Addiction means always having to say
you are sorry à and finally, when
being sorry is no longer good enough for others
who have been repeatedly hurt by the addiction,
addiction often means being sorry all alone.
Addiction is often said to be a disease of denial
à but it is also a disease of regret. When
the addictive process has lasted long enough and
penetrated deeply enough into the life and mind of
the addict, the empty space left by the losses
caused by progressive, destructive addiction is
filled up with regrets, if-onlys and
could-have-beens. In early addiction the addict
tends to live in the future; in middle and late
addiction he begins to dwell more and more in the
past. And it is usually an unhappy, bitterly
regretted past.
The first casualty of addiction, like that of
war, is the truth. At first the addict merely
denies the truth to himself. But as the addiction,
like a malignant tumor, slowly and progressively
expands and invades more and more of the healthy
tissue of his life and mind and world, the addict
begins to deny the truth to others as well as to
himself. He becomes a practiced and profligate
liar in all matters related to the defense and
preservation of his addiction, even though prior
to the onset of his addictive illness, and often
still in areas as yet untouched by the addiction,
he may be scrupulously honest.
First the addict lies to himself about his
addiction, then he begins to lie to others. Lying,
evasion, deception, manipulation, spinning and
other techniques for avoiding or distorting the
truth are necessary parts of the addictive
process. They precede the main body of the
addiction like military sappers and shock troops,
mapping and clearing the way for its advance and
protecting it from hostile counterattacks.
Because addiction by definition is an irrational,
unbalanced and unhealthy behavior pattern
resulting from an abnormal obsession, it simply
cannot continue to exist under normal
circumstances without the progressive attack upon
and distortion of reality resulting from the
operation of its propaganda and psychological
warfare brigades. The fundamentally insane and
unsupportable thinking and behavior of the addict
must be justified and rationalized so that the
addiction can continue and progress.
One of the chief ways the addiction protects and
strengthens itself is by a psychology of personal
exceptionalism which permits the addict to
maintain a simultaneous double-entry bookkeeping
of addictive and non-addictive realities and to
reconcile the two when required by reference to
the unique, special considerations that àat
least in his own mind- happen to apply to his
particular case.
The form of the logic for this personal
exceptionalism is:
- Under ordinary circumstances and for most
people X is undesirable/irrational;
- My circumstances are not ordinary and I
am different from most people;
- Therefore X is not
undesirable/irrational in my case - or not
as undesirable/irrational as it would be
in other cases.
Armed with this powerful tool of personal
exceptionalism that is a virtual "Open
Sesame" for every difficult ethical conundrum he
is apt to face, the addict is free to take
whatever measures are required for the
preservation and progress of his addiction, while
simultaneously maintaining his allegiance to the
principles that would certainly apply if only his
case were not a special one.
In treatment and rehabilitation centers this personal
exceptionalism is commonly called "terminal
uniqueness." The individual in the grip of this
delusion is able to convince himself though not
always others that his circumstances are such that
ordinary rules and norms of behavior, rules and
norms that he himself concurs with when it comes
to other people, do not fairly or fully fit
himself at the present time and hence must be bent
or stretched just sufficiently to make room for
his special needs. In most cases this plea for
accommodation is acknowledged to be a temporary
one and accompanied by a pledge or plan to return
to the conventional "rules of engagement" as soon
as circumstances permit. This is the basic mindset
of "IÇll quit tomorrow" and "If you had the
problems I do youÇd drink and drug, too!"
The personal exceptionalism of the
addict, along with his willingness to lie both by
commission and omission in the protection and
furtherance of his addiction, place a severe
strain upon his relationships with others. It does
not usually take those who are often around the
addict long to conclude that he simply cannot be
believed in matters pertaining to his addiction.
He may swear that he is clean and sober and
intends to stay that way when in fact he is under
the influence or planning to become so at the
first opportunity; he may minimize or conceal the
amount of substance consumed; and he may make up
all manner of excuses and alibis whose usually
transparent purpose is to provide his addiction
the room it requires to continue operating.
One of the most damaging interpersonal scenarios
occurs when the addict, usually as the consequence
of some unforeseen crisis directly stemming from
his addiction, promises with all of the sincerity
at his command to stop his addictive behavior and
never under any circumstances to resume it again.
"I promise," the addict pleads, sometimes with
tears in his eyes. "I know I have been wrong, and
this time I have learned my lesson. YouÇll
never have to worry about me again. It will never
happen again!"
But it does happen again à and again, and
again, and again. Each time the promises, each
time their breaking. Those who first responded to
his sincere sounding promises of reform with
relief, hope and at times even joy soon become
disillusioned and bitter.
Spouses and other family members begin to ask a
perfectly logical question: "If you really
love and care about me, why do you keep doing
what you know hurts me so badly?" To this
the addict has no answer except to promise once
again to do better, "this time for real,
youÇll see!" or to respond with grievances
and complaints of his own. The question of
fairness arises as the addict attempts to
extenuate his own admitted transgressions by
repeated references to what he considers the equal
or greater faults of those who complain of his
addictive behavior. This natural defensive
maneuver of "the best defense is a good offense"
variety can be the first step on a slippery slope
that leads to the paranoid demonization of the
very people the addict cares about the most.
Unable any longer to carry the burden of his own
transgressions he begins to think of himself as
the victim of the unfairness and unreasonableness
of others who are forever harping on his addiction
and the consequences that flow from it. "Leave me
alone," he may snap. "IÇm not hurting
anybody but myself!" He has become almost totally
blind to how his addictive behavior does in fact
harm those around him who care about him; and he
has grown so confused that hurting only
himself has begun to sound like a rational,
even a virtuous thing to do!
Corresponding in a mirror image fashion to the
addictÇs sense of unfair victimization by
his significant others may be the rising
self-pity, resentment and outrage of those whose
lives are repeatedly disturbed or disrupted by the
addictÇs behavior. A downward spiral
commences of reciprocally reinforcing mistrust and
resentment as once healthy and mutually supportive
relationships begin to corrode under the toxic
effects of the relentless addictive process.
As the addictive process claims more of the
addict's self and lifeworld his addiction becomes
his primary relationship to the detriment of all
others. Strange as it sounds to speak of a bottle
of alcohol, a drug, a gambling obsession or any
other such compulsive behavior as a love
object, this is precisely what goes on in
advanced addictive illness. This means that in
addiction there is always
infidelity to other love objects such as
spouses and other family - for the very existence
of addiction signifies an allegiance that is at
best divided and at worst -and more commonly-
betrayed. For there comes a stage in every serious
addiction at which the paramount attachment of the
addict is to the addiction itself. Those
unfortunates who attempt to preserve a human
relationship to individuals in the throes of
progressive addiction almost always sense their
own secondary "less than" status in relation to
the addiction - and despite the addict's
passionate and indignant denials of this reality,
they are right: the addict does indeed love
his addiction more than he loves them.
Addiction protects and augments itself by means
of a bodyguard of lies, distortions and evasions
that taken together amount to a full scale assault
upon consensual reality. Because addiction
involves irrational and unhealthy thinking and
behavior, its presence results in cognitive
dissonance both within the addict himself and in
the intersubjective realm of ongoing personal
relationships.
In order for the addiction to continue it
requires an increasingly idiosyncratic private
reality subject to the needs of the addictive
process and indifferent or even actively hostile
to the healthy needs of the addict and those
around him. This encroachment of the fundamentally
autistic, even insane private reality of the
addict upon the reality of his family and close
associates inevitably causes friction and churn as
natural corrective feedback mechanisms come into
usually futile play in an effort to restore the
addict's increasingly deviant reality towards
normal. Questions, discussions, presentations of
facts, confrontations, pleas, threats, ultimatums
and arguments are characteristic of this process,
which in more fortunate and less severe cases of
addiction may sometimes actually succeed in its
aim of arresting the addiction. But in the more
serious or advanced cases all such human
counter-attacks upon the addiction, even, indeed
especially when they come from those closest and
dearest to the addict, fall upon deaf ears and a
hardened heart. The addict's obsession-driven,
monomaniacal private reality prevents him from
being able to hear and assimilate anything that
would if acknowledged pose a threat to the
continuance of his addiction.
At this stage of addiction the addict is in
fact functionally insane. It is usually
quite impossible, even sometimes harmful to
attempt to talk him out of his delusions regarding
his addiction. This situation is similar to that
encountered in other psychotic illnesses,
schizophrenia for example, in which the individual
is convinced of the truth of things that are
manifestly untrue to everyone else. Someone who is
deluded in the belief that he is the target of a
worldwide conspiracy by some organization will
always be able to answer any rational objection to
his theory in a fashion that preserves the
integrity of his belief system. Even when he is
presented with hard and fast data that
unequivocally disproves some of his allegations,
he will easily find a way to sidestep the
contradiction and persist in his false beliefs.
(He can for example easily claim that the
contradictory data is itself part of the
conspiracy and is expressly fabricated for the
purpose of making him look crazy! Anyone who has
ever tried -uselessly- to reason with delusional
patients knows the remarkable creativity and
ingenuity that can be displayed in maintaining the
viability, at least to the patient, of the most
bizarre and obviously erroneous beliefs.)
The addict's delusions that he is harming neither
himself nor others by his addictive
behaviors; that he is in control of his
addiction rather than vice versa; that his
addiction is necessary or even useful and good for
him; that the circumstances of his life justify
his addiction; that people who indicate
concern about him are enemies and not friends, and
all other such beliefs which are patently and
transparently false to everyone but himself, are
seldom correctable by reason or objective data and
thus indicate the presence of genuinely psychotic
thinking which, if it is more subtle than the
often grotesque delusions of the schizophrenic, is
by virtue of its very subtlety often far more
insidious and dangerous to the addict and those
with whom he comes into contact. For in the case
of the delusional schizophrenic most people are
quickly aware that they are dealing with someone
not in their right mind - but in the case of the
equally or at times even more insane addict,
thinking that is in fact delusional may be and
commonly is misattributed to potentially
remediable voluntary choices and moral decisions,
resulting in still more confusion and muddying of
the already turbulent waters around the addict and
his addiction.
In many cases the addict responds to negative
feedback from others about his addiction by
following the maxim of "Attack the attacker."
Those who confront or complain about the addict's
irrational and unhealthy behaviors are criticized,
analyzed and dismissed by the addict as
untrustworthy or biased observers and false
messengers. Their own vulnerabilities may be
ruthlessly exposed and exploited by the addict in
his desperate defense of his addiction. In many
cases, depending upon their own psychological
makeup and the nature of their relationship to the
addict, they themselves may begin to manifest
significant psychological symptoms. Emotional and
social withdrawal, secrecy, fear and shame can
cause the mental health of those closely involved
with addicts to deteriorate. Almost always there
is fear, anger, confusion and depression resulting
from repeated damaging exposures to the addict's
unhealthy and irrational behaviors and their
corresponding and supporting private reality.
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