Alcoholics are unstable, experience severe mood swings, are very controlling, and angrily lash out at others when their wishes are frustrated. It is not news to members of Alcoholics Anonymous that alcoholics have “something wrong” with their thinking. Intensive meditation, even after only one day, can also affect gene regulation in your brain through similar mechanisms. Attending a monthlong meditation retreat reduces the expression of genes that affect inflammation, and experienced meditators can reduce inflammatory genes after just one day of intensive mediation.
In the future, we may discover similar therapies for alcohol and substance use disorder. These treatments could potentially target important signaling pathways linked to addiction, altering how brain circuits function and how alcohol and drugs affect them. Thinking errors are a created Facing Your Powerlessness in Addiction Recovery habit, that you spend years practicing, and like every other habit we talk about here, it also takes practice to start neutralizing bad habits and change them. SO- no more talking about it or thinking about it, let’s get into action and create some amazing change we can feel proud of.
How to Fight Cognitive Distortions in Addiction Recovery
Determine what emotion(s) you are feeling now and at what intensity you are experiencing them. After you have identified the thought, the worksheet instructs you to note the emotions that ran through your mind along with the thoughts and images identified. Ask yourself what emotions you felt at the time and how intense the emotions were on a scale from 1 (barely felt it) to 10 (completely overwhelming). Another ‘fallacy’ distortion involves expecting others to change if we pressure or encourage them enough. This distortion is usually accompanied by a belief that our happiness and success rests on other people, leading us to believe that forcing those around us to change is the only way to get what we want. No one is in complete control of what happens to them, and no one has absolutely no control over their situation.
- Telescoping is when you focus on the bad aspects of a situation to the point where you can’t even see the good.
- Almost everyone struggles with negative thinking patterns, or what doctors call cognitive distortions.
But there is a real danger in thinking ‘I’m a failure’ after each mistake, because doing so can lead you to give up on the entire effort. Addictions are notoriously difficult to break; the word ‘addiction’ itself suggests an inability to stop doing something. Traditional explanations refer to the chemical hooks that are delivered by drugs such as alcohol and nicotine, and these are both real and significant. Similarly, you may have tried to get sober once or twice, slid back into drinking and using drugs, and decided, “I’m just never going to be able to stay sober.” You’re taking that very limited data to be decisive.
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Thinking errors can lead to irrationally negative definitions of yourself. If you call yourself “stupid,” “lazy,” “a loser,” or other derogatory labels, you reinforce the need to use a substance in order to numb these negative feelings. Try to isolate one of the negative labels you have assigned yourself and question how valid it is.
The thinking mistakes discussed above can apply to pretty much anything but they are particularly relevant for people seeking and engaging with treatment. If you can think about them in that way, they don’t upset you very much. Oftentimes https://accountingcoaching.online/alcoholic-ketoacidosis-wikipedia/ those who struggle with thought distortions need to seek outside help to get their healing process started. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) are two of the most effective therapies to start with.
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This famous black-and-white way of thinking or an all-or-nothing approach to living can be quite dangerous. There’s only perfection and failure; they don’t see shades of gray in life. Most of the time, they’ll place themselves in “either/or” situations and make decisions using this mentality, often acting in extremist ways. One of the biggest problems is that we don’t have enough treatment options available.
The consequence is the negative thoughts and emotions that occur as a result of the event. You can write down a daily summary and describe the events and emotions experienced. Or you can use an app when negative self-talk threatens to ruin your day.
Four Thinking Mistakes that Can Stand in the Way of Addiction Recovery
In the past decade, I have seen changes in our understanding of the molecular mechanisms of addiction, largely due to a better understanding of how genes are dynamically regulated in the brain. New ways of thinking about how addictions form have the potential to change how we approach treatment. Even if you are not struggling with depression, anxiety, or another serious mental health issue, it doesn’t hurt to evaluate your own thoughts every now and then.
- When this happens, it becomes much easier to lose focus and fall back into the types of bad habits that can aggravate the problem even further.
- Catching our minds engaging in thinking errors, and labelling them can be an effective way to avoid making them and tackling anxiety and other challenging emotions in our everyday lives.
- I have a lot of years of practice, a lot of years of sobriety or actually it’s more a lot of years of recovery where I have actively participated in understanding myself and healing myself.
- Taking steps to reduce consumption of alcohol and drugs and picking up healthy lifestyle practices can help stabilize and bring long-lasting benefits for your physical and mental health.
- This famous black-and-white way of thinking or an all-or-nothing approach to living can be quite dangerous.
Even in extreme situations where an individual seemingly has no choice in what they do or where they go, they still have a certain amount of control over how they approach their situation mentally. This may be one of the most surprising distortions to many readers, and it is also one of the most important to identify and address. The logic behind this distortion is not surprising to most people; rather, it is the realization that virtually all of us have bought into this distortion at one time or another. A sister distortion to mind reading, fortune telling refers to the tendency to make conclusions and predictions based on little to no evidence and holding them as gospel truth. This can be a big impediment to engaging with treatment because you feel like what applies to other people doesn’t apply to you.
When this happens, it becomes much easier to lose focus and fall back into the types of bad habits that can aggravate the problem even further. Telescoping is when you focus on the bad aspects of a situation to the point where you can’t even see the good. For example, you might enter treatment feeling ambivalent about being there and immediately start looking for reasons to leave. You become laser-focused on every little thing that’s wrong with your treatment program or facility. There are several ways all-or-nothing thinking can hold back your recovery from addiction.
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