Why Do Addicts and Alcoholics Do Bad Things?

Why do drug addicts and alcoholics do bad things? I mean, bad things like immoral things like hurt people, steal from people, lie, cheat, all of the things that people that have addictions find themselves doing. Why and how does that happen? Well, that's exactly what we're going to cover 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 get your life back from addiction so you can live the life that you want to live. Now, if that sounds like something that you want to do, you definitely need to hear what's in this video. Because breaking addiction doesn't just mean stopping using a drug or a substance. It really is more complicated than that. And it means you've got to really dig in there and look at the psychological processes. So we're going to take a look at four psychological processes that enable people with drug and alcohol problem to make some really, really bad decisions. Now, before I go much further, I do want to say this. I do believe that people develop addictions because they're bad or immoral or corrupt. I don't believe that whatsoever. I do believe, however, that when you develop an addiction, it can cause you to be bad, immoral, and corrupt because it puts you in a situation to need something so badly that you're willing to do whatever it takes to get it. And in order to be able to do those things, you develop these defense mechanisms, these psychological processes of allowing yourself to justify those behaviors. Now, the four justification or rationalization processes that I'm going to tell you about today are actually things that we all do. Yes, every single one of them. I've done them and you've done them. It's just that when you develop an addiction, you might start doing these things so much and so often that they become even more hardwired into your thinking and behavior patterns. So let's take a look at them. Now, make sure you watch till the end, because after I give you all four of these examples, I'm going to read a comment to you that was recently left on one of my videos. And the reason I'm going to read it to you is because it is a very good example of one of these four. So make sure you listen to these, listen to what they're called, because at the end we'll give you a little pop quiz and we're going to see if you can identify what's at play in the comment. Number one type of rationalization is called moral justification. Now, moral justification is when, when you Tell yourself that you have to do something, that it was necessary to break this rule, or you had to do something out of character for a reason that serves the greater good. Essentially, you're telling yourself it is the right thing to do. So let's take an example just to show you what I mean. Let's say that I go out and I steal $3,000 from a family member, and I use that money to help me start up my YouTube channel. Now, one of the things I might be telling myself is, well, okay, I stole that money, but I'm using it for the good. I'm helping thousands and thousands of people beat addiction. I know that may seem like a pretty obvious one in any face, like Amber, that's not okay. But we do this on a smaller scale all the time, and you really gotta watch out for it. Here's an example. If I don't have a few drinks, at the end of the day, I am gonna be a monster and be totally hateful to my family. So I basically need to have these drinks because it's for the good of my family. Can you see what I'm saying? It's like, I gotta do this bad thing, but it's really a good thing because I'm doing it for a good reason. You see the logic here? It can be tricky. Trust me when I tell you that as human beings capable of convincing ourselves of pretty much anything, I find that I am particularly good at rationalizing things. Sometimes I tell my clients, listen, if you did something bad, come here and talk to me about it. Because I can probably find a reason why it was okay. I'm really good at this, and I have to watch my own self because I can get my own self in trouble when I let this get out of control. Now, number two, a second reason or way that people rationalize bad behaviors when they have drug and alcohol problems. Not just drug, alcohol problems, but in general, is that they tend to diffuse responsibility, meaning they make it someone else's. Some other situation, some other group of people, some other entity. It's not their fault. Basically, it's like blaming authority or blaming some external circumstance. For example, you could get caught up in blaming big Pharma for your addiction or for your loved one's addiction. Now, there may be a little truth to the reality that other people and situations can play a part in things that happen. But it's really easy to take the responsibility off ourselves and put it on someone else. Maybe you justify bad behavior because you say, that's just the way I grew up. That's how I was taught. That's just the way that I am. Again, it's letting yourself off the hook and not taking responsibility, at least not taking full responsibility for the situation. Problem with that is when you don't take full responsibility, it means you let yourself off the hook for fixing the issue. Because you're saying, that's not because of me, that's because of them. I can't do anything about that. Now, a third rationalization that you commonly see when people do bad things or make bad decisions is presenting injurious consequences. I know, that sounded kind of funny. It was sort of hard to say. Basically, it means when you are minimizing the negative effects that your choice is going to have on other people. Like, for example, if you are stealing to support your addiction, maybe you go into Walmart and you're stealing things from Walmart, but you tell yourself, I'm not really hurting anybody. It's Walmart. It's a big corporation. It doesn't hurt anybody. Now when I threw that, everyone doesn't there. In the end, that actually moves back to number two. So in that thinking, in that statement, you got a little of number three, which is minimizing the consequences and a little bit of diffusing authority by saying everyone does it. And in fact, that's a really good thing to pay attention to because most of the time when we're behaving badly and we've all done it, we actually put multiple types of these rationalizations one on top of the other. Now, a fourth way in which we sort of let ourselves off the hook or we justify our bad behavior is we dehumanize the victim. Meaning in our mind, we make them not so human. And this is the way that we sort of block or shield ourselves from having empathy or sympathy for the people that we hurt. In our mind, it's like we're telling ourselves they brought it on themselves. For example, I hear this one a lot in my therapy practice. People say things like, well, she knew I had a problem before she married me. And you know what I say to that? I'm like, you know what? Even if you did tell her you had a problem, unless someone has seen it before, firsthand, up close and personal, or even seen it from you before, it's really hard to imagine the depth of that and the seriousness of that and the consequences of that. Or we tell ourselves that the person put themselves in a bad situation, it was their fault, they left themselves open to that bad thing happening to them. Basically, it's Like I couldn't help myself and they deserved it anyways. Now I told you guys, if you hung in there, I was going to read. This is an actual real comment left on one of my videos from I think last week or so. I want to read it to you and tell you exactly where for where this person says. And then you tell me which one of these rationalization patterns can you pick out in this comment? And just for a quick recap, they were moral justification, defusing responsibility, mispresenting injurious consequences and dehumanizing the victim. Okay, so here's your backstory. This was a comment on a video that I made probably like a year and a half or maybe even more ago. And in the video I talk about how when you are in addiction and you're deep in it, essentially in the later stages you become like delusional. Your version of reality isn't the reality of everyone else around you. And a lot of that is because of all these things I just told you right here. We do those justifications and rationalizations so much that we are very distorted in how we're seeing things. Not only that, but you're either intoxicated or you're in withdrawal, which then again skews your ability to view things accurately. So anyways, I talk about that in the video and I give an example in that video about a young man who's probably 16, 17, 18, saw him in my office years and years ago and he talked about how he stole money from his grandparents, but it was their fault because they had all kinds of money anyway and they just left it out on the counter. So what did they expect? Anyways, I talked about that in the video. Here is the comment left on that video. To call addicts delusional is rude as hell. We aren't delusional. It's how our lives have been. If you leave money out, it will get stolen. That's just how life is. Alright, can you see the rationalization in that statement? Probably you can. Now let's see how advanced you are. Which type or types of these rationalizations do you pick up in that particular comment? Now, one of the best things you can do to be addiction is to practice humility and by being able to say, yeah, I've done these things and to catch yourself doing these things, that is such a great example of practicing humility. So I'm going to give you a chance right now. If you've ever done any type of these rationalizations that I just talked about, give me a thumbs up in the comment. And like this video, I'm gonna go ahead and put two of my thumbs up right here because I've done every one of these multiple times. I bet you have, too. Now, as always, I have a link to lots of free addiction recovery resources for you in the description. And up next, here's a video that goes even more in depth into addictive thinking.