Denial: The Partial Awareness Trap

So when someone's close but not all the way there, what you're going to hear them say is things like, yeah, I really need to stop. I really need to cut back. I gotta take a break from it. They'll say things like, maybe they have a problem with more than one substance. You'll hear them say things like, yeah, I've gotta stop the cocaine, I've gotta stop the alcohol, I've gotta stop the prescription pain pills, whatever it is. But they don't mention. The other thing, and this is very common, is that they feel like, I've got a problem with this over here. But this other substance that goes along with it, it's not really the problem. It's just this part over here that's the problem. And so they'll want to stop one substance but not another substance.