The Powerful Role of Cognitive Thinking Errors in Addiction

“All” means all; it doesn’t mean excluding a person or thing. I do it with one-on-one clients and group activities, but you can also do it with family members and friends who can provide positive solutions sober house and support. These are also people who tend to read negatives into every situation, often drawing on the all-or-nothing thinking pattern in ways that are not at all connected to the situation.

Catch yourself when you’re refuting your successes and remind yourself that you are proud. Gleyce Almeida-Farrell is a psychotherapist and the founder of Holistic Wellness Practice in Alpharetta, GA. She specializes in helping adults manage stress and overcome symptoms of anxiety utilizing a holistic and integrative approach to mental wellness.

Fallacy of Fairness

Action is not only louder than words; it is also more empowering. In the case of an unfortunate relapse, you will no longer frame it as a situation you “should” confront, but rather one you “will” confront. The human brain is the world’s most sophisticated supercomputer. It processes an avalanche of stimuli every microsecond of every day. The data on which your mind chooses to focus determines how you perceive the world.

• Certain aspects of control over drug use are clearly reduced, reflected in difficulty cutting back and relapse.
• For someone in addiction recovery, these common negative thinking patterns can increase their anxiety, often triggering depression and relapse episodes.
• Over-generalization is another damaging distortion, causing you to believe that defeat in some form is inevitable and that you are bound to repeat it.

Addiction occurs in a vacuum, when you used chemicals to fill an empty space. That space is a spiritual void that, if filled with addiction, will leave no room—or need—to satisfy your craving for meaning in your life. You find yourself thinking that the rules don’t apply to you.

«Allowed me to build a life for myself.»

This famous black-and-white way of thinking or an all-or-nothing approach to living can be quite dangerous. There’s only perfection and failure; they don’t see shades of gray in life. Most of the time, they’ll place themselves in “either/or” situations and make decisions using this mentality, often acting in extremist ways.

Now obviously it is impossible to be mindful all day every day, but with practice you can train your mind to stay more and more in the present and in alignment with mindfulness. Right here, right now, you are reading this, perhaps forming some sort of opinion or perhaps you’re not thinking very much at all. Having a focus slows down the chatter of the mind if it is relevant to the present.

Staying Socially Engaged When You Really Don’t Feel Like It

We’re going to talk about common thinking errors – in AA they say stinking thinking – in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy it’s called cognitive errors or cognitive distortions. As we know, everybody is recovering from something- it’s just a part of life, we are exhausted and wounded and usually overwhelmed between jobs, kids, spouses, bills- it’s exhausting. And over the course of time, we create these mental filters and errors that can really take you to a negative and dark place. Everyone has unique cognitive distortions they keep fighting.

Emotional reasoning is often a cognitive distortion that facilitates problematic alcohol use. Cognitive distortions are the intense negative thoughts or beliefs about yourself, others, or the world that are so well established that they “sound” like your own voice in your head. Cognitive distortions may also be referred to as thinking errors or automatic negative thoughts.