, talk about shooting yourself in the foot, what good could possibly come out of a return to the use of drugs and alcohol? As we go through this module I cannot imagine anybody in recovery not having several ‘Aha moments’ or ‘light bulbs going off over your head’. OK, let’s get to it.

A pretty good working definition of self sabotaging behavior is this:

“Self sabotaging thoughts, behaviors, and feelings create a block in the road to success even when there is no rational or logical explanation as to why you cannot achieve your goals.”

An interesting thing about self sabotage is that it is not a lack of knowledge, effort or even desire that keeps you from achieving your goals and out comes.
But rather, it is the committee in our head, or our own inner self-dialogue that confuses the issue.

Let’s take a look at some of the characteristics in attitudes of self sabotaging behavior. Daniel G. Amen, in his book, Don’t Shoot Yourself In The Foot came up with the following characteristics and contrasts.

If I took that table above, and labeled the left side ‘engaging in addictive use’, and the right side in ‘engaging in recovery’, it would fit like a glove. The deeper I get into this, the more realize that engaging in your addiction is the ultimate in self-destructive behavior.

So, self-sabotage can lead you to, and position you in the middle of, “relapse mode”. For us, that is the ultimate danger. Self-defeating behavior can make you frustrated, bring up that feeling of being trapped again, and be very discouraging. Don’t get me wrong, everybody makes a poor decision or does not get the results they want all the time. But this idea of self sabotaging and self-defeating behavior is really problematic when it becomes insidious and a pattern rather than an exception.

What Do Researchers Say?

Great question, I’m glad you asked. I think it is important for you to know that material presented did not just come off the top of my head, there is foundation for it.

Rather than quote sentence by sentence from research papers, I will give you a composite of was likely to have caused self-defeating behaviors and where they come from. We talked before very briefly about modeling being a very effective means of learning, and that unfortunately, many of us were raised in less than fully functional families.

People with self-defeating and sell sabotaging behaviors often have some of these five characteristics in common:

1. – They may come from family systems where behavior was inconsistent.

2. – Often there is a history of abandonment or detachment disorder.

3. – Many have a history of not getting their developmental needs met, or knowing how ask.

4. – Come from families with a ‘no talk’, or ‘don’t let and see you sweat rule.’

5. – They may have incidents of abuse in the past, or present.

One concept that was put forth that we’ll provide for your consideration is this: because our needs were not met as children by our care givers, we have a great deal of low self worth and shame. Shame is a belief that we are defective inside, at the core.

It is only normal to have our needs recognized and met. Unfortunately, that is not happening. What we learn are various ways to get attention.

1. Some to try to be as pleasing, hard working, and worthy as possible… they turn into the overachievers.

2. For others, acting and out in a negative sense is a way to get attention. Unfortunately, this is not the best way to get your internal needs met.

OK, let’s try to string this all together and hopefully, it will make some sense. The dialogue in your head might run like this. Here we go…

“I’ve never been able to get my emotional needs met; as a kid I raising my hand saying Mommy, Daddy, look at me, look at me. I was ignored, or worse belittled, or told I could do better. I tried harder and harder but it was never good enough. This creates the emotion of shame which becomes deeply internalized into the core of my being. I am not worthy, I am never good enough, but ironically I keep trying harder and harder. Now here is where the self sabotage and self-defeating behavior comes in. I am right on the brink of success, finally proving to the people around me, and maybe even myself that I am worthy, capable and good. But because of all that shame that I grew up with, I ‘know inside’ I am not good, so I mess things up just when successes in sight.”

As I said before, if the shoe fits wear it. Maybe not all people in addiction recovery have been through a little life scenario as I’ve described it. But man, as I was writing that it had a definite ring of familiarity within me and from stories of people in recovery and relapse that I’ve heard.

Couple of days ago I was contacted by James Von Aaron who introduced himself and asked me if I would read you a book he had written Help! My Kids Addicted To Prescription Pain Killers . He asked me to take a look at it and post a review on my website.

Now, I generally don’t do that many reviews for products because quite frankly, I feel both a professional, and ethical obligation to only endorse and share good, solid, addiction recovery advice. I have seen a lot of garbage marketed over were desperate for a solution. Like the fellow on TV who says he can cure drug addiction if you buy his book for $29.95, that type of stuff drives me crazy.

But once I started reading James’s book a couple things became immediately apparent. Firstly he had a good grasp of the exact kind of information is audience (parents) is looking for. This is written for the parents who are concerned about their children. The really hard part about the family side of dealing with an addiction problem is that it’s so hard to know where to start or what to do in your desperate need to help your child.

He covers the three stages of opiate addiction in young teens, as well as the corresponding danger signs to look out for. There is a clear explanation of things you should know, common myths that are not to be believed, as well as common mistakes that parents may in trying to deal with their child’s drug abuse.

I really liked easy writing style that made reading this book very interesting. It is not an encyclopedia that will bore you to tears, but presents key information every parent should know.

The best part is that James, like myself as a practicing addiction professional, as such he gives sound and solid advice. This is not some fluff written by a ghost writer and a slick marketer trying to make a buck, or promoting some off-the-wall treatment regimen.

The book certainly serves the purpose of providing solid actionable information to its target audience. I highly recommend it.

Here’s the link again Help! My Kids Addicted To Prescription Pain Killers

The good news is that millions have brought their addiction to drugs and alcohol into a state of remission; the bad news is that a far larger number have been unable to do so.

Why is that? What do the abstinent people do? Well I promised you a simple answer here we go:

1. They stopped using. Completely. That means all mood altering substances as well as going through the detox and withdrawal process without giving up.

2. They committed with overpowering force and determination to handling themselves and life with its ups and downs without drugs and alcohol. It is no longer an option

3. They got help and support from every imaginable resource and employed it on a daily basis; that means treatment, family support, God or a Higher Power, friends, 12 step support. They did not go it alone.

I don’t know, does that really seem complicated?

Well, the reality is that it is simple in concept, but difficult in execution, for a wide variety of reasons. Most of the reasons for returning to drug use are not due to outside influences, such as people, place and things; but rather internal emotional upheaval that the addict cannot process, control or contain.

In other words…the events of life and the world don’t make us use. We make ourselves use, from the inside out. Here are just a few things that can mess up those three simple steps above, off the top of my head:

1. Complacency, believing this isn’t so hard, not paying attention

2. Not REALLY making the decision to quit

3. Dishonesty, B.S.’ing yourself

4. Depression

5. Argumentativeness

6. Self pity

7. Cockiness

8. Expecting too much from others

9. Letting up on daily disciplines

10. Forgetting gratitude

11. Isolation

12. Selfishness

13. Not attending 12 meetings

14. Obsessive and compulsive thinking

15. Boredom

16. Maintaining resentments

17. Old “people, places and things”

18. Keeping drugs and/or alcohol in the house

19. Grandiosity

20. Major or sudden “life” changes

21. Exhaustion

22. Anger

23. Anxiety

24. Boredom

25. Stopping medications against your doctor’s advice

26. Shame

27. Self pity, dwelling on unresolved conflicts or past hurts

28. Loneliness and isolation

29. Fear

30. Frustration

I just scratched the tip of the iceberg on how many ways there are of self-sabotage in addiction recovery. On the flip side let me make this really simple:

“There is nothing on earth that can ‘make’ me use drugs or alcohol again, if I choose not to. I have that God-given ability to choose how I will handle life…with drugs or without drugs”

In speaking with other addicts in recovery…

I was made acutely aware of something as I was trying to get across to my father what it was like to be an alcoholic. He is not. Normal people just don’t get it. It’s not their fault, they just really can’t.

I used this as an example.

I said suppose you went out on your birthday and got very very drunk, ended up tipping over the table in the restaurant, banging into walls and falling down. On the way home you nearly wrecked the car, and picked a fight with your wife who should be minding her own business, as you were trying to get the key in the keyhole you peed in your pants.

Taking off your pants and throwing them against the wall in the living room you tripped and crawled into the bathroom and promptly threw up all over. You woke up the next morning on the floor of the bathroom with a massive headache. What is the first thing you would do? My father said he would probably take two aspirin and go to bed and never do that again as long as he lived.

I just shook my head and said see you don’t get it. And I know all you people in addiction recovery will get it when I say no the answer is that the first thing you would do upon waking up is fix yourself a Blood Mary. My father just couldn’t understand that. He said why in the world would you do something that crazy? I said exactly. It was one of those deals will he just had to agree that there would be no meeting of the minds. Every addict I told this story too says ‘you got that right’. Every ‘Normie’ I have told that to looks at me like I have three heads.

The old-timers in Alcoholics Anonymous had it right when they wrote the big book 70 years ago and talked about obsession and compulsion being the distinguishing characteristic of one with addiction.

Few people who are not under the sway of compulsion and obsession can really understand. Add to that the physiological differences of an addict’s body and brain, and we really have a tough nut to crack to stay in addiction recovery. But, it can be done.

Most people feel don’t feel good about themselves from time to time.

In my experience though, people in active addiction and entering addiction recovery don’t feel that great about themselves a lot of the time.

This is completely understandable. If we are working moving ahead on our recovery program, in all probability, we have found a certain amount of wreckage and consequences in the past and present that can generate some very unpleasant feelings.

I think it is very important not stay stuck or locked into having a low opinion of ourselves. After all, isn’t our goal in being sober to gain happiness, peace, and serenity? One of the key pieces in that journey is to start believing that we are worthy of it.

Feelings of low self-esteem may be triggered by being treated poorly by someone else recently or in the past, or by a person’s own judgments of him or herself. This is normal. However, low self-esteem is a constant companion for too many people. Low self-esteem keeps you from enjoying life, doing the things you want to do, and working toward personal goals.

You have a right to feel good about yourself.

However, it can be very difficult to feel good about yourself when you are under the stress of having feelings and emotions that are hard to manage, when you are having a difficult time, or when others are seeming to, or in fact, treating you badly.

At these times, it is easy to be drawn into a downward spiral of lower and lower self-esteem. For instance, you may begin feeling bad about yourself when you start thinking that you should be moving faster and making better progress in recovery and sobriety than you are right now. Then you can begin to start talking to yourself in a negative manner, saying something like ‘man, am I stupid, I’ll never get this’ If you talk to yourself long enough in this manner, you’ll start to believe it. 

If you start to believe it, you just might do something to make it come true, a self-fulfilling prophecy. That may make you feel so bad about yourself that you do something to hurt yourself or someone else, such as getting drunk or high.