Amber Hollingsworth (YouTube creator) explains how addiction deceives otherwise good people with persuasive, self-justifying thoughts that lead them to harm themselves and others. She uses the movie Bedazzled as an analogy and lists common rationalizations ("this makes me better", "I'm not hurting anyone", minimization, rarity excuses, promises of future restraint, promises to "make it right"). A brief clinical example (a teen stealing from grandparents) illustrates how the mind justifies wrongdoing. The video ends with links to relationship-repair resources and a recommended follow-up video for deeper help.
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Addiction will definitely seduce good people into doing bad things, and it will lead you astray through lots of false promises, trickery, and delusion. But once you understand what those false promises are and how it's trying to trick you, it will no longer have power and control over you. They just won't work on you anymore, which is going to put you back in the driver's seat of your own life. For those of you who are new here, I'm Amber Hollingsworth, and this YouTube channel is all about helping you understand the science and psychology of addiction so that you can stay five steps ahead of it at all times. And today we're going to be discussing some sneaky, tricky little thoughts that you definitely need to have your guard up for. You know what it reminds me of? It kind of reminds me of that movie Bedazzled. Was that, like, in the late 90s or early 2000s, something like that? It had, like, Brandon Fraser in it, and basically he's, like, in love with this girl and he makes a deal with the devil and he gets, like, I don't know, five or seven wishes or something like that. And every time he wishes for something, the devil, devil, like, gives it to him sort of, but not really, and ends up being a freaking disaster. That's what addiction is like. It'll give it to you sort of a little, but not really. And in the end, it'll be 10 times worse. Put the little devil emoji in the comments if you know what I'm talking about. If you've seen that movie, one of the big, sneaky, seductive thoughts is that addiction will tell you that whatever the addiction is will somehow make you into a better person. Maybe it's alcohol and you convince yourself that you're less uptight and you're more friendly and you're easier to get along with when you drink. Maybe it's you smoke marijuana and you convince yourself that you're more creative and interesting when you smoke. Maybe you convince yourself that you're just doing all this gambling because you want to make a ton of money and provide more for your family. Can you see how sneaky this is? It's trying to convince you that whatever, this addictive behavior is going to make you better. Addictive behavior never makes you better, so don't believe that sneaky, tricky little thought. And another one of those thoughts that tries to sneak in there and lie to you is any version of, well, I'm not hurting anyone else. And if you have hurt someone else and you're aware of it, it will trick you into thinking that somehow it was their fault. Like, for example, I only sneak around and lie and hide because my family makes such a big deal about it, and they get so upset. I just don't want to have a fight with them, or I'm just trying to protect their feelings. I'm doing it for them. One time, I had this young teenage boy that I was seeing in my office. This was a long time ago, and he had already sort of burned the bridge with his parents, so he went to live in this other state with his grandparents, and. And he ended up stealing a lot of money from the grandparents. And when I asked him about it, basically he said, well, they have a ton of money. They don't even need it. Plus, they just leave it laying around on the table and everywhere else. I mean, heck, what was I supposed to do? Now, this next one is a way that you will minimize your bad behaviors and bad choices. This one starts out with, well, at least I don't blank. At least I don't hit my spouse. At least I don't steal. At least I'm not out there doing heroin. At least I don't drink in the mornings. At least I'm not aggressive when I'm high. At least I don't miss work. It's some kind of, well, okay, yeah, I'm doing this thing. It's probably not good. It's causing me to do other bad things, but it's not causing me to do this one bad thing. So that makes it okay. Total minimization and justification. Another version of that goes, well, it doesn't happen that often. Everybody makes mistakes every now and then. Bad things only happen, you know, like three or four times in a year. Another sneaky, justifying thought is the one that says, I won't let that happen again. Okay, that really bad thing happened. Like, I got a DUI I was aggressive with, with my spouse. I yelled at my kids, I stole from my grandmother, but I won't let that happen again. That thought is a big lie that your addiction is telling you, if you continue to engage in the same addictive behavior, guess what? You're eventually gonna get the same result. And another justifying thought is the one where you tell yourself, I'll make it right. I'll put the money back, I'll apologize, I'll be better. I'll fix it. But as long as you're engaging in that addiction, you're going to keep doing more and more and more harmful things to yourself and to other people. And your list of making things right gets bigger and bigger and bigger. How many times have you told yourself, I'll fix that before they even find out it happened? It's time that we start getting our guard up. We start recognizing these thoughts for exactly what they are. They're lies. They're manipulation. It's how we manipulate ourselves into making bad choices. Now, if you're ready to fix things and rebuild trust, I'm going to put the link up here again for rapid relationship repair. And if you're really serious about conquering your addiction and getting rid of these thoughts for good, I want you to watch this video next.
