The Lie You Tell Yourself Right Before You Drink

There's a moment right before you drink, pick up that drink, where something happens in your mind. It's not, I want to get drunk. It's not, I don't care anymore. It sometimes sounds completely reasonable. Sounds— tends to sound like, I had a really hard week, or just this once, or I'm already stressed, one drink won't make it worse, or I deserve this. Or the famous, I'll quit on Monday. Now that thought that you're having, that's a little rationalization that you're telling yourself, which is kind of a fancy psychological word for lying. And the terrifying part is that it works on you every single time, not really because you're weak and not because you don't really want to stop, but because the lie, the rationalization is specifically designed by your brain to get past all of your defense mechanisms. For those of you who are new here, my name is Amber Hollingsworth. I've been helping people and families overcome addiction for more than 20 years now, and I've sat with people inside this moment so many times, which is why today we're going to dissect this issue and take it apart completely. I want to start by saying something that I really mean, like with my heart. If you've never been able to make a promise to yourself and keep it, it's not a character flaw. It's not a character defect. Something else is going on. I see people carry so much shame about this, and I know I shouldn't. Like they, they think, I know I shouldn't. They want to stop. They don't know why they can't just stop. They get mad at themselves over and over and over. And then they decide that the answer must be that they're broken or weak, or that they don't really want it bad enough. But that's not really what's happening here. What's happening is you're fighting a battle against your own brain and you're fighting it with a weapon that's just not working properly. So today I want to give you a different weapon on how to combat this little rationalization that keeps tripping you up and getting you in trouble. Every single time, because you can't really willpower your way out of it. Willpower lives in the front part of your brain, the prefrontal cortex. That's where the rational, logical, long-term thinking part of your brain lives. And the lie, it doesn't really come from there. It's generated by the part of your brain that's older, faster. And in moments of stress and craving, it's louder than any logical thought. That you're having. Basically, it's like it overrides that part of your brain. So when I hear someone say, I just need to try harder, my heart sinks a little bit because I know that that strategy just isn't going to work for the problem that they're facing. And it's sad because usually by the time they see me, they've tried that 1,000 times. But there is something that will work and Where you got to recognize what the lie is, where it's coming from, and build a specific strategy for your lie. That's what we're going to talk about today. And in my experience dealing with people, they have a lie that they sort of consistently go back to. They'll say, every time I relapse, it's literally this process. And they'll say, first this happens, and then I think this, and then I tell myself this, and then I do this. And it's very predictable. So I want to go through a lot of the really common ones here so you can learn to pick yours out and identify it. That way when you're having it, it just doesn't work on you anymore. So let's walk through the common ones that you hear just over and over and over. The first one I want to tell you about is called the reward lie. And it's something like, I've earned this. I've had a hard day, a hard week, a hard year. I deserve to feel better. This one is sneaky because it's not entirely untrue. You did have a hard day. You do deserve relief. And the lie isn't in the premise. It's in the solution that your brain offers because your brain is trying to say drinking equals relief. And maybe in the short term it does deliver some relief, but that's what makes it so convincing, right? Because we don't think, we don't play that tape. We don't think it all the way through. Your brain leaves out a part, the part about what it's going to cost you after, how you're going to feel the next day. And then the reward basically turns into a debt that you're paying. It's sort of this like, I've been good, I've been sober all week, let me have a cheat day kind of thought, right? And it feels tempting, right? And like I said, it can be somewhat logical, but you got to think it all the way through. Like I would say, it's not, maybe it's not a complete lie, but it's not the complete truth. So we got to complete the truth there. Now, another type of lie that you could be struggling with is one that I call the control lie. And that one is sort of the flavor of like, just this once, I'll stop after 2, I'm in control this time. The reason this one is so persistent is because it's worked before, maybe not consistently, but enough times that your brain like holds onto it and it wants to constantly go back to that particular one. Like sometimes you do just have 2 and sometimes nothing bad happens. And sometimes you have one glass and then you stop. And so your brain remembers that. Obviously you remember when that is and you forget about maybe all the times when that didn't work. I like to say it's kind of like Russian roulette. It's not like the people that I see, it's not so much that they can't manage it. It's more that they don't, they can't manage it consistently or So like you don't really know when the crap's going to hit the fan. When it does, it's really bad, right? But it's easy to convince yourself, I'm not going to let it get that far. But when it's happening, like neuro— every time you drink after telling yourself you're going to control it and then you don't control it, your brain records that pattern and that pattern becomes This is what drinking looks like for me. And so a lot of times when people have relapses, I'll say one of the worst things that can happen in relapse is they have a successful one. It's just a little and nothing bad happens because this will leave the crack in the armor for that control lie to sneak back in. Because it doesn't feel like a lie in the moment. You genuinely believe it. You genuinely mean it. That is your true intent. It's not really, it's not denial in the way people think about denial. It's your brain making a prediction on what it desperately wants to be true. You know, most of us think that we reason through things and then we make a decision, but the truth of it is it doesn't really work like that. The truth is, is that we make a decision and then we reason through to rationalize the decisions that we make. And that's why decisions are made emotionally and not logically. It feels logically. So it's kind of like if I go to the mall or whatever, and I want to buy a new pair of shoes, I decide I want these shoes. I decided I'm going to buy these shoes. And then I think of like 5 reasons why it's a good idea for me to buy these shoes. Oh, I can wear them here and this special event or whatever, you know? And then I make up the reasoning to go with that decision I've made. And that's why these Rationalizations are really just ways that we give ourselves permission to do what we're going to do. And you got to start learning to recognize it in the moment, or maybe even before it even happens, because you can feel it coming. Right? Now, lie number 3 is one that I call the timing lie. It's like, I'll quit on Monday, after this week, once things settle down. And this lie is kind of sophisticated. It's more complex because it contains like a promise. The future you is going to do the hard thing. You guys remember The Simpsons where he talks about the future Homer? The current you needs to get through today. That problem is in the future. Like Homer Simpson says, that's a problem for future Homer. It can't— it's getting through that day is like you have the same stressors, the same lie is waiting, but Monday really never actually comes. It just keeps moving. Let's look at a different kind of lie. Maybe this is your lie. It's called the permission lie. And a lot of times this one is, it's more like, well, I've already messed up today. I've already ruined it. So might as well keep going. Right? Or it's not like things could get worse or nobody's even going to know that it happened. I'm not hurting anybody. My wife will never know. She's not even home. Right? And this one is particularly troublesome because it often comes after someone Has already been trying. They had a bad day, a stressful moment, a hard conversation, and then their brain is saying, "You already failed, so what's the point?" I call it the the the efforts is what I like to call it unofficially called the efforts. You just want to give up, but it isn't the truth. Your brain's just looking for a reason, like I said, and it'll find one. The decision. You're making the decision and then rationalizing it on the back end instead of the other way around. Now, why does this lie work every time on you? You got to think about why. You probably have told yourself the same one. I'd love to hear in the chat, what is the lie that you tell yourself? What's the one that gets you every time and sucks you back in? Because like I said, most people, it's like the same one. You know it's not true, but you still believe it. Because knowing something in your prefrontal cortex, in the thinking part of your brain, and believing it in the survival part of your brain are 2 completely different things. That survival part overrules the thinking part. It overrules the judgment. Because think about your fear of flying. You know logically that flying is statistically safer than driving. You can recite, you can recite the statistics and still feel terror. on that plane when it hits turbulence, right? It's that kind of thing where that emotional part of your brain is overriding because knowing it, the knowing part of your brain is less strong than the survival part of your brain, which is in most cases a good thing. And it just kind of bites us in the butt when we have addiction. Because when you have addiction, your brain has learned that the substance, the addiction equals relief from pain. And that's a survival signal, that relief from pain. So when the cravings hit, your brain isn't weighing pros and cons. It's running the survival program and it's faster and more powerful than any kind of conscious decision that you can make in that particular moment. And this is one of the reasons why I talk about accountability being so important. And this seems really simple, but when people are early in, I'm like, make it not available to yourself. And that will only make it easier for you, right? Like make it hard for you to fall back into that same pattern. Don't try to test yourself. Don't try to cowboy yourself out of this. There's no reason to make it harder. It's already hard enough. So don't have it in your house. Don't set yourself up to go to places really early in recovery where you know other people are going to be doing it and it's going to trigger you, all that kind of sad thing, because you can't just decide not to. It's not so much that you don't really have the willpower, it's that— You're asking to outthink your brain, whose job is literally to keep you alive. So you got to get ahead of that survival part, not just in the rationalization part. Now, the good news is once you understand that specific lie that you're telling yourself, hopefully you're putting that in the chat, your specific version, you can start to interrupt it. Not by being stronger, Faster, more cowboyish, but by learning to catch it before the lie even runs. Right. And once you've done this so many times, you will stop telling yourself that lie. Like that one last time lie. That's a good one, right? The one last time. You'll learn that that doesn't really work for you. The tricky thing is about addiction is once you learn to recognize one voice, it'll change voices on you and a new one will sneak in. So that's why I always say to beat addiction, you gotta outsmart it. You gotta think ahead of it, not wait until that moment and then hope you make a good decision. You gotta lay the foundation for how you're gonna not drink or not use. Sometimes when people are talking to me in early recovery and they're gonna go like maybe to a concert for the first time or fishing or to a work retreat, that's a long weekend where all the salespeople get together and they just get wasted or whatever. Yeah. You don't want to put yourself in that situation and think, I'm going to make a game time decision. Because sometimes people will say to me, well, I wasn't planning to drink. And I said, yeah, but were you planning not to? Right? Like one of the things you can do for accountability to plan not to is tell someone else, you don't tell everybody, tell someone else that you know there that you're not drinking, smoking, whatever the thing is that you're not doing that anymore. Because just knowing that that person knows will hold you accountable and it makes it less likely. that you're going to tell yourself that lie. In fact, the conversation doesn't even play because it's sort of off the table at that point. And it actually makes it a lot easier to stay sober. So step 1 is to name your specific lie. Most people have 1 or 2 that show up very consistently. Sometimes the lie, and I didn't put this in a category, but I just thought of it and I wanted to throw it out there because Sometimes the lie is like, um, you trick yourself into starting with some other kind of substance that then leads back to like the, the main substance, right? Like, um, maybe it's like smoking and that leads to drinking or drinking and that leads to cocaine or whatever it is. So sometimes your lie is, I'm just going to do this. I'm not going to do that. But it's once you, that gate opens in your brain, you, you tend to go back and it's almost like dominoes. First this domino, then this and this and this. So that lie that shows up for you consistently, you got to know what it is. I want you to put it in chat. If you don't feel comfortable putting it in chat, put it on a piece of paper somewhere so that you're calling it out. Now, what was the thought right before? Did your brain tell you? How did your brain rationalize it? Write it down, literally, because when it's only in your head, it feels like it's true every time. But when you see it on paper, it like loses its power. It starts to look like what it really is. Now, step 2 is build a gap in between that little rationalization. It all happens in seconds or like milliseconds sometimes between the cravings and the first slip. So the window is super small. Your only job is to make that slightly longer. You don't have to like Eliminate the craving. You don't have to never promise you're never going to do it again. Just create a pause. I call it procrastinate it, right? Say, okay, I might do that, but let me think on that for an hour or something like that. Because if you give yourself some time, your logical brain can kick back in. And a lot of times you can overcome that trigger or that craving. Some people find it helpful to say it out loud to someone in their recovery support system, because I call it, I call that telling on your disease. It's like turning the light on scary monsters. Like, I see you and you're not scary. By saying it out loud, it kind of makes it run off like a bully. You know, it's something clients tell me all the time is you can't think, you can't really think when you're in the middle of a craving. And people tell me all the time, like, I know I don't want to do this. I know it doesn't make sense. I know it's ruining my life. Why do I keep doing this? It's because you've got to make the decision in advance in a calm moment. And it's not just a decision, I'm not going to do it, but like putting things in place, roadblocks, accountability, making sure you don't put yourself in certain situations. That's what I mean when I talk about like getting ahead of it. And you got to pre-decide this. If you hear the timing lie, then call a friend. If you hear the reward lie, then go for a walk. If you're planning because you want to bypass that moment of decision, you can run the script in your prefrontal cortex already. You don't really try to fight against it. You try to recognize it for what it is because fighting it and resisting is almost like giving it power. It's almost like when someone tells you you can't do something, it makes you want it even more. Did you know that that even works when you do it? When you tell yourself you can't do something, it makes you want it even more. So it's not about trying to fight it or willpower. It's about understanding what it actually is. It's like a con man talking to you, right? If you think about it like the devil and angel, you can say, yeah, I've heard that before. I know that's not true. Right? You got to learn how to observe it. And when you observe it, you can say, oh, that's the lie I always tell myself on Mondays or Fridays or Saturdays. Or on Sundays, I'm like, I'm going to stop by X o'clock so I'll feel good tomorrow. Right? It's about recognizing your lie. It's about developing a relationship with your own patterns so that these rationalizations just can't ambush you the same way anymore. In just a minute, we're going to take some comments and questions. So make sure you have those in chat. Bree is back there getting ready for you. She's moderating for us. So. Go ahead and get those up there. And while you do that, I just want those of you who are looking for more resources, if you're in a place where you know all this and you still can't seem to get traction, then you might want to get ahead of it by getting yourself some coaching, going to a meeting, getting a sponsor, because that's a good way of getting ahead of it. If you want to work with me one-on-one, you can. We do recovery coaching. We call it strengths-based recovery coaching because Because we focus on what you're good at and not what you're not good at. I feel like you get along a lot more distance with that. We don't, we're not into judgment or shame or making you do it any specific pathway. We want to find something that fits for who you are, works with your personal strengths. We will identify what the lies are that you tell yourself so they won't work on you anymore. You do have to apply to get into that. But I've put the link in the description in case you want to check it out. And I also know that some of you are watching this because you're watching from a family member perspective and you're thinking, well, I don't need the recovery coaching, but my person won't even watch this kind of video. They won't even get out of denial enough to even consider this. How do I even get them to think about this kind of thing? So if that's the situation you're in, then I want to invite you to our Denial Breakthrough Challenge. We have this about every couple months or so, and the next one starts this coming Monday. So go ahead and grab your seat because in the Denial Breakthrough Challenge, I'm going to tell you exactly what to say, how to say it, when to say it. You're going to identify your magic words. That's going to work for your specific situation. I'm going to walk you through how to figure out what it is that's going to be helpful to your loved one. And this, the Denial Breakthrough Challenge is particularly helpful if you're living with someone, and this isn't an official thing, but someone that I would consider like a functional addict or an alcoholic. They, the standard sort of intervention processes don't really work on them because you're not going to convince them that they've hit bottom and that they're like all these other alcoholics and they need to go do all this other stuff, right? You got to have different methods. And that's what we talk about in the Denial Breakthrough Challenge. So that link is down there. Check out those resources. And Bree, are you ready? Let me move over so I can see the chat here. Bree's going to put us some stuff up here. There we go. Elizabeth says, any advice for my son who's going to be extradited to Arizona because of breaking probation by using? What can he work on behind bars to overcome his lies? Lies can remain when forced sobriety. So I guess what you're saying is like he's going to be forced into jail, which probably means he's going to be forced into getting sober. I know you can get drugs in jail, but for the most part, he's going to be sober, probably all the way sober. And so you're saying if it's forced, will they even think about this? Actually, in my experience, even people who don't want help, if they're not in denial about the addiction, like they know they're addicted, but maybe they don't really want the help or whatever, if you get them clean long enough and their thinking brain kicks in, then oftentimes they decide that they want to. Sometimes you got to get people sober to get them to want to get sober. So Forced treatment or jail, just forced sobriety, whatever, can definitely work. I met with someone just this past week who was— I've met with this person before and they were really, really struggling. And I said, they're doing better now. I said, how'd you get there? And they were like, well, because I was in jail and I didn't have any choice and my brain cleared up. So if that's the case with your son, then it could kick in. I don't want you to be like— Feeling hopeless about that. If he's already insightful, journaling, talking to other people in recovery. I don't know if where he's going has any kind of programs or meetings or whatever, but there's lots of ways to get to that. What else do we got, Bree? Chloe says, I'm the mom of someone with alcohol use disorder primarily, and her lie is that she can control it. And she's not addicted. Yeah, that's the control, all right. And then she says, do I ever raise it with her? I am living my best life I can and I am being kind. Do I ever suggest she look at the fact that she doesn't seem to be in control? No, I wouldn't bring it up first. My techniques are, because you're in a good place, it sounds like you're not in the bad guy position. You don't want to You don't want to ruin that and put yourself in the bad guy position by trying to make her see something she doesn't want to see. What you got to do is you got to wait for a moment where she brings the topic in. Like maybe she overdrinks and it's a family thing. And the next day she's feeling crappy and she's like, man, I really wish I wouldn't have done that or whatever. And what you do is you just use reflective listening and empathy statements to get her to see for herself that she can't control it. If you directly try to tell someone they can't control it, they're just going to get all hell-bent to power struggle and prove to you that they can. So they'll go out tomorrow night and they will drink exactly what they say they're going to drink just to prove it to you, which is essentially they're trying to prove it to themselves and it makes denial worse. So wait until you get the right moment and pull those thoughts out of her. These are the things that we talk about in the Denial Breakthrough Challenge. Right. How do you find their motivators and pull them forward instead of trying to push yours onto them? It just works like a million times better. Another user says, downgraded from BF to roommate. I don't know if that's best friend or boyfriend to roommate. Is it enabling to not kick them out and allow the natural consequences of their use Rather than get them out sooner for my peace of mind. Okay. So there's, I need his part of the rent. Okay. Here's my thinking on the kicking out. This is a really great question, and I'm sure you're not the only one that has it. So glad you asked it. Making the decision about whether or not to have somebody with an addiction living with you needs to be about you and not about them. So if you're going to ask someone to leave, it needs to be for a good reason. Maybe they haven't paid rent, maybe they're causing crazy chaos, maybe they're bringing drugs in and out of your place and it's not safe and you don't want to live like that. That's a good reason to ask someone to leave. But if you're thinking, well, I need to put them out because they need to hit bottom and they need to experience this consequence, and if I don't, I'm enabling, That's not necessarily true. In fact, when you put people out, their using pretty much always gets worse. So this idea that if I kick them out, that's going to be their bottom and they're not going to have anywhere to go, that doesn't work. So that's not me telling you not to put them out. That's me telling you to ask yourself and get really honest. Why am I doing this? If you're doing it for you and your sanity and logistical reasons, then do it. If you're doing it because you think you're proving a point to them, it's probably not going to work. So hopefully that helps. JR or Jay Rivera says, my partner would do the disappearing act and pick fights with me to justify the disappearing act and blame me. I know, right? They're so good at that, picking the fights. I call it fishhook, throw it out at you. How do I help him understand that drinking is the core of the conflict and the behaviors? Again, I'm going to go back to what I was talking about just earlier. You got to get out of the thought process of, I'm trying to put this thought in their brain, right? And you got to think, where is the insight that they have already? What are the things that they value? What are the things that's going to motivate them? And you got to find those things that are already inside that person and pull them forward and they sort of grow and they become more and more motivating. Again, this is the stuff we teach in the Denial Breakthrough Challenge, right? You cannot just tell someone this piece of information. Even though I've been a counselor for years or whatever, and I can diagnose, if someone comes in and says, am I an alcoholic? I mean, I probably already know the answer, right? But I don't just say the answer. I say, I don't know. Let me get the book out. I'll read you the criteria and you tell me how many you got or whatever. So it's about letting them come to it because when they come to it, it sticks. When you try to tell it to them, even if they know it's true, They're going to be defensive and power struggle with you, which takes denial in the wrong direction. Hopefully that helps. Yes. When I go on a diet, I immediately become very hungry. I know, right? Me too. I'm with you, Kaylin. I start dreaming about cereal and stuff. All right. My son isn't responding, so I haven't talked to him. I'm not mad, but disappointed. I know he's struggling in general. I would like to pay his car off with some of his money and mine because our— is there more to that? Our friend cosigned the loan and it's affecting his credit. I'm allowing all the other financial and legal consequences. Well, most of them. Thoughts? This is another really good question. It's kind of like the, should I ask my roommate to leave kind of thing? And the answer is, it depends on why you're doing it. And from what you're saying, you're doing it To protect your friend. You're not doing it because you think, if I help him out, he's going to stop or whatever. So when it comes to boundaries, it's not so much that there's certain boundaries are okay and certain boundaries are not okay. It's more of a, why am I doing this? It's the intention behind it. And so for you, it sounds like the intention behind it is it's hurting this person's credit and I'm not okay with that. And I like that you said, I want to use some of his money to do it, but you got to get his permission to use his money to do it. Like, I wouldn't just spend his money on it. And then he comes and he wants his money one day and he's like super ticked at you or whatever. If that's a thing, if he, like, if it's his money he's got in a savings account or something like that. What else do we have, Bree? All right, here's one from Misty. Misty says, I have been taking my family member to the methadone clinic, but looks— I've been taking my family member for methadone, but looks right away after her addiction again. Should I stop bringing them every day? They cause an argument or just plain disrespectful. I think to me, a natural consequence of someone being nasty to you is that you don't want to pick them up and do a favor. So I would say if they're ugly to you, if they're disrespectful, if they start a fight and it's ruining your day every time, that's a good reason not to do it. Again, it goes back to the reason. The boundaries always go back to the reasons. And if they're for you and it's not an attempt to control someone else, then it's a good boundary. Because my guess is you're taking her, um, and I don't know if it's a her, but your family member, you're taking your family member to the methadone clinic. As an attempt to control her, right? And in a positive way, it feels like, but it's still an attempt to control the situation. And your question is good. If would you pick up anybody else every day and take them somewhere if they were nasty to you? Probably not, right? So it's okay to look out for yourself that way. Lauren or Laura says, "My daughter." is a CBD THC addict to the point of being fairly nonfunctional. She wants to get sober. We tried a daytime in-person program. Would she be a good candidate for the Breakthrough Challenge? The Breakthrough Challenge is not for the person in denial, it's for the family member. So it's about for the family member to know how to find the motivator. So Um, in that challenge, we talk most of the, a lot of the examples are about spouses, but we've had a lot of people take the challenge and apply it to their son or daughter or whatever. And it's worked just totally fine. It's the same. So if you wanted to take that to figure out how do we get through to her, because she's already got some insight and she's already got some desire. So she's like this close already. Right. And how do we fuel that motivation? How do we harness it? How do we grow it? I think the Denial Breakthrough Challenge would be good, but it would be good for, for you, not for her. All right. Bree says we are out of time. You guys are awesome. You ask better questions every single week. You keep me on my toes. Thank you for showing up live. And if you're watching on the playback, hey, we're glad you're here too. And if you want to catch us live so you can ask questions live and get them answered, we are live every Thursday. At 1 PM Eastern, and we'd love to see you here. Don't forget, there are resources in the description, and I'll see you next time. Bye.