Denial
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Denial
Jack Trimpey's book Rational Recovery states that people cannot lie to themselves. I really disagree with that. What else can you call it when someone keeps thinking they'll "just have one" and continues chasing an old, pretty illusion, that clashes starkly with reality?
A counselor told me a long time ago that I was returning to a bad relationship because of denial. His idea was that to get away from this dangerous person, I should keep reading underlined parts of a book about abuse, and talk to a counselor regularly. Killing denial was always the big goal behind anything he wanted me to do.
It worked, I left. And fighting alcohol addiction seems to work the same. Logging onto this board throughout the day, along with other anti-drinking material, keeps me from thinking unrealistic thoughts like"I wasn't so bad last time", "Everyone drinks. It's not a big deal" (It's when I stop doing these these things that I slip).
So what do others think? Is the common belief that denial plays a big role in addiction accurate? Is it some other thinking pattern that needs to be worked on?
It would be nice if Secular Connections was more active. Lol Does it always say (2 viewing)? If you're debating about starting a new thread, start one
.
A counselor told me a long time ago that I was returning to a bad relationship because of denial. His idea was that to get away from this dangerous person, I should keep reading underlined parts of a book about abuse, and talk to a counselor regularly. Killing denial was always the big goal behind anything he wanted me to do.
It worked, I left. And fighting alcohol addiction seems to work the same. Logging onto this board throughout the day, along with other anti-drinking material, keeps me from thinking unrealistic thoughts like"I wasn't so bad last time", "Everyone drinks. It's not a big deal" (It's when I stop doing these these things that I slip).
So what do others think? Is the common belief that denial plays a big role in addiction accurate? Is it some other thinking pattern that needs to be worked on?
It would be nice if Secular Connections was more active. Lol Does it always say (2 viewing)? If you're debating about starting a new thread, start one
.
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I don't know about everyone, but denial is very common and it certainly was huge with me. It's a kind of self-defense mechanism, one of many we use as addicts - some good reading here, Addiction and Its Mechanisms of Defense. Trimpey has some good stuff and some crazy stuff, but I can vouch for the reality that I could lie to myself. 
And I did that by twisting definitions and playing mental word games. "I just said I had X days sobriety, but I didn't lie, because sobriety to me means not getting wasted and blacking out". "I'm not an addict because to me, addict means gutter drunk living on the street, and I'm not one of those people". Etc. I was convinced I was not deliberately lying, because acknowledging that would have been unbearable, so I danced around it.
And I did that by twisting definitions and playing mental word games. "I just said I had X days sobriety, but I didn't lie, because sobriety to me means not getting wasted and blacking out". "I'm not an addict because to me, addict means gutter drunk living on the street, and I'm not one of those people". Etc. I was convinced I was not deliberately lying, because acknowledging that would have been unbearable, so I danced around it.
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Well, I think what he is saying is that I can lie to others about how bad it is, but no matter where I go - there I am. At some level I know it's a problem. Sure, I can hide bottles, go to ten different stores so no one knows. I can take the back roads so I don't run into cops. I can try the, "Vodka has no odor," thing, I can take my recyclables to someone else's can, I can lie about what I do all day when what I do is tequila; and I know it. I can call in sick when I am really hungover.
Even blackout drunks have the next day to deal with, so I couldn't really live in denial about my problem when I missed entire years of life.
"I don't have a problem." Right. Most of life was a problem I had to go to great lengths to solve when I was drinking. Now most of my problems are gone.
Even blackout drunks have the next day to deal with, so I couldn't really live in denial about my problem when I missed entire years of life.
"I don't have a problem." Right. Most of life was a problem I had to go to great lengths to solve when I was drinking. Now most of my problems are gone.
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Join Date: Oct 2015
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I was never in denial but took years to stay stopped, denial is an AA buzz word imo, admit you are an alcoholic/addict does little imo, you stop when you are ready, it's a choice.
Jack Trimpey said some good things but has lost his way in recovery imo.
Secular talk will never get the numbers, "Secular" becomes a religion just like all the others imo, talk recovery in all the threads and just ignore all the non-sense or about 90%, Lol,
Jack Trimpey said some good things but has lost his way in recovery imo.
Secular talk will never get the numbers, "Secular" becomes a religion just like all the others imo, talk recovery in all the threads and just ignore all the non-sense or about 90%, Lol,
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RedLadySlipper, check out this thread, these types of forum are very difficult to navigate, but you may be missing a good thread, Sticky: AVRT Explained (long) (Multi-page thread 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page)
freshstart57
freshstart57
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I might have been in denial but I was fully aware of what I was denying. Fear of change and the fact that I just didn't want to quit are what kept me in the cycle of destruction for so long. Then $#!t hit the fan and I couldn't even pretend to believe my own lies anymore. What a waste of time, brain cells, energy, and life.
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Interrsting links. Seems what some people call the "addictive voice", other people are calling denial. Whatever a person prefers to call it, there appears to be a part of an addict's mind that wants to pour out lies all the time.
I don't really like the word Denial because it sounds intentional and immoral. It used to make me mad at my counselor, too...But maybe that's what it is...IDK, not being a brain expert. I like this little quote I ran into once: "If we could understand our brains, we would be too simple to have them."
At any rate, an addictive voice is part of my own mind and it lies so conclusion is that my own brain lies to me. And to fight addiction properly, these lies need to be smashed on a regular basis.
I don't really like the word Denial because it sounds intentional and immoral. It used to make me mad at my counselor, too...But maybe that's what it is...IDK, not being a brain expert. I like this little quote I ran into once: "If we could understand our brains, we would be too simple to have them."
At any rate, an addictive voice is part of my own mind and it lies so conclusion is that my own brain lies to me. And to fight addiction properly, these lies need to be smashed on a regular basis.
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I think the addict voice is a great concept and helps us separate our real selves, who we are, from our drug-addicted selves, but it can be a kind of externalized blame too, "that wasn't me, it was the AV". At the end of the day there is just one person in your brain, and it's you.
This was an important hurdle for me to pass, "reintegrating the reptile", about 1 year in - fully owning the mess I had made, as well as fully owning the path out. But it's a process, so we use the tools and concepts that work at the phases where they work. Including, maybe, just shutting down our brains and doing what we're told in robot mode until we're deeper into recovery, which is more or less what I did for the first couple weeks.
This was an important hurdle for me to pass, "reintegrating the reptile", about 1 year in - fully owning the mess I had made, as well as fully owning the path out. But it's a process, so we use the tools and concepts that work at the phases where they work. Including, maybe, just shutting down our brains and doing what we're told in robot mode until we're deeper into recovery, which is more or less what I did for the first couple weeks.
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I think there's awareness, and then there's denial. For one to deny, mustn't one have been, at some point in time, aware of whatever one is denying?
Maybe I wasn't always aware of the gravity of my problems caused by my addiction.
Maybe I wasn't aware of the extent to which my childhood traumas and grievances were affecting me in adulthood.
Over time, I became aware. And at that point, I would have moments where I'd want to slip back into the unknowingness or ignorance of those problems. Drinking would then be the perfect tool for that.
Over time, I became aware that drinking was causing bigger problems than it had ever "fixed" for me, no matter how transitory the "fix."
Maybe I wasn't always aware of the gravity of my problems caused by my addiction.
Maybe I wasn't aware of the extent to which my childhood traumas and grievances were affecting me in adulthood.
Over time, I became aware. And at that point, I would have moments where I'd want to slip back into the unknowingness or ignorance of those problems. Drinking would then be the perfect tool for that.
Over time, I became aware that drinking was causing bigger problems than it had ever "fixed" for me, no matter how transitory the "fix."
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Denial sounds like a kind of foot stamping conscious assertion that in spite of the evidence to the contrary, I am not an alcoholic!
I don't remember feeling like that. At age 21 the courts sent me off the the nut farm for treatment for alcoholism. In a sense I was a willing patient. I was cooperative and didn't have any problem participating in the program such as it was.
However, I was in a state of psychosis. I could not see the reality that everyone else could see. I was convinced in my own mind that my problems were due to an (imaginary as it turned out) brain injury that occurred abouth the time my problems began. I could not see cause and effect with alcohol. It wasn't possible, I was too young, I came from a good home, no DWI, no lost jobs or friends (that I could see), no drinking in the morning, no sleeping in parks, no blackouts that I could remember. I simply could not connect the dots, and no one seemed to be able to break through that delusion.
It took another year of hell before I began to se the truth. I don't know if I was lying, or in denial, but I do know that what was painfully obvious to everyone else, was not obvious to me.
I don't remember feeling like that. At age 21 the courts sent me off the the nut farm for treatment for alcoholism. In a sense I was a willing patient. I was cooperative and didn't have any problem participating in the program such as it was.
However, I was in a state of psychosis. I could not see the reality that everyone else could see. I was convinced in my own mind that my problems were due to an (imaginary as it turned out) brain injury that occurred abouth the time my problems began. I could not see cause and effect with alcohol. It wasn't possible, I was too young, I came from a good home, no DWI, no lost jobs or friends (that I could see), no drinking in the morning, no sleeping in parks, no blackouts that I could remember. I simply could not connect the dots, and no one seemed to be able to break through that delusion.
It took another year of hell before I began to se the truth. I don't know if I was lying, or in denial, but I do know that what was painfully obvious to everyone else, was not obvious to me.
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I am sure others know a lot more about AVRT than I do but I though it was a good way of being conscious and alert to the way in which your brain cries out to you to feed its addiction to your DOC. One of these ways being denial.
Your brain can't MAKE you pick up a bottle but it can make you want to. It can use all sorts of impulses, some subtle and some direct to entice you. I guess we will have hardcoded pictures of pleasure in our brain and these impulses are triggered every now and then. A cold beer on a hot day, a glass of champagne to celebrate, a glass of red wine with a steak or with Xmas dinner etc.
What AVRT says is that your real brain - the rational one - knows that alcohol hurts you and would never recommend you to drink but that your addiction (the animal part, the give me please now part) will seek the high.
Your addiction will want to be fed until you destroy your life and die. This is because it is not aware of the limits of your physical body or your obligations in life. It just knows drink or no drink.
Your brain can't MAKE you pick up a bottle but it can make you want to. It can use all sorts of impulses, some subtle and some direct to entice you. I guess we will have hardcoded pictures of pleasure in our brain and these impulses are triggered every now and then. A cold beer on a hot day, a glass of champagne to celebrate, a glass of red wine with a steak or with Xmas dinner etc.
What AVRT says is that your real brain - the rational one - knows that alcohol hurts you and would never recommend you to drink but that your addiction (the animal part, the give me please now part) will seek the high.
Your addiction will want to be fed until you destroy your life and die. This is because it is not aware of the limits of your physical body or your obligations in life. It just knows drink or no drink.
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I prefer "willful forgetfulness", and yes, it's a big part of my mindset in active addiction...from bad relationships, alcohol and a plethora of things I just refuse to lay down when they are no longer useful. I'm not a fan of "denial" as I've heard it thrown around too much and used as an accusatory finger in meetings over the years. I'm on neither side of the fence when it comes to camps...I take what I can use from Jack, Bill, and a host of others...and I leave the rest. the Buddha said doubt is essential to finding one's way. I listen and revere many but doubt them all.
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i see two different denials: one of the outright lie variety, which is deliberate and conscious.
the other one, the one that i apply to my quit-drinking-struggles, is not that kind. it wasn't deliberate, nor conscious, nor a matter of forgetting.
more...flying under my own radar. lack of clear seeing what's actually obvious.
the other one, the one that i apply to my quit-drinking-struggles, is not that kind. it wasn't deliberate, nor conscious, nor a matter of forgetting.
more...flying under my own radar. lack of clear seeing what's actually obvious.
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Within the tradition of AVRT, and the millions of self-recovered who preceded and informed the formalization of AVRT, this whole topic is nothing but quibbling, sophistry, rationalization and word-splitting,
Willful forgetfulness, flying under the radar, unconscious awareness and all of the other weasel words are just silly pettifoggery. The fact is, that with possible exception of longtime drinkers who are so badly damaged that they have lost control of their mental and physical faculties, people drink because they like to be drunk.
Willful forgetfulness, flying under the radar, unconscious awareness and all of the other weasel words are just silly pettifoggery. The fact is, that with possible exception of longtime drinkers who are so badly damaged that they have lost control of their mental and physical faculties, people drink because they like to be drunk.
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I drank because I needed to be drunk in order to feel "normal", even though I grew to hate it and eventually could no longer fail to notice it was causing increasingly serious negative consequences. That's what chemical dependency can do to our brains. The thought of being drunk now has zero allure, so I can't have liked it too much. In fact I'm starting to feel the same way towards alcohol as I do towards my original first drug of choice, weed, that I stopped 25+ years ago - just no interest in going there ever again.
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Pettifoggery it is and AVRT does indeed cut through the BS when it comes to any pro-drinking rationalizations--even the progressiveness (not a theory anymore as science has proven). Not much different than what is said in some rooms "wanting to drink more than wanting to be sober". It really is that simple and I appreciate AVRT for helping me wade through all that pettifoggerous self-talk. Keeping the mind clean and focused is my problem and just saying "I don't drink and never will" doesn't do it for me like it used to. This discussion, on the other hand, has. Thanks.
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uh...the title and OP didn't indicate this as an AVRT or AVRT paradigm thread, and i fail to see (more denial???) how calling people describing their own experience as silly pettifoggery is helpful in any way.
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No, the OP spoke of "Killing Denial", and although at first, thought GW's post was a bit sharp, upon thinking about it, "I don't drink and never will" is a darn good "denial killer". Just saying it has no magic but the lower "buts" that accompany "willful forgetfulness" are wiped out with one masterful stroke if one chooses to look at it this way. All of my own denials are a bit of a prop to place responsibility other than where it belongs--with me. Bluntness does not work for everyone but it does me (only after minutes/hours of contemplation). Jack, GW, the OP, me and you are right fini. We're all gonna be just fine if we see any rationalization to drink for what it is---even if it hurts.
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The self lies, I think, come a little at a time. Small ones that don't feel like a big deal, eventually build up to one major illusion that feels believable. These little, harmless seeming lies need to be stopped early.
"Wow, I had an accident while I was drunk. I can't drink again" becomes"I had an accident last time I drank but I was also very tired and it was raining at night so it was harder to see" becomes ""I've drank many times and never had an accident before so there must have been other factors leading to my wreck" becomes "I'll be more careful next time I drink and things will be fine" and eventually,"I can control what I do after I drink".
The person in denial doesn't see how enormous this last lie is because it didn't happen all at once. Well, that's my opinion anyway.
Telling myself "I never drink" has never been enough to make me stop, and I've always been envious of those it works for.
I've enjoyed reading everyone's responses. Thanks!
"Wow, I had an accident while I was drunk. I can't drink again" becomes"I had an accident last time I drank but I was also very tired and it was raining at night so it was harder to see" becomes ""I've drank many times and never had an accident before so there must have been other factors leading to my wreck" becomes "I'll be more careful next time I drink and things will be fine" and eventually,"I can control what I do after I drink".
The person in denial doesn't see how enormous this last lie is because it didn't happen all at once. Well, that's my opinion anyway.
Telling myself "I never drink" has never been enough to make me stop, and I've always been envious of those it works for.
I've enjoyed reading everyone's responses. Thanks!
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