Addiction is the only disease that will try to convince you that you don’t have it.
Let me explain. If you have heart disease, your brain doesn’t tell you things such as, “Maybe I don’t really have a fatty buildup of plaque in my arteries.” “Maybe no one will know that I’m having a reduced blood supply to my heart.”
Yet the disease of addiction talks to an addict constantly and is one of the major reasons that getting and staying sober is so difficult.
Fortunately, treatment and recovery support can help.
What you surround yourself with, you become.
For example, I used to speak almost perfect French. I hung around people that spoke French in school and even went to Paris where I was able to use it every day. I spoke French. Addiction has a language of its own and it has very common lines.
“I’m only going to have one.”
“I’m out of energy. I’ll function better if I’m using.”
“I’m strong enough to be around alcohol or other drugs now that I’ve stopped.”
“I’m back in control. I’ll be able to stop when I want to.”
“I’m doing so well. Things are going great. I owe myself a reward.”
“No one will know.”
“I’ll quit tomorrow.”
Individual therapy, group treatment, and recovery support are all avenues for you to learn to not only identify the language of addiction but to learn the language of recovery.
Learning the language and being able to spot when the addict brain is talking is an incredibly useful tool in maintaining long term sobriety. It gives us the power to be able to challenge those thought distortions with much healthier thinking. By identifying the relapse justifications, we can interrupt the relapse process. If you would like help with sobriety, I speak the language. By the way, I’m not fluent in French anymore.
If you'd like to request an appointment with me, click here.