Understand Denial So You Can Free Yourself From Addiction Once And For All.

If you are drawn to reading this article, a part of you wants help.

You are not likely to approach me and say…

“Ok I'm ready to stop. How do I stop?”.

It goes more like this…

“Part of me wants to stop and part of me doesn’t”.

You are able to see the ways that drinking/drugging/toxic behaviours are damaging your life but you are not sure you want to change anything (yet).

‘Yet’ can last a lifetime and will steal your full potential from you.

This is called being “In Denial”.

If a close friend came to you and said….

I know if I stopped drinking (or whatever poison/ toxic behaviour) I would be a better person, my life would be more fulfilling, my relationships would be better, I would be healthier, reach my full potential, be further along in my career, be more respected, lose weight, reach my fitness goals, be consistent, motivated, and happier in everything i do….” What would you say to them?

Stop the drinking, that's what.

They say..

“but I like it”.....

You say…..

“You’re crazy”.

And it is - crazy.

Look at what you are giving up because you … “like it” …That's called addiction.

Part of suffering from addiction is not knowing that you are.

The denial shields you from reality.

Think of it like this…

One part of you is the ‘healthy part’ and the other is the ‘addicted part’.

These two parts left alone to talk the situation through will always end up in the same place. The addicted part wins. “One more time won’t hurt”.

All of a sudden it’s ten years later. You are 15 kg heavier and you have missed your opportunity to really thrive in your career and life. Too late now, gone.

That's what denial does.

Keeps you trapped, stuck.

That’s all I really do with people.

Help you obtain a perspective shift so that you act.

Once you see how things really are, you will do the rest yourself.

I'll give you the tools of course, but it's not as hard as you imagine it to be.

Someone (like me) needs to shine a light on the truth for you.

Denial is a truth hiding mechanism (or strategy) employed by the human brain.

Its purpose is to keep the status quo, to keep you drinking.

Humans are creatures of habit.

You know this.

Habits are hard to break right?

This is a side effect of a great survival strategy developed over thousands of years.

Whatever you did yesterday, it worked. What do I mean by it worked? You are alive! So whatever you did, worked.

Denial is something that clinicians (like myself) call a defence mechanism.

It is a brain mechanism that defends your conscious mind from reality (or the truth).

The human mind is complex and made up of many parts.

When a brain is affected by addiction these parts can become disconnected (so one part will know something the other part does not).

One part actively hides the truth from the other.

This is the “Addict-You” vs the “Healthy-You”.

Part of your brain believes it is doing you a favour by keeping you safe from information that will be threatening to your existence and way of life.

Let me give you a non-addiction example to help you understand.

Have you ever known anyone in a long term abusive relationship?

Have you ever asked yourself “why don't they just leave?”.

Or, “How do they stay with that A@@ H*** ?”

They stay because the truth has been banished to their subconscious mind.

The subconscious mind is hiding the truth from them about how bad things really are. Why? Because if the conscious mind knew how bad things were, they would leave.

The unconscious mind has thought this scenario through all on its own.

It is trapped by fear and has decided catastrophised outcomes… “If I left this relationship I would lose half of my assets, the children would suffer, I would be alone, have to start all over again, have to move, deal with the pain and shame of a failed marriage, etc etc….”

So, your unconscious mind has decided not to allow your conscious mind to know the truth. This is an effort to minimise your suffering. Instead of suffering the imagined consequences of leaving the toxic relationship you suffer the consequences of staying (which are much worse in the long term - for you). You remain stuck forever in an unhappy marriage and life.

Much like if you stay stuck in denial about your addictions, you stay stuck in addiction.

Each day you wake up your brain runs a simple auto check.

1. I’m alive.
2. What I did yesterday worked (kept me alive).
3. Do today what I did yesterday.
4. Repeat.

Without external intervention this cycle continues indefinitely.

Where did this survival strategy come from, you might ask? Denial is a survival strategy we developed in childhood. It is a simple strategy that does not take into account the complexities of most situations (like addiction or relationships).

The human brain is by default much better at looking after your short term needs (your needs today) as opposed to your long term needs (to have a happy and healthy old age). It's just the way we are wired and denial is an integral part of that.

We are driven by the seeking of immediate pleasure and the avoidance of immediate pain in the here and now (today). This need to be comfortable in this moment is a much stronger drive than our drive to create a happy future. It is an inescapable chemical drive that occurs as a result of years of evolution and the different chemicals released in the brain that drive this process (that's why we call addiction a brain disease).

Eventually the future will come rolling in and you will think... “shit, how did I get here”.

Because the main driver of your behaviour is pleasure today and avoidance of pain today you will remain stuck in addiction forever moving forward unless you DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT and introduce an outside and new perspective that will release you from that cycle.

Addiction steals your strategic advantage.

That's where I come in.

Left to your own devices the two parts of your brain I referred to earlier (subconscious and conscious) will discuss your situation without your strategic input. It will decide to avoid the pain of withdrawals (because that doesn’t feel good) and to continue to seek pleasure by continuing to engage in the drinking, drugging, or addictive behaviour.

**You might say “It’s not pleasurable any more”. It is better than the alternative, chemical withdrawal.

In this moment your brain sacrifices your future so that you can avoid the discomfort of breaking free from your addictions. Your brain (without input from my brain) does not know there are A LOT of things you can do to minimise this discomfort.

This is tragic.

There is a point in YOUR future where YOUR situation will hit YOU like a ton of bricks.

YOU will ask yourself in a state of shock and horror ..

“How the hell did I let this happen?”

Often by this point it is too late.

By this time you will have lost so much that it is near impossible to stop.

You don’t have to end up there.

Don't let it get to this point.

Let's take a look at what might stop you from taking action NOW.

Right NOW

Anxiety, Denial and Addiction are 3 peas in a pod.

Addiction is driven by denial which is driven by fear.

Addiction therefore is all about FEAR.

I don’t have to tell you this.

Do you suffer Anxiety?

Of course you do. (you might not acknowledge it as anxiety, but it's there).

I suffered horribly from anxiety when I was trapped by my addictions.

This fear is disproportionate. It is old fear from long ago that has been reignited by the addiction. The volume of the original fear has been turned up.

You are suffering from a chemical onslaught onto the brain and are confused about what is causing what. This my friend, is the cruel trick that addiction plays on us. It is confusing and one feels lost in it, unable to understand why one just can't “stop”.

Think about fear and anxiety (which are really the same things). What is it? They are sensations in the body. That's all. Fear can not hurt you (but it feels like it can and will). It won't kill you (but sometimes it feels like it will).

Drinking, drugging, addictive behaviours.

They will kill you.

Slowly, by stealing everything off you.

Family, health, career.

Eventually your sanity and life.

The fear you are feeling is misplaced.

Your brain has flagged your addiction as “life-giving”.

That's another reason why we call addiction a “disease of the brain”.

Your brain has flagged (for example) alcohol as imperative to your survival.

So, without it you go into a panic (the withdrawal stage/ feeling).

Your brain is sending you the fear signal on a chemical level..

“DRINK NOW OR YOU WILL DIE”.

That's pretty hard to ignore.

Ever wondered why the urge to have your next drink FEELS as powerful as your urge to take your next breath?

That's because these urges have been flagged as equal by a malfunctioning brain.

See why without external input you are doomed to fail ?

You need to breathe.

There is SO MUCH you can do to fix this problem and escape this hell and it is actually not that hard once you are connected to a professional who does this for a living and who has done it themselves.

Reach out and break the cycle today. You can book directly.

www.dmcounselling.com.au