Do Addicts Believe The Lies They Tell??
 

So, I'm wondering now if addicts beleive themselves when they say these things:

1. "I am never going to use again."
2. "If I use again, I want you to leave me. You deserve better."
3. "I want you to manage my money. Don't let me have my money."
4. "I want you to take my keys. Don't let me drive anywhere."
5. "This is the last time I do this to you."
6. "I don't mean to act like this."
7. "I don't mean to hurt you."
8. "I don't want to use."
9. "If I use _______ (pot, xanex, vicodin), I can stay away from _____ (insert "harder" drug)."
10. "I know that I use when I have a ride. If I don't have a ride, I won't be able to use."
11. "I told the dope man not to let me buy any more."

ETC, ETC, ETC, ETC....


So, I'm wondering this: is this the addiction speaking, denial of the actual person, or the actual belief that they are capable of doing what it is that comes out of their mouths (at the time that the addict says...)?

Does anyone have any insight to this?

Thank you friends,
YG

in the moment, most of the above statements? probably yes. let's see which ones did I use?

that's it, i'm DONE with this sh*t.
this is the last time. once this is gone, i'm DUN.
i'm too old for this crap.
i hate this crap.
said in the morning - no crack today.
said in the afternoon - make the call, make the call!

had a boyfriend once who AFTER getting arrested (after the four squad cars, foot patrol and helicopter found him) called me FROM jail to say: Baby I'd NEVER hurt you, I don't belong here, please come get me!!! now mind you, earlier that evening he'd come home drunk and proceeded to beat and kicked (with boots) the livin' snot out of me, til i managed to crawl to the door where my neighbor grabbed him so i could run!!!

as they say, talk is cheap. it's not about talking the talk, it's about walking the walk.

I think when my husband says he doesn't want to hurt me, he really means it. He wishes it wouldn't happen.

But he can't help it because HE is not in control.

The addiction is.

We are powerless over alcohol/addiction.

My husband does not want to hurt me.

My husband's addiction does not care who is hurt.

They are separate entities.

Yoga
Sorry no insight from me but I have heard alot of those lines!

Hey,
This is a good question. I have wondered this before and not remembered to post. I would also like to know. I know that when i would go drink with friends and we woke up with a hangover we would be like "not doing that again" Then someone would call and the BBQ was on again! But I wonder if its the same thing with drugs. I have thought before and told my sister. When a person drinks and is hungover, they know what they have done. But I think with my AH (meth) he just maintains so I really don't think he ever comes down long enough to realize. So he crashes eventually and when he can finally drag himself out of bed he just gets high and stays that way. I don't know for sure though. That's just my opinion. I have never had personal experience with drugs. Just to much beer....
Didn't mean to high jack your post but, you must have read my mind!

^^^^^^^^^
THIS!!!

I don't think my ex ever meant to hurt me either.. But he was so caught up in his addiction that it was controlling him.. Drugs were the most important thing in his life.. He never took responsibility for his actions.. It was always someone else's fault...

I heard countless times, "I'm going to stay clean for good this time" I'm going to get a better job" be a better husband etc.. At the time maybe he meant it and had good intentions...but you know what they say.. The road to hell is paved with good intentions... I finally had to rely on his actions and not his words because I became some disappointed in every empty promise... This is where I learned to detach.. His actions told me things were not getting better.. My gut told me things were only going to get worse so I listened to my gut..

It's a process and it takes a lot of work to detach, set boundaries and to let go of the things you cannot change.. That's why they call it one day at a time

yes. I believe they do. I met my addicts dope man and he believed it when he said he wouldn't sell to him anymore. They got in a fistfight over it actually, but once he saw the money.... everything changed. Maybe the love of money really is the root of all evil, but then again, so is the love of drugs.

I only having smoking to compare to but when I say I am quitting, I usually mean it. I have even broken my cigarettes and thrown them out! But when the cravings came, I am embarrassed to admit, I took them out of the trash and put them back together - if I couldn't get a store right away. I also believe it is my problem or vice, depending where I am at mentally and that I am not hurting anyone but me! Most of the time, I don't even consider the consequences to such a stupid addiction. :(

I think that they want to believe it as bad as we do.

gentle hugs
ke

I agree that they believe their lies, my husband has told me all of those and believes them, but does that mean we don't give them a chance? Do they ever get better? Do we truly only have two choices here? (1) to live with the addict (even if they are in recovery), knowing that anytime they could relapse? (2) to leave forever...knowing that they NEVER change...simply because they will never have the control over addiction? Are there only these two choices????

I think sometimes they do, but not always.

I don't think it's possible for one person to accurately judge another person's motives. I expect there are plenty of active or recovering addicts who would admit here, anonymously, that they got really good at saying what they thought their codependents wanted to hear.

I do not want to be criticized for saying this, but.....

I think they want to do all those things. I just think that something is so much stronger than they are. I think when an addict is in that world of either coming down or not having anything and they are them again, they do want all those things. Addicts aren't bad people. They just have made bad decisions.

I love when my husband denies telling me something or swears he told me.

Chances are like trust, it's earned!! When it comes to an addict especially one new to recovery, you have to close your ears and open your eyes... Watch his actions but detach from his actions and let him work or not work his program.. It won't take long to see if he is serious or not...

I got tired of watching my ex continue to spiral down the rabbit hole.. It got to where I didn't believe anything he said because his actions were not backing up his words.. It got to the pout where I knew he would never change and I still struggled to let go, it wasn't until he got physical with me that I woke up and saw the light of day.. I just hate that it took so long but hey I'm a slow learner sometimes..

Keep working your program.. I see so much strength in your posts :-)

Thank you to those who shared posts about being physically abused. This is something that my family members keep asking me, how long do I think it will be before he hits me? And I keep saying, no I don't think he would ever hit me, he's much bigger and stronger than me and he could have done it already if he chose to, plus he told me in the beginning that he would never hit me. And my brother, who has experience with using cocaine, responded, no, he won't hit you - but cocaine will, he will be saying to himself, no I don't want to hit her, but the cocaine will be the one controlling him. And although I still want to believe that he never would, after reading some of your posts, it's starting to sink in that it's a very real possibility and that I've been very lucky. I'm so sorry for those of you who had to go through that, and I thank you for sharing.

My ex was not a violent person, he was really very gentle but when an addict is high they are capable of anything, including physical abuse.. My ex shoved me out of his bedroom.. I resisted and he shoved harder, left a big bruise on my arm.. I filed for divorce the next day...

My advice don't wait until they abuse you physically, not all addicts do but like I said they are capable of anything when they are under the control of addiction .

Yoga,
Just want to let you know I made plenty of promises and really meant them at the time. There were also times when I had already been drinking that I said whatever I needed to in order to keep drinking. A drunk or addict can be as manipulative as needed to keep doing what they want. I never did this to hurt my partner, but I knew it did and that did not stop me. I told him he was better off without me. I meant that.

I did make a promise 300 days ago that I would not drink again. I meant it, like the many other times. But, unlike the other promises, I kept it. Sometimes we can heal, but in my case it had to be from within and for myself. There is nothing my partner did to force me to get sober. Once I made up my mind, it did help to have him keep alcohol out of the house and not drink around me for a while.
Good luck Yoga. You deserve to live a happy healthy life with a sober partner.

1. "I am never going to use again."
2. "If I use again, I want you to leave me. You deserve better."
3. "I want you to manage my money. Don't let me have my money."
4. "I want you to take my keys. Don't let me drive anywhere."
5. "This is the last time I do this to you."
6. "I don't mean to act like this."
7. "I don't mean to hurt you."
8. "I don't want to use."
9. "If I use _______ (pot, xanex, vicodin), I can stay away from _____ (insert "harder" drug)."
10. "I know that I use when I have a ride. If I don't have a ride, I won't be able to use."
11. "I told the dope man not to let me buy any more."

ETC, ETC, ETC, ETC....

I am an addict and NO we do not believe all those promise....Futhermore, we WANT to believe and really change. We do not want to get high or continue to hurt the people we love....When I used I would do and say anything to get high. I really felt like a piece of ****!!!! SO i got high to cover those feelings. Its a CRAZY cycle!!

As my husband says “ it’s not a lie if I believe it”

But in all seriousness, I do believe he wanted to stop when he said it, he even made efforts to do so, but it wasn’t ever as easy as he thought it would be. In some ways I wondered if he underestimated how bad his addiction was, but then again it doesn’t matter which side you sit on denial rules.

Oh those lies, but then the truth when you get it, isn’t all that easy to swallow either. My husband had no problem walking in the door and saying and without being asked, ok I am using again, I don’t know why and I don’t know when I will stop … But I know this is no life. I didn’t find that to be some game.

It was never his lies anyway, it was the ones I was telling myself.

I also still wonder why anyone asks questions they already know the answers too, but then I do know why that is done. And why it has nothing to do with the addict in ones life.

Picking the truth from the lies = insanity.

To go one further.

One interesting thing I learned a long time ago, when I was very young. It never much mattered when I told the truth, I was still going to be a liar. I didn’t lie, it was so obvious when I used. I just choose not to answer the questions when the answer was already very clear. But I will say that first time you tell the truth and are treated as a liar, and the second and the third … the rules change and it really doesn’t matter anymore.

In my case back then, it wouldn’t have matter what I did, if I lied, told the truth, refused to answer, got clean, kept using … because she needed the chaos, and she would react based on what she needed, which had nothing to do with the truth or lack thereof.

mine has never hit me... but he would have if I had been crazy enough to grab his arm and beg him to stay when his "wife" was calling him "home"