The Psychology Of Drug and Alcohol Addiction

You know, these days, there's just so much emphasis put on the brain or the biological parts of addiction. And that is wonderful because it's a lot of great science and research that's being done. That really helps us understand why this problem occurs. I am definitely a big fan. However, I feel like there's just not enough emphasis. Being put on the psychology of drug and alcohol addiction these days. Because, yes, there are some brain changes that occur that make addiction a very hard cycle to break. But honestly, with all the latest research and science we've come so far, we really know how to address that part so much better than we used to. But with all of our energies going that way these days, there's just not enough time, energy, and effort Put towards understanding the psychology of the issue. So that's what we're going to talk about in today's video. For those of you who are new here, welcome to put the shovel down, the YouTube channel designed to help you understand the science and psychology of addiction so that you can get your life and your family back on track and get back to living the life that you want to live. Many of you probably already know this, but if you don't know this, I am an addiction counselor. I have been working in this field for a very long time with individuals struggling with an addiction and also their families. And because of that, I've been able to get a real close inside look. At the thinking patterns that go on when someone is struggling with addiction. You see, because of all those brain changes that occur, you find yourself doing things that you really never thought you'd do, Acting in ways that don't fit with your value systems, and even thinking thoughts that just don't even sound or feel like yourself. Ultimately, the addiction changes who you are as a person. Your personality may feel different. Your family and friends probably tell you pretty regularly that you're different. And because of all of those changes that happen, you start to develop these, like, psychological defense mechanisms in order to protect yourself from the shame, from the guilt, in order to continue with the addiction. Because it's these very psychological processes that create that sort of shield or guard of denial that allows the addiction to go on for so very long. Let's take a look at what some of those defense mechanisms look like and why they are developed. Let's start with a really obvious one. Anyone that struggled with an addiction or has a loved one with an addiction Knows that lying addiction are pretty much best friends. It's like lying is the bodyguard for addiction. I mean, all kinds of lying Lying to yourself, lying to the people around you. It can get to the point that you just automatically lie because you, you have all these secrets inside and you're so used to, like, protecting those secrets that you just find that you may lie about stuff that you don't even need to lie about, like what you have for lunch. Maybe you had tacos, but you said you had Chinese. And there's no reason for that lie other than the fact that it becomes almost like an automatic reaction. When you have an addiction, you begin to rationalize and justify your behavior to yourself. These two defense mechanisms are extremely important when it comes to allowing the addiction to continue. You know, there are some really, like, standard ones, like you could tell yourself, everyone does it, or it's not that big of a deal. Those are just like super standard, basic rationalizations. But there are also more complicated rationalizations like, I'm a grown man, or I'm a grown woman, I work hard, I deserve it. Or this is the only thing that helps me with my anxiety or my depression or my mental health problem. It's not just rationalizing the substance use. It's rationalizing all of the things that you have to do in order to keep the addiction going, like the lying and the stealing and the broken relationships and the broken promises. Justifying type behavior happens so quickly in our thought processes that it can be really hard to catch. Well, I only did that because. Or it just happened this one time, or I didn't have any other choice, or this other person forced me into doing it. Which leads me to another really common psychological defense mechanism of blaming. You know, I hear this one a lot, especially from young people. You know, I'll hear them say something like, well, the only reason I have to do all those drugs because my parents so crazy and they stress me out and they just make too big of a deal with it. And I probably wouldn't even use so much drugs if they weren't so mean, crazy, strict, whatever. Or I do hear it from spouses. Sometimes I hear things like, well, it's because I'm so unhappy in my relationship and my spouse are just constantly on my back. They never leave me alone. Nothing ever does good enough. And so it's like you're shifting the blame for the bad decision making onto some other person. Or maybe you shift the blame by saying you're miserable in your job, or there's some other kind of situation at school or somewhere else that you really just dislike. Now, like I said, it's not that none of these things are true. There's probably truth to all of those things, but if you get really honest with yourself, you're probably hiding behind some of those things in order to continue to make not so great choices. And of course, you cannot have an addiction without doing a lot of scheming. Now, I know y' all know what I'm talking about. If you're relating to any of these defense mechanisms, give this video a thumbs up so I'll know I'm on track. How to get rid of the evidence. I can't tell you how many people I see that deal with alcohol use disorders who literally have to put so much energy into getting the alcohol. Like a lot of times they don't want to go to the same place to get it every day because they feel embarrassed. So they have like a different. They have like a whole set of different gas stations or stores or liquor stores or whatever that they go to so that the same person isn't seeing them buy every day. And the energy that goes into getting rid of the bottles and the cans and the paraphernalia and the other evidence, oh my goodness, it is seriously way too much energy for anyone out there who struggle with addiction. You know what this is like. You're using so much behind the scenes. Even if you use whatever it is you do, you do out in the open, you probably do even a lot more than that behind the scenes. It just takes so much energy. You have to put a lot of thought and preparation into it just to pull the whole thing off. And eventually it becomes literally like a whole full time job of a secret life you have going, and it's exhausting. Another psychological defense mechanism that you may find yourself trapped in when you have an addiction is splitting. Now, what I mean when I say that is you know that when you have an addiction that all the people in your life probably know part of the story about what's really going on with you. So you spend a lot of time and energy keeping those people separate. Like, you don't want your family talk to your counselor because that wouldn't be good, right? Because your counselor knows secrets and your family knows secrets that you don't want your counselor to know. Or your mom knows something that your dad doesn't know, or your best friend knows something that your spouse doesn't know. So you end up doing a lot of things to make sure to keep people apart. Sometimes that just means you try to keep people from talking, and other times it means getting people to actually be mad or angry at another person. Because when you do that it helps you to avoid taking responsibility for what you're doing. You can suck someone else into the blame game with you by, you know, making somebody focused on this other person or situation that's unjust. Like making your parents feel like it's your teacher's fault that you're failing school, and so you split the two people apart. You know, when addiction has gone on for a really long time, you can sometimes lose the ability to be able to accept the answer no. And sometimes maybe it's like you just can't not do things. Because a lot of times when you have an addiction, you just have to do certain things, which means no matter what kind of boundary somebody's put with you, you end up breaking it. I think for sure you're beginning to understand what I'm telling you now. You see, the science of addiction is all about how tolerance is created, how one substance gets you out of balance, so your brain tries to counteract it by producing the opposite effect. Those are some of the biological traps. But I'm telling you, it's the psychology of addiction that's really difficult to break. Because even if you figure out and you manage to get clean and sober and you leave the drug behind, if you don't address some of these other patterns, habits, psychological defense mechanisms, whatever you want to call them, that you've developed over years and years and years of using substances or doing other kinds of addictive behavior, guess what? Those behaviors and thinking patterns will continue even if the substance is not in play or even if the addictive thing isn't there. There's a term in recovery called a dry drunk. And what that means is it's like someone quit drinking, but they didn't fix anything else. And so they're usually still pretty unhappy, pretty difficult to be around. And I think that happens when, like I said, we address the addiction as in we're not doing the behavior or taking the substance anymore, but we don't fix any of the other stuff. It can also happen to someone when they maybe address the addiction, but don't address underlying anxiety, depression, other mental health problems that can put you in what they call, like, a dry state. Sure. The first part of overcoming an addiction for most people is getting out of the biological cycle of it. But if you really and truly want to beat addiction for good, you're gonna have to really delve into the psychological part of it, because that's the part that's gonna take you back. That's the part that can cause you. And because it's such an important thing to understand. I want you to watch this video next because there's even more information in there about the thinking patterns and the psychology of relapse.