Denial-Why Addicts Lie To Themselves And The Ones They Love

In this video, we're going to talk about the top 10 lies that addicts and alcoholics tell themselves that keep themselves stuck.

One.

Okay, lie number one is I'm only hurting myself. Man, this one drives me crazy. I bet it does you, too. I mean, it's like, I'm just doing this. I'm just hurting me. If you're telling yourself that. Not true. Oh, my gosh. I hear this one all the time. Here it is. You ready? This is the only thing that fixes my depression and my anxiety. If you're using drugs and alcohol to fix fix your depression anxiety, I guarantee you it's making it worse, not better.

Number three.

Okay, lie number three. This is a biggie. And this one is super duper frustrating. I'll say something like, you know, I really. It's not. I really don't drink that much. It's just that my wife comes from an alcoholic family and she's, like, so overly sensitive about it. She's just really uptight and worries about it entirely too much. So the person uses some form of it's not me, it's you.

Number four.

Oh, I like this one. I get this one a lot because I work with a lot of really, really successful addicts and alcoholics. In fact, I see lots of businessmen who drink too much. And this is the one that the functional addict or alcoholic likes to tell themselves. This is the fave for the functionals. It's I do everything else. I deserve to get to use or relax or have a few drinks or smoke some weed or whatever it is. It's that, you know, I deserve it mentality.

Number five.

Number five is a biggie, especially for parents. But really, this one can go for anybody, too. This one is, I'm still a good mother, brother, wife, sister, father, cousin, student employee, even though I do this. Here's the truth on that one. You might be pretty good at fulfilling those roles in your life, but I guarantee you, you're not as good as you can. Number six is, I've already screwed it up. I might as well keep going. Anyway, this is the what I call eff it mentality. The most irrational maybe of the dang lies. I mean, this is so, like, what are you thinking? You know that saying that people say sometimes that's, well, if you're at bottom, the only place to go is up. Not true. Guess what? Most people just skid along the bottom and just stay. Number seven is another one of those that's really common to what I call the maybe, like stage three addict or alcoholic. If you don't know what that means, you probably want to check out my videos on the stages of addiction. But essentially, that's kind of like fancy clinical term for meaning functional addict or alcoholic. So when these people come to treat, whether they're just in counseling with me, they're in big boy rehab, or they're in group or 12 step or whatever, here's what they like to say to themselves. I'm not an addict or an alcoholic because I've never drank in the morning. I've never done heroin. I've never stolen anything. I've never pawned my mother's wedding ring. You know, it's all these. I'm trying to make a reason why I don't belong here. Two days ago, I had this conversation with a guy in my office, and I said, well, what you're saying is essentially like, oh, I only have stage two cancer. I'm all good. I don't need to do anything. That's the most ridiculous thing, don't you think, when you think of it that way? And that is truly what you're telling yourself.

Number eight, those of you that know.

Me or have seen a few of my videos, y' all know how I feel about this one. So number eight is you have to want it for yourself. Not true. Being an addict or an alcoholic pretty much means that even though something's totally screwing up your life, you don't want to stop. And so waiting for an addict or an alcoholic to want to stop is, again, it's kind of silly. It's irrational. It doesn't fit with what we know about what the word addict or alcoholic even means. It means they don't want to stop. Trust me. Even the ones that call my office and bring themselves in and pay for their own treatment, they trust me. They don't want to stop. What they don't want is some negative other thing that's in their life, and that is perfectly fine. I like to say there is no bad reason to get sober. I don't care if you're doing it because you don't want to go to prison, if you're doing it because your mama's making you, if you're doing it because you don't want to lose your kids or your wife. Hey, those are great reasons. I've already ruined all of my relationships, so this is similar to I've already effed it up. You know, it's what I call getting the efforts. This one is more focused specifically on relationships. My girlfriend left me. You know, I Lost my job, and now I'm just gonna keep on drinking and drinking and drinking. Victim thinking is going to keep you stuck. Number 10. It's probably not the last lie addicts tell themselves, but is the last on this list. Number 10 is, I would never let it go this far. So it could be like, well, I would never steal from my family, or I would never. Or I would never beat my wife, or I would never do heroin. It's these little arbitrary lines in the sand. Most the time in my office when people tell me this, well, I would never do this, I can usually look them straight in the face and I'll say, but what about last week when you told me you did that? And they're like, well, that doesn't really count. I'm like, yeah, I'm pretty sure that counts. Like, I'm pretty sure when you took your kids medicine, that counts as, so you don't want to stop. Of course you don't. The question you should be asking yourself is, is this the person that I want to be? That's the question. Because it's making you become a person that you're not or that you don't want to be, or you can't even recognize yourself anymore. So remember, it's not, do I want to stop? It's is this the kind of person that I want to be? If you or a loved one has a drug or alcohol problem and you don't want to waste a lot of time and money doing all the wrong things, save yourself the heartache. Subscribe to this channel, and I'll make sure you're always five steps ahead of addiction.