7 Lies That Keep Most People Stuck In Addiction

If you're trying to overcome an addiction or your loved one is trying to overcome an addiction, but you're not having very much success, it's probably because of one of these seven things. In this video, I'm going to tell you the top seven thought processes and problematic beliefs that are keeping you stuck. For those of you who are new here, welcome to Put the Shovel Down. I'm Amber Hollingsworth, and this YouTube channel is all about helping you understand the science and psychology of addiction so you can get back in control of your life and your family and get back out there and live the life that you want to live. And this is the only channel that helps you understand addiction from every single angle. All right, now, today we are going to be looking through the psychological lens about the top seven thoughts, Thoughts, rationalizations, or you might even call them lies that your addiction could be trying to convince you of that are keeping you stuck. If you're not having success and you really want things to get better, it's probably because of one of these seven things, if not all of these seven things. So as we go through these, try to keep count how many of these apply to your situation. Now, this first thought process is really sort of like a lie that your addiction tries to convince you of in order to kind of like distract you or throw you off course. And this one keeps you busy being focused on other people and angry about other situations around you, so that, guess what, you're not actually dealing with the real problem, which is the addiction. And that lie is. I'm sick of blank trying to control me. Fill in that blank. My wife, my parents, my husband, my job, my boss, the government, whatever. If you're angry and you're all the time frustrated, you feel like everyone around you is always trying to control you and you're struggling with an addiction, I want you to really, really get honest with yourself here. Stop and think about it. I know you're mad because you feel like your family member is trying to control you, but what's really, really controlling you here, if the truth of it is, is you want to be in control of your own life, then you got to get real with yourself. Because it's the addiction that's controlling you, right? It's the addiction that determines what you do when you do it, how much of it you do, who you have to hurt in order to do it, what promises you can keep, what promises you can't keep. Because there is absolutely nothing more in this world that can control you better than an addiction. It is the ultimate puppet master. And let me tell you what about this puppet master. It's really good at its job. In fact, it's so good that it has you convinced and mad at all these other people, people in situations out there, because you're saying, oh, these people are trying to control me. I'm a grown man and I can drink if I want to. I should be able to do this, I should be able to do that. And you spend a lot of time arguing with outside people, getting distanced from important people and situations in your life until you know you're all alone and all you have is the addiction. Just like being in an abusive relationship, the abuser wants to get you all to itself. And in this situation, the addiction is the abuser. So let's get clear on exactly who or what is trying to control you. Number two false belief that could possibly be swaying you in the wrong direction is you could be telling yourself, I can fix this without blank. Fill in that blank for yourself, right? I can fix this without everyone having to know. I can fix this without having to go to detox and having to miss time from work. I can fix this without having to confess to my wife that there are six credit cards she doesn't know about. I can. I can fix this but not have to break up with my boyfriend that's still using drugs. It's this idea of, I want to get out of this the easy way, right? It's like, okay, I do want to fix it, but I don't want to do this big scary thing over here. And the truth of it is, when you try to do that, when you try to kind of like, get around this one big thing that you really know you need to do or you're going to have to do or it's going to take. It's very likely not going to work. If you really, really want to beat this thing, then at some point you're going to have to kind of bite the bullet and take that big step that you don't want to take. Maybe it's, I can fix this without having to get help. I can fix this without having to go to meetings or get a sponsor. I can fix this and no one will ever have to know. But this one is all about the without. Without doing what? What is that one thing that you're resisting that in your heart, you know, deep down, need to do or you're gonna have to do eventually. If you just come to terms with that and you face it and you bite that bullet, you're gonna get better a lot faster. Number three, false belief that you could be falling into if you're not being successful at conquering an addiction is the idea that somehow things are going to be different tomorrow, right? Like this constant thought of, on Monday, I'm gonna kick this thing after Christmas, you know, it's dry January. It's this idea that somehow in the future, this thing's going to go away. Now, it's not that in the future, this thing cannot go away. It's just that it's not going to magically go away, right? Like when it's this constant procrastination of, I'll deal with that tomorrow, there's never going to be a good time. There's never going to be a convenient time. And in my experience, the more time that you let go by, the more difficult it is to get out of this thing. We used to have this young guy in a group that I ran a long time ago, and he used to say, if you hike seven miles into the woods, you've got to hike seven miles out. So if you're sitting here telling yourself, I'll get sober on Monday, well, on Monday going to be three more miles in, okay? And just because you decide that you're going to be better, it's just not going to magically go away. You've got to put those action steps in place. Because without serious action, addiction only ever gets worse. It doesn't stabilize, it doesn't stop, it doesn't magically go away. It gets worse and worse and worse. Until you actively decide that you're done with it, you're not going to go down that path anymore, and you take those big steps that you need to take in order to conquer this thing? Number four is, I can't because fill in the blank. I can't because I don't have the money. I can't because they don't have any live meetings where I'm at. They're still all virtual. I can't, because everyone in my family still uses. This is kind of like the excuse version. It's when your addiction is convincing you that there's this big thing that makes it impossible for you to get better. Now, the next time your addiction tries to tell you that, here's what I want you to say back to that addiction in your head. Or you say it out loud if you want to. But I want you to say, when is the last time that you couldn't use because or couldn't drink because or couldn't engage in your addictive behavior? Because, yeah, there is no such thing. Right? Because when it comes to that, you always find a way. Right? There could be 10,000 limitations, 20,000 reasons why you can't do it at that time or that day or whatever. But guess what? You always find a way around it. And the same thing goes when it comes to recovery. You gotta work at it. Just like you have to work to keep an addiction up, you have to work to keep your recovery together. The good news is, is that when you put work in for recovery, it gets easier and easier and easier. When you put work in towards fueling an addiction, it gets harder and harder and harder. Number five, irrational belief that you might be having is that won't work because. Right. Counseling doesn't work for me because I can't go to treatment, because 12 steps is not my thing. Because I've tried that before. It's any kind of version of anytime you. That you're dismissing possible solutions, and you're just putting up walls and roadblocks and. Yeah, but that's your addiction taking all these options off of the table. Now, I'm not saying that everything works for every person, but I do think that you need to stop and think. Are you giving it an automatic no? Is it really reasonable? Or are you just finding a reason why that particular option isn't a good idea for you to even consider or try out? Number six. Now, this is a biggie, and you might really struggle with this one, and you might even argue with me about it. It's okay. I'm used to it. Number six is I don't want to stop. Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, amber, yeah, that's the case. I don't want to stop. And I guess on some level, that is partially the truth. But what's more likely, the real, real bigger part of the truth is, is that you don't want some other kind of negative consequence that you fear is going to be the case if you stop. Example. Maybe you fear that life will suck and be boring without the addictive behavior or substance. Or maybe you fear that people won't look at you the same way without the addictive behavior or substance. Or maybe you fear that you won't be as good at your job or as creative or fast. Or maybe you fear that you won't be able to overcome the withdrawals. Or maybe you fear that you have no other way to fight your depression or anxiety. A lot of times when people say, I just don't want to stop, it's really something else that they're trying to avoid. Void. So get clear with yourself, be honest with yourself and say what's really going on here. Because if you're addicted and you've been addicted long enough that you're watching this video, my guess is it's not that much fun anymore and it's probably not working for you that great anymore. Maybe it used to, but now it really doesn't. And so when you've been stuck for that long, it's probably not that you don't want to stop, it's probably that you're scared to stop. And number seven is it's not fair. Now, this is where we kind of let ourselves off the hook by focusing on the injustice of the whole situation. Why am I alcoholic and now I can't drink, but everyone else gets to drink. Why did I have to get this problem? Let's be honest, it's a little bit of a woe is me kind of thinking. And I hate to get like super recovery, like sound like a sponsor here for a second, but why don't you ask yourself this? Why not you? Why are you so special that it shouldn't be you? And while we're on like a mission of being like super duper seriously self honest, somewhere along this journey, you made a choice to continue this journey. Now I know a lot of you are thinking, well, you don't choose to be an addict. If you're watching this video on YouTube or Facebook, that means that you have lived and grown up in a time where you know what is addictive and what isn't and you know that you're running the risk when you did that. Even if it's, I had a major accident and they put me on pain pills and I got addicted to them. It wasn't my fault. Somewhere along the way of you taking those pain pills, you knew that you really like them and you knew that you were taking more and you made a choice to continue down that path. Now maybe you're telling yourself it's not fair because I didn't know it was going to end up this way. But let's get honest with ourselves. There's a lot of choices all along the way that we made that got us to this point. Now, this isn't me trying to beat anybody up or judging or saying it's all your fault. What I'm saying is in order to recover, you have to get really, really honest with yourself. This is hard work. I mean, this stuff requires a lot of humility and integrity and honesty. That is the work of recovery. But if you can do that, it is well worth the work. Like I said before, if you put time and work into recovery, it gets easier and life gets better. If you put your time and energy into fueling an addiction, it gets harder and life gets worse. So let's make a smart, strategic choice about where to put our time, energy and efforts. Which one of these seven statements gives you the most trouble? The one that pops in your head and tries to control the situation. Let me know that in the comments. And for those of you who are interested and you are trying to get clean and sober, or you're clean and sober, but you want to make sure you're staying clean and sober, I am in the process of working on an online program called Recovery to Go with the goal of making recovery as easy and convenient as it can possibly be. That's why I'm calling it Recovery to Go. If you're interested in that. It's not out yet, but I'm working on it. If you're interested in that, I'm going to put the link in the description down below. You can sign up because when it does get ready. I'll be taking some beta testers, so make sure you get your name on that list. Which reminds me, up next, I want you to watch this video about the simplest, easiest first steps that you can take towards your sobriety and your recovery.