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Road to Recovery

Mistaken Belief #1

Mistaken Belief #2

Mistaken Belief #3

Mistaken Belief #4

Mistaken Belief #5

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Mistaken Belief #8

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Mistaken Belief #12

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Mistaken Belief #14

Mistaken Belief #15

Mistaken Belief #16

Mistaken Belief #17

 By: Terry Gorski with additions by: Lee Jamison

A MISTAKEN BELIEF IS SOMETHING THAT YOU BELIEVE TO BE TRUE AND ACT AS IF IT WERE TRUE WHEN, IN FACT, IT IS FALSE.

Mistaken Belief #15: Any episode of addictive use will result in immediate and total loss of control for anyone who has been addicted.

Fact: For some people who have used alcohol or drugs addictively, a return to using creates immediate and severe loss of control. From the first episode of use they lose control over their thinking, emotions, memory, judgement and behavior. If you have lost control immediately when you have started drinking or using in the past, you are probably one of those people and could be one episode away from serious consequences.

However, for many alcoholics and addicts the loss of control process is far more sneaky and subtle. As it says in the “Big Book” of Alcoholics Anonymous, “Alcohol is cunning, baffling, and powerful.” This applies to all addictions. They typical pattern for a return to use for the addict or alcoholic does not start with just one use of alcohol or other drug that immediately causes that person to escalate out of control. The loss of control emerges gradually from a series of “experiments in control."

Let us tell you the story of Sam. Sam’s counselor told him that if he took one drink or used one drug he would lose control until he “hit bottom.” One day as he was walking home from a counseling session he was passing a bar thinking, “I don’t believe that I can’t control it. I never immediately went crazy before. Why should I now? I really believe that I can take one drink and stop.”

A few days later he came to his favorite bar and talked himself into stopping. He ordered a beer. “One beer can’t hurt me,” he said. He sat there and slowly and carefully sipped on the beer for twenty minutes, leaving about one inch of it in the bottom of the glass. As he walked out of the bar he said, “That proves that I can have one drink and stop.” His feeling of self-control heightened and his sense of self-confidence went up. He went home without drinking any more. But the obsession became alive again. He kept thinking about that one drink. He thought of how good it would feel to drink again. He became obsessed with proving that he could control his use.

About a week later he thought to himself, “you know, I had one drink and stopped; I’ll bet I could do it again.” He went into a bar, ordered one beer, sipped on it for twenty minutes, pushed away from the bar leaving an inch in the bottom of the glass and walked out feeling doubly certain that his counselor had given him bad advice. As he went home, he said to himself, “My counselor really doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I obviously can have a single drink and stop.”

He began stopping at the bar to have one drink per day to continue proving to himself that he could in fact have one drink and stop. Then he started having two drinks and within a month he got drunk. He felt guilty and went back to controlling himself with only one drink. He managed to do this for another month or so. Then he got drunk again. At that point he gave up and began to drink out of control. This pattern of loss of control is very typical.

Some people can control their use for longer periods of time than others, but they are not comfortable during these periods. They are constantly battling their obsession, compulsion, and tendency to overdo it. As they experiment, their drinking or using becomes slowly heavier and heavier until they find themselves moving back into the heavy destructive addictive use patterns of their past. This pattern seems to hold true for all addictions.

If you believe that one drink for an alcoholic, or that one time use of your drug of choice for an addict, will result in loss of control, one of two things will happen if you take that drink or use that drug. (1) You will say to yourself, “Well, I took that one drink (or drug) so I may as well keep drinking (or using). The harm is done; I just can’t stop.” And you will not take any action to interrupt your use episode while you still had some control and before any serious damage is done. Your belief becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. (2) You will say to yourself, “Well, I took a drink (or drug) and I didn’t lose control, so I must not be an alcoholic or addict. If I can control myself I don’t need to stop.” And then before you realize what has happened, “cunning, baffling, and powerful” alcohol (or drugs) takes over, and you are in trouble.