The honest truth is that if you’re reading this article right now and you are still in active addiction, your way of doing things has likely failed; and probably more than once.
Addicts are singularly the most skilled group in the world when it comes to lying to ourselves. There is no group on the planet that can so totally and utterly rationalize or justify behavior that appears absolutely insane to everyone else around us.
We wrap a car around a tree while drunk, and feel confident retelling the story that it was the rain’s fault and with plans to drink and drive again. We call out of work for the 10th time and have our bosses feeling bad for us because we are so “convincingly” deathly ill; mind you we consider being dope sick a terrible illness that we don’t deserve. We get arrested for any number of offenses and blame the cop for being a jerk. We spend nights, sometimes weeks, away from our loved ones getting high, without so much as a thought as to how this affects them or the other responsibilities we may have abandoned.
Addicts and alcoholics view life through a distorted prism that makes all of these actions acceptable. When confronted with the truth by anyone, we do what we know best…we lie some more; more to them and to ourselves! We may even commit to working on it, to doing better, and to not using or drinking (or at least doing it a little less.) Many of us may even believe we mean it when we make such lofty promises. But doing things our way inevitably leads us right back down the same path, usually with even more disastrous results.
The truth is that addiction is a mental illness; it lives in our minds and directly impacts the way we think and act. If we are to get well and be free from the mental obsession and polluted thinking created by our addiction, we must first be willing to admit this reality to ourselves. That our thinking is bad and untrustworthy. We literally cannot trust our own decision making process.
Making this admission is incredibly difficult; it will go against the grain of your very nature. It requires that we accept that “doing it our way” is no longer working. This can be especially difficult if we have had success in other areas of our lives. Our sick brain will convince us that if we were successful in those other ventures, we can certainly outwit this silly little addiction issue. This thought must be pushed from our minds. In truth, if we were going to think our way out of this problem, we would have already done so by now. We must humble ourselves and ask for help; let someone else make the decisions and tell us what to do, if we are to get better.
The internal struggle with doing this may be overcome by asking ourselves a simple question, “Can these people possibly damage my life any worse than I already have?” If we our honest with ourselves, we quickly realize that in asking for help that we have nothing to lose, and everything to gain.
Clearbrook has helped thousands of suffering addicts find a better way to live. If you are tired of the misery, anger, loneliness and fear, please let us help you. Call our Admissions Specialists today and start the process of doing it someone else’s way.
What have you got to lose?
