(letter to me by a person who disagrees with statements I‘ve made on powerlessness.)
“I am not powerless except if I choose to take that first drink. As long as
I don't drink, no matter what, I have the power. But if I choose to take
that first drink, I am without any power. Experience has taught me when I
drink I become powerless.
I cannot drink ever again. Guess how I do that?
One day at a time.
Xxxxxxxx”
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- -
(my response)
You bring up a few statements. Let me give you my take on them -
1. As long as I don't drink, no matter what, I have the power.
2. If I choose to take that first drink, I am without any power.
3. I cannot drink ever again. Guess how I do that? One day at a time.
1 & 2 are connected, so let’s look at them first. It seems that your saying that if your sober, you have the power not to drink. If you do drink, then your alcoholism kicks in and you are powerless to prevent drinking more.
Well I got some good news for you! I can agree with you on point 2 - once you have that first drink you are powerless.
Point 1 I have to disagree. You seem to be saying that if you are sober, you have the power to not drink again. I guess that can be true if you are the most unique alcoholic in the world - one who is actually completely cured as long as you don’t have that first drink. I wish it was true for the rest of us. If all we had to do is just get in enough time to sober up, we would suddenly get the power not drink ever again on our pristine self-will alone. There would be no more relapses!
I’m sure would say next that “yes every alcoholic has the power once they are sober, they just choose not to use it. Any sober alcoholic can only relapse by choosing not to use the power that they have acquired in their sober time.”
Well its amazing to me how many alcoholics who get sober time CHOOSE NOT TO USE THE POWER THAT THEY NOW HAVE TO STOP.
I guess my problem with point 1 is freedom of choice. Your saying that when sober, you have the power to decide if you will drink or not. I’m saying that, even sober many of our choices are not made in complete freedom. Many of the character defects are still there, they affect choices even when sober. Perspectives are distorted. Some people may have emotional problems and act impulsively (without thinking). Some might be insecure and get pressured by old drinking buddies. Some people might have long-term brain chemistry imbalances from years of drinking.
ALL OF THESE THINGS CAN ROB US OF BEING ABLE TO FREELY CHOOSING NOT TO DRINK. Where is this power if simply the ability to chose is not enough? Like many programs state - willpower is not enough. I wish that all the power I needed to not drink was just to be sober.
As for one day at a time - it is a good short-term goal that can be repeated every day. Its easier than saying “I will never drink again!”. My problem is that people carry the idea too far and avoid long-term life-changing goals. Every day they wake up with the same problems that they had the day before and just “white knuckle it” another 24 hours. And make meetings, and meetings, and meetings, and meetings, ect……………….
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Sunday, May 2, 2010
KISS
(a letter to me)
My way is one day at a time. KISS. "Keep it Simple Stupid", some of these posts on this blog are just too wordy, too long winded, frankly, I get bored. That's ok. do your thing.
I am content.
No desire to drink for years and years now.
Will never ever forget the retired recovering Alkie who used to attend all the daytime meetings, chairing at least one a month, at Perry Street Workshop (AA) NYC back in the early 1980s. As we left a meeting he would recite "If you don't like what you heard at this meetin'...there's another one here in an hour...DON'T DRINK TODAY, GO TO MEETINGS,ALL THE REST IS CONVERSATION"
That sunk in.
Works for me.
I live in so called "3rd world" (Real World)..have friends my age 60+ and older who are illiterate, some of them in recovery for years. Never have to "explain" their philosophy, we just ask one another.."Good 24 hours?"
Don't THINK too much....
dangerous for any alkie....
Happy roads to sobriety. Adios.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(my response)
I can respect your way of recovery which keeps it simple and works it one day at a time. I know of many people with long-term recovery who are satisfied by this. I also know of people, like myself, who are excited by self-discovery and like to dig into themselves a little deeper. I just have to remember that this knowledge is only enlightening - it will not prevent me from relapsing on its own.
A spiritual awakening over time would be best, but if you don't believe in it at least believe in a self-awakening over time. That is how I find my serenity in sobriety. If I just take things one day at a time, I don't see how I can continue the transformation into the person I strive to be as time moves on from day to day.
I was at a meeting about a year ago where this guy shared about his 47 years of sobriety. I asked him "After all of this time, do you still discover new things about yourself?"
He looked at me a said that he “has never learned anything new about himself since the day he began his recovery".
I didn't ask him, but I wanted to say "Do you think that maybe if you did try to get to know yourself a little better you wouldn't still need to make meetings after 47 years?"
My way is one day at a time. KISS. "Keep it Simple Stupid", some of these posts on this blog are just too wordy, too long winded, frankly, I get bored. That's ok. do your thing.
I am content.
No desire to drink for years and years now.
Will never ever forget the retired recovering Alkie who used to attend all the daytime meetings, chairing at least one a month, at Perry Street Workshop (AA) NYC back in the early 1980s. As we left a meeting he would recite "If you don't like what you heard at this meetin'...there's another one here in an hour...DON'T DRINK TODAY, GO TO MEETINGS,ALL THE REST IS CONVERSATION"
That sunk in.
Works for me.
I live in so called "3rd world" (Real World)..have friends my age 60+ and older who are illiterate, some of them in recovery for years. Never have to "explain" their philosophy, we just ask one another.."Good 24 hours?"
Don't THINK too much....
dangerous for any alkie....
Happy roads to sobriety. Adios.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(my response)
I can respect your way of recovery which keeps it simple and works it one day at a time. I know of many people with long-term recovery who are satisfied by this. I also know of people, like myself, who are excited by self-discovery and like to dig into themselves a little deeper. I just have to remember that this knowledge is only enlightening - it will not prevent me from relapsing on its own.
A spiritual awakening over time would be best, but if you don't believe in it at least believe in a self-awakening over time. That is how I find my serenity in sobriety. If I just take things one day at a time, I don't see how I can continue the transformation into the person I strive to be as time moves on from day to day.
I was at a meeting about a year ago where this guy shared about his 47 years of sobriety. I asked him "After all of this time, do you still discover new things about yourself?"
He looked at me a said that he “has never learned anything new about himself since the day he began his recovery".
I didn't ask him, but I wanted to say "Do you think that maybe if you did try to get to know yourself a little better you wouldn't still need to make meetings after 47 years?"
Saturday, May 1, 2010
POWERLESS?
(my initial e-mail was prompted as a response to people complaining about how AA pushes the ideal of powerlessness over alcohol. This internet group is centered on people in recovery who do NOT LIKE the AA program)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To group
Many people bash AA because they can't get over this powerless thing. Step 1 in the AA Big Book does NOT say that we ARE (and will always be) powerless over alcohol. It says "We admitted we WERE powerless over alcohol...." . If we are following a program (whatever it is) that works for us and keeps us sober, we MUST have SOME level of power over alcohol. We do not have complete power (for alcohol is still dangerous for us), but we are no longer powerless.
Smeer
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi Smeer
You said - "We do not have complete power (for alcohol is still dangerous for us)"
Speaking for myself only, I DO and always had complete power over my drinking.
Do you think this is the right place to be quoting from the "AA Big Book"?
Who does have the complete control if we don't?
Take Care “X”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi “X”
I appreciate your response to my powerless e-mail. I am a very open-minded person who gets much out of open discussion with others. What I would like to do is respond to each of the 3 statements that you made one at a time.
Statement 1 “Speaking for myself only, I DO and always had complete power over my drinking.”
I guess the first thing I should do in responding to your first statement is to try to better define what I mean when I’m speaking of power/powerlessness. I went to a few dictionaries and pulled the definitions that best describe my understanding of “power” in the context that we are talking about. There are a few different aspects of the words meaning.
Power -
1. a) The ability or capacity to do something
b) The ability to do or act; capability of doing or accomplishing something.
If you are speaking power in ONLY this aspect, then I agree with you when you state that you always have “complete control” over your drinking (or not drinking). When I discuss power (or powerlessness) in the situation we are referring to, I am focusing the other aspects that continue to better define the meaning of this word -
2. Control and influence - the possession of control or command over someone or something
3. The ability or capacity to perform or act effectively
4. A person or thing that possesses or exercises authority or influence.
When I use the word power/powerlessness, I am thinking more in terms of control, or lack of. Power to me is not just the ability to drink or not, but the ability to control the choice to drink or not. If you choose to drink -
1 On impulse (without thinking it through)
2 For reasons not rational/logical because of an unhealthy emotional/physical/mental state
If you choose not to drink -
1. Out of continuous self-discipline based on strong feelings of fear, helplessness, or hate for alcohol (remaining in an unhealthy emotional/physical/mental state
2. Because you found new ways to delude yourself (higher power)
3. Taking away choice, by surrendering to a recovery program
In definition #4 - power can be a thing that possesses or exercises influence. The way I look at it, that sounds like alcohol has SOME power over me. If this is true, I can’t claim “complete power” over it.
Can you really say that you have “complete power over your drinking?
The broad definition of “power” includes control. Ability without control is NOT complete power.
Control -
1. The act or power of controlling; regulation; domination or command. The ability to run something: ability or authority to manage or direct something
2. To restrain or limit: to limit or restrict the occurrence or expression of somebody or something, especially to keep it from appearing, increasing, or spreading
3. To hold in check; curb
Statement 2 “Do you think this is the right place to be quoting from the "AA Big Book"?
I have so many differences of opinion with the AA 12 step recovery program, that I could probably write a book on them all. I’ll just mention one here - for a program that preaches “open-mindedness”, they don’t want to hear you share anything that goes outside of the Big Book. It is “their way or the highway“. In my e-mail, it might have been the first time I ever quoted anything out of the Big Book - I just did so to make a point about how they push the idea of powerlessness down your throat and, as usual, don’t really know what they’re even talking about. I thought that I would try LSR to find people who are open-minded. I don’t like AA fanatics and am now finding that I don’t like anti-AA fanatics either.
Statement 3 “Who does have the complete control if we don't?”
What makes you think that anyone, or anything has complete control - I certainly don’t. Even the people who believe in a “higher power” make the statement that God allows us to retain our free will - so they can’t really say (if they have any sense) that God even has complete control.
We may disagree on things, but I have complete respect for everyone who has found a way to stay clean and sober.
Take care Smeer
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I’m sure that this will continue, so I’ll follow it up in comments under this topic.
Stay tuned!!!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To group
Many people bash AA because they can't get over this powerless thing. Step 1 in the AA Big Book does NOT say that we ARE (and will always be) powerless over alcohol. It says "We admitted we WERE powerless over alcohol...." . If we are following a program (whatever it is) that works for us and keeps us sober, we MUST have SOME level of power over alcohol. We do not have complete power (for alcohol is still dangerous for us), but we are no longer powerless.
Smeer
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi Smeer
You said - "We do not have complete power (for alcohol is still dangerous for us)"
Speaking for myself only, I DO and always had complete power over my drinking.
Do you think this is the right place to be quoting from the "AA Big Book"?
Who does have the complete control if we don't?
Take Care “X”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi “X”
I appreciate your response to my powerless e-mail. I am a very open-minded person who gets much out of open discussion with others. What I would like to do is respond to each of the 3 statements that you made one at a time.
Statement 1 “Speaking for myself only, I DO and always had complete power over my drinking.”
I guess the first thing I should do in responding to your first statement is to try to better define what I mean when I’m speaking of power/powerlessness. I went to a few dictionaries and pulled the definitions that best describe my understanding of “power” in the context that we are talking about. There are a few different aspects of the words meaning.
Power -
1. a) The ability or capacity to do something
b) The ability to do or act; capability of doing or accomplishing something.
If you are speaking power in ONLY this aspect, then I agree with you when you state that you always have “complete control” over your drinking (or not drinking). When I discuss power (or powerlessness) in the situation we are referring to, I am focusing the other aspects that continue to better define the meaning of this word -
2. Control and influence - the possession of control or command over someone or something
3. The ability or capacity to perform or act effectively
4. A person or thing that possesses or exercises authority or influence.
When I use the word power/powerlessness, I am thinking more in terms of control, or lack of. Power to me is not just the ability to drink or not, but the ability to control the choice to drink or not. If you choose to drink -
1 On impulse (without thinking it through)
2 For reasons not rational/logical because of an unhealthy emotional/physical/mental state
If you choose not to drink -
1. Out of continuous self-discipline based on strong feelings of fear, helplessness, or hate for alcohol (remaining in an unhealthy emotional/physical/mental state
2. Because you found new ways to delude yourself (higher power)
3. Taking away choice, by surrendering to a recovery program
In definition #4 - power can be a thing that possesses or exercises influence. The way I look at it, that sounds like alcohol has SOME power over me. If this is true, I can’t claim “complete power” over it.
Can you really say that you have “complete power over your drinking?
The broad definition of “power” includes control. Ability without control is NOT complete power.
Control -
1. The act or power of controlling; regulation; domination or command. The ability to run something: ability or authority to manage or direct something
2. To restrain or limit: to limit or restrict the occurrence or expression of somebody or something, especially to keep it from appearing, increasing, or spreading
3. To hold in check; curb
Statement 2 “Do you think this is the right place to be quoting from the "AA Big Book"?
I have so many differences of opinion with the AA 12 step recovery program, that I could probably write a book on them all. I’ll just mention one here - for a program that preaches “open-mindedness”, they don’t want to hear you share anything that goes outside of the Big Book. It is “their way or the highway“. In my e-mail, it might have been the first time I ever quoted anything out of the Big Book - I just did so to make a point about how they push the idea of powerlessness down your throat and, as usual, don’t really know what they’re even talking about. I thought that I would try LSR to find people who are open-minded. I don’t like AA fanatics and am now finding that I don’t like anti-AA fanatics either.
Statement 3 “Who does have the complete control if we don't?”
What makes you think that anyone, or anything has complete control - I certainly don’t. Even the people who believe in a “higher power” make the statement that God allows us to retain our free will - so they can’t really say (if they have any sense) that God even has complete control.
We may disagree on things, but I have complete respect for everyone who has found a way to stay clean and sober.
Take care Smeer
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I’m sure that this will continue, so I’ll follow it up in comments under this topic.
Stay tuned!!!
Friday, April 30, 2010
NO ATTACHMENT
Some people might be pissed for me writing about this, but I can’t help believing what I believe and am not afraid to state my opinion on it. The purpose of recovery from drugs and alcohol is live a life without these things being a disruptive element anymore. Ones life should no longer be ‘attached’ to drugs and alcohol. The goal being to ’find a new way to live’.
1 The biggest thing to do this is not to use or drink AT ALL
(That one should be a no-brainer).
2 The next part involves taking the obsession or craving to use away by working on yourself. There are many different approaches to do this (including step work and spirituality) - I’m just trying to lump this general terms.
3 Once this is done, the next step is to stay involved in some type of maintenance process to avoid regressing back to the “old self” that had cravings and obsessions which led to using. Part of that maintenance usually involves giving back and helping others.
I have no problem with this general recovery plan - I use it myself. What bothers me is the way that some people follow it. When I say ‘bother’, I don’t mean that I’m bothered by a difference of opinion, or application. I feel that everyone has a right to use whatever recovery plan works best for them. I bring this up, because I am concerned that many people in recovery are denying themselves true freedom from drugs and alcohol. I see many continuing a course of action that keeps these substances a disruptive element in their lives - EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE ABSTAINING, WORKING ON THEMSELVES, AND RUNNING A MAINTENANCE PROCESS.
I feel I can say this, because I feel that many people in recovery remain ‘attached’ to drugs and alcohol - hence never enjoying true freedom from them. If there’re not using how are they attached?
Their attachment is now based on aversion (strong dislike) - a strong feeling of dislike or hatred of something. To be very averse to something – for instance, steering clear of alcohol – is a similar issue to craving, but working in reverse. The ideal is ‘no attachment’, neither craving nor averting. For some people in recovery look like people trapped in the cycle of craving and aversion, where their refusal to drink or use is symptomatic of an ongoing problem. To reach a higher spiritual level one should cultivate 'no attachment'.
I’m not saying that we should forget that drugs and alcohol are bad things and we certainly have to avoid them, but we don’t have to spend every waking minute reminding ourselves (and others) how much we hate them now. If we have really worked on ourselves and found some serenity, drugs and alcohol should hold no value over us in either a good or bad. How can one have any serenity if they still focus on this aversion?
Go to meetings, work with a sponsor, help spread the recovery message - do what you have to do for maintenance, but put it into a balance. Sure I usually spend a hour a day working on these blogs and go to a few meetings a week, but I do this so I can spend the rest of my time enjoying a normal life. My recovery is always there, but it runs beneath my awareness - only ready to pop up if needed. In fact most people that have come to know me in the last few years have no ideal that I had a drug problem
It amazes me how there are people with years in sobriety going to a dozen or more meetings a week, or standing on milk crates in the streets shouting AA slogans or not being able to hold a conversation with anyone without it turning into recovery talk. In my opinion, if you need to do all of this to stay clean, its time to REALLY do step work this time. Its time to REALLY work on yourself. If you spend your life in recovery always focusing on your strong aversion to drugs and alcohol, then the same underlying problems that caused you to crave them ARE STILL THERE to an unhealthy degree. This reminds me of my old life when, even when I wasn’t high, I was always focused on getting money for it, getting to the drug dealer, or waiting till I could sneak away and use.
To find real serenity the idea of no attachment should be used in ALL aspects of your life. Attachment can only be an illusion - you hold no real power over it. Admit that you are powerless over remaining attached to things. Attachment is a corruption that robs the true value of everything that you have. Take love for example. Love is a great and real thing, but it is something that one must enjoy for what it is - not possess. The magic of love is destroyed when one tries to attach to it. This can lead to fear of its loss, attempts at control, lack of trust, jealousy, ect.
1 The biggest thing to do this is not to use or drink AT ALL
(That one should be a no-brainer).
2 The next part involves taking the obsession or craving to use away by working on yourself. There are many different approaches to do this (including step work and spirituality) - I’m just trying to lump this general terms.
3 Once this is done, the next step is to stay involved in some type of maintenance process to avoid regressing back to the “old self” that had cravings and obsessions which led to using. Part of that maintenance usually involves giving back and helping others.
I have no problem with this general recovery plan - I use it myself. What bothers me is the way that some people follow it. When I say ‘bother’, I don’t mean that I’m bothered by a difference of opinion, or application. I feel that everyone has a right to use whatever recovery plan works best for them. I bring this up, because I am concerned that many people in recovery are denying themselves true freedom from drugs and alcohol. I see many continuing a course of action that keeps these substances a disruptive element in their lives - EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE ABSTAINING, WORKING ON THEMSELVES, AND RUNNING A MAINTENANCE PROCESS.
I feel I can say this, because I feel that many people in recovery remain ‘attached’ to drugs and alcohol - hence never enjoying true freedom from them. If there’re not using how are they attached?
Their attachment is now based on aversion (strong dislike) - a strong feeling of dislike or hatred of something. To be very averse to something – for instance, steering clear of alcohol – is a similar issue to craving, but working in reverse. The ideal is ‘no attachment’, neither craving nor averting. For some people in recovery look like people trapped in the cycle of craving and aversion, where their refusal to drink or use is symptomatic of an ongoing problem. To reach a higher spiritual level one should cultivate 'no attachment'.
I’m not saying that we should forget that drugs and alcohol are bad things and we certainly have to avoid them, but we don’t have to spend every waking minute reminding ourselves (and others) how much we hate them now. If we have really worked on ourselves and found some serenity, drugs and alcohol should hold no value over us in either a good or bad. How can one have any serenity if they still focus on this aversion?
Go to meetings, work with a sponsor, help spread the recovery message - do what you have to do for maintenance, but put it into a balance. Sure I usually spend a hour a day working on these blogs and go to a few meetings a week, but I do this so I can spend the rest of my time enjoying a normal life. My recovery is always there, but it runs beneath my awareness - only ready to pop up if needed. In fact most people that have come to know me in the last few years have no ideal that I had a drug problem
It amazes me how there are people with years in sobriety going to a dozen or more meetings a week, or standing on milk crates in the streets shouting AA slogans or not being able to hold a conversation with anyone without it turning into recovery talk. In my opinion, if you need to do all of this to stay clean, its time to REALLY do step work this time. Its time to REALLY work on yourself. If you spend your life in recovery always focusing on your strong aversion to drugs and alcohol, then the same underlying problems that caused you to crave them ARE STILL THERE to an unhealthy degree. This reminds me of my old life when, even when I wasn’t high, I was always focused on getting money for it, getting to the drug dealer, or waiting till I could sneak away and use.
To find real serenity the idea of no attachment should be used in ALL aspects of your life. Attachment can only be an illusion - you hold no real power over it. Admit that you are powerless over remaining attached to things. Attachment is a corruption that robs the true value of everything that you have. Take love for example. Love is a great and real thing, but it is something that one must enjoy for what it is - not possess. The magic of love is destroyed when one tries to attach to it. This can lead to fear of its loss, attempts at control, lack of trust, jealousy, ect.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
DEPENDENT ORIGINATION
The mental phenomena such as craving can be understood to be causally conditioned. In Buddhist's teachings there is something called the ‘law of dependent origination’ which asserts that sensory contact conditions feeling, feeling conditions craving, and craving conditions grasping. Meditative practice and 'mindfulness...' help to cultivate a gap between feeling and craving. It is in this space that we find our freedom, the freedom to have a choice rather than merely to react compulsively. The word buddha means “one who is awake”. To be awake to our inner world, rather than operating on automatic pilot, is a powerful preventative measure against relapse.
BEYOND UNDERSTANDING
It is well known to people in recovery that intellectual understanding alone is insufficient to motivate change. We need to move from understanding to conviction, achievable through experience. Smokers, for example, know that smoking causes them harm, yet sometimes the compulsion to smoke is irresistible. The language ...of the 12 steps, involving being “humble”, “willing” or “praying”, is not the language of intellectual analysis but of emotional commitment. 12 step recovery tries to engage the heart as well as the head. When the heart is engaged, we can find the motivation to transform ourselves through action.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
DISTORTED THINKING
If your having troubles dealing with reality, maybe its because your thinking is distorting it.
Cognitive distortions are exaggerated and irrational thoughts identified in cognitive therapy and its variants, which supposedly perpetuate certain psychological disorders. Eliminating these distortions and negative thought is said to improve mood and discourage maladies such as depression and chronic anxiety. The process of learning to refute these distortions is called "cognitive restructuring".
List of distortions -
All-or-nothing thinking (splitting) - Thinking of things in absolute terms, like "always", "every", "never", and "there is no alternative". Few aspects of human behavior are so absolute. (false dilemma.) All-or-nothing-thinking can contribute to depression.
Overgeneralization - Taking isolated cases and using them to make wide generalizations. (hasty generalization.)
Mental filter - Focusing almost exclusively on certain, usually negative or upsetting, aspects of an event while ignoring other positive aspects. For example, focusing on a tiny imperfection in a piece of otherwise useful clothing. (misleading vividness.)
Disqualifying the positive - Continually reemphasizing or "shooting down" positive experiences for arbitrary, ad hoc reasons.
Jumping to conclusions - Drawing conclusions (usually negative) from little (if any) evidence. Two specific subtypes are also identified:
Mind reading - Assuming special knowledge of the intentions or thoughts of others.
Fortune telling - Exaggerating how things will turn out before they happen. (slippery slope.)
Magnification and minimization - Distorting aspects of a memory or situation through magnifying or minimizing them such that they no longer correspond to objective reality. This is common enough in the normal population to popularize idioms such as "make a mountain out of a molehill." In depressed people, often the positive characteristics of other people are exaggerated and negative characteristics are understated. There is one subtype of magnification:
Catastrophizing - Focusing on the worst possible outcome, however unlikely, or thinking that a situation is unbearable or impossible when it is really just uncomfortable.
Emotional reasoning - Making decisions and arguments based on intuitions or personal feeling rather than an objective rationale and evidence. (appeal to consequences.)
Should statements - Patterns of thought which imply the way things "should" or "ought to be" rather than the actual situation the person is faced with, or having rigid rules which the person believes will "always apply" no matter what the circumstances are. (wishful thinking.)
Labeling and mislabeling - Explaining behaviors or events, merely by naming them; related to overgeneralization. Rather than describing the specific behavior, a person assigns a label to someone or themselves that implies absolute and unalterable terms. Mislabeling involves describing an event with language that is highly colored and emotionally loaded.
Personalization - Attribution of personal responsibility (or causal role) for events over which the person has no control. This pattern is also applied to other in the attribution of blame.
Cognitive distortions are exaggerated and irrational thoughts identified in cognitive therapy and its variants, which supposedly perpetuate certain psychological disorders. Eliminating these distortions and negative thought is said to improve mood and discourage maladies such as depression and chronic anxiety. The process of learning to refute these distortions is called "cognitive restructuring".
List of distortions -
All-or-nothing thinking (splitting) - Thinking of things in absolute terms, like "always", "every", "never", and "there is no alternative". Few aspects of human behavior are so absolute. (false dilemma.) All-or-nothing-thinking can contribute to depression.
Overgeneralization - Taking isolated cases and using them to make wide generalizations. (hasty generalization.)
Mental filter - Focusing almost exclusively on certain, usually negative or upsetting, aspects of an event while ignoring other positive aspects. For example, focusing on a tiny imperfection in a piece of otherwise useful clothing. (misleading vividness.)
Disqualifying the positive - Continually reemphasizing or "shooting down" positive experiences for arbitrary, ad hoc reasons.
Jumping to conclusions - Drawing conclusions (usually negative) from little (if any) evidence. Two specific subtypes are also identified:
Mind reading - Assuming special knowledge of the intentions or thoughts of others.
Fortune telling - Exaggerating how things will turn out before they happen. (slippery slope.)
Magnification and minimization - Distorting aspects of a memory or situation through magnifying or minimizing them such that they no longer correspond to objective reality. This is common enough in the normal population to popularize idioms such as "make a mountain out of a molehill." In depressed people, often the positive characteristics of other people are exaggerated and negative characteristics are understated. There is one subtype of magnification:
Catastrophizing - Focusing on the worst possible outcome, however unlikely, or thinking that a situation is unbearable or impossible when it is really just uncomfortable.
Emotional reasoning - Making decisions and arguments based on intuitions or personal feeling rather than an objective rationale and evidence. (appeal to consequences.)
Should statements - Patterns of thought which imply the way things "should" or "ought to be" rather than the actual situation the person is faced with, or having rigid rules which the person believes will "always apply" no matter what the circumstances are. (wishful thinking.)
Labeling and mislabeling - Explaining behaviors or events, merely by naming them; related to overgeneralization. Rather than describing the specific behavior, a person assigns a label to someone or themselves that implies absolute and unalterable terms. Mislabeling involves describing an event with language that is highly colored and emotionally loaded.
Personalization - Attribution of personal responsibility (or causal role) for events over which the person has no control. This pattern is also applied to other in the attribution of blame.
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