The First Line Of Defense

Denial is like the guard dog standing at the front door of someone's addiction.  Few of us like to admit we need help with anything, much less something like the helplessness of addiction.  Whether it's crack cocaine, alcohol, or online chat, deep down inside us we all feel that needing help means we're weak, or stupid, or we have some type of handicap.  And obviously, society's attitude about addiction has a lot to do with that.  Most people still feel that addiction is about weak character, poor choices, and less than adequate "moral fiber."  And the truth is, it really has very little to do with any of that.  Addiction is the result of a complex mix of factors, not the least of which are genetics, environment, how we grew up and early life experiences.

So rest assured, a big part of the addict's denial is because of how they perceive addiction.  If alcoholics and addicts were perceived to be incredibly well-endowed and extraordinarily handsome, men would be lining up to get into rehab, whether they needed it or not!  It's all about perceptions.

Another thing that's unusual about addiction, is that everyone who has the problem thinks that they, and their circumstances are totally unique and that no one understands them.  It almost seems like that's one of the first things that addiction does to you - it isolates you psychologically.  It gives you the attitude that "you're different," "you're unique," and "what applies to all those other people doesn't apply to you."

But it's more than a mere attitude.  The addiction phenomenon actually begins to "re-wire" your thinking so you gradually begin to feel a very pressing and deep need to defend and protect it.  It reminds you that it began as your friend - the "vehicle" that took you from a bad place to a good place emotionally.  And ultimately, it deludes you into thinking that it's still doing that - it's still the only way to get to "the good place" psychologically, despite the fact that it doesn't feel as good as it once did, and in truth, it never will again.

And unfortunately, until we break through denial - until we have that small "moment of clarity" that so many people in recovery recall happening to them, the wall of denial and "terminal uniqueness" stays up and remains on guard.  You can give someone a million good reasons for going to get help and more often than not, denial will put up a solid brick wall that no amount of logic and rational thought can seem to penetrate.

And from a scientific perspective, we have to remember that addiction has literally hijacked the individual's brain.  The addiction is now "viewed," or "perceived" by the addict's brain as having the utmost priority - as important in their mind as food, water and shelter are in the mind of the non-addicted person.  So denial about addiction isn't simply a "stubbornness," or unrealistic attitude, on the contrary, it's an example of the brain doing precisely what it's trained to do under the circumstances.

What Got You In, Won't Get You Out

Albert Einstein is quoted as saying, "We can't get out of problems using the same kind of thinking we used to get in to them."   So if denial about your addiction is still a part of the mind-set that you're trying to use to address your addiction, you're in a classic "no win" situation.  It's like trying to fix your reading glasses and get that little screw in the hinge.  And it wouldn't be that hard to do if you were wearing your glasses, but your glasses are what you're trying to fix!

So somehow, we have to get leverage on the addict, to make them step outside of their distorted world momentarily so they can see things for what they are.  As we learned in the "How To" about properly conducting an intervention, sometimes that will do it.  The addict is presented with more than a single person's opinion that addiction is ruining them, they're presented with a whole bunch of opinions all saying that same thing, and that's called a consensus, which is usually much more compelling.

However, interventions don't always work.  Sometimes the addict's resistance to accept help and assistance is just too strong.  You just can't get them to agree to go immediately for treatment because they're too deep in denial.  So rather than just giving up, there's another strategy that can be employed. And for lack of a technical term, what this strategy involves is predicting the future for the person in question.  And you will be surprised how at effective it can sometimes be.

Paint The Picture They'll See Tomorrow

You see, when people finally make the decision to seek help, no matter how many people were involved in pushing them toward that decision, they still like to feel that they made the decision on their own.  This is proof of the widely held belief in recovery circles that alcoholics and addicts love to learn but they hate to be taught.  So with that in mind, you have to paint a picture of where the addiction is going to take them if they don't get help and it's not a hard picture to paint, because the path that addiction takes is fairly predictable.  (In short, bit by bit your life degrades and you either end up in an institution, prison, or a graveyard.)

So let's use an example.  Suppose there's four of us in a car and we're supposed to be heading north.  However, everybody but the driver of the car can plainly see that we're heading south.  So we tell the driver that they've got to change directions, but they won't, because they're in denial.  (I know every female reading this has now assumed the driver is a male.)

Anyway, the driver is in denial about going in the wrong direction and they won't turn around, despite the fact that three of us are positive we're heading south, in the wrong direction.  So what do you do?  Well one thing you can do is "make a deal about the future" with the driver.  And that would mean saying, "Okay, we all feel you're heading south, but you don't believe us.  But if you keep going in this direction, we predict that it's going to start getting warmer, and pretty soon we're going to start seeing alligator farms, palm trees and a big sign saying "Welcome To Florida."  So if that turns out to be right, will you agree to turn around?"

In this way, you're not asking the driver to betray their own sense of direction, you're asking them to trust it once they see the signs that you predicted they would see.  So in the case of the addict in denial, you have to come up with logical outcomes and visible "signposts" of where their current direction is going to take them.  You have to predict for them that somewhere further along the road, they're going to lose something, they're going to lose someone, or they're going to get in some sort of trouble.  Somehow, in some measurable way, their life is not going to get better, it's going to get worse.

And if you predicted that they would, they'll remember that, and sometimes, it just might become that "ah ha!" moment, and they'll tell themselves it's time to get help.  And that's when they're getting help for the right reasons.  They have got to want it for themselves, not for anybody else.  That may sound terribly selfish, but that's the way it is with addiction.  If you're not willing to help yourself because you want it, you're of no use to anyone long-term anyway.

Summary

Addicts and alcoholics always think their problems and their circumstances are unique, and the truth is, they never are.  You can lead a hundred people to recovery, and trust us, the details will vary slightly, but the plot-line is always identical.  So this "terminal uniqueness" is one of the first false notions you have to dispel.  The next step involves getting them to realize that people who don't have drug or alcohol problems never have other people questioning them about their drug or alcohol use.  If it's really not a problem, no one would be talking about it - it's just that simple.

Moreover, you have to get the person to examine what role drugs or alcohol play in their life, and how much of a role they play.  People who do not have a drug or alcohol problem rarely think about drugs or alcohol, they're capable of having fun or socializing without drugs or alcohol, and if you took drugs or alcohol out of their life, it wouldn't be that big a deal to them.  But tell an addict or alcoholic you're going to take away the drugs or alcohol and watch how they react.  Usually they get really annoyed and often they literally freak out.  In other words, they react exactly like a drug addict or alcoholic would react.  And that's probably because that's exactly what they are.