when i sought help for my addiction i learned some amazing/negative things about myself. i had many beliefs about myself that were self-defeating. i had lost any self esteem cause i believed the programming i had incorporated in my perception of self. "i didn't do life well" i would say. i had no coping skills. i had no idea about self but the false beliefs. thus i abused alcohol to numb everything. i thought it was the only solution to rid myself of these feelings.
then abusing alcohol/alcoholism became the next big problem. i was caught in a vicious cycle. lack of self esteem, not knowing how to cope with life stuff, depression, then drinking it all away, ad finitum.
i, with the help of my T, realized i needed to tackle the things i needed to change. if i didn't i would always return to my addiction. it felt like it was the only way out. i really wasn't living life. i existed. no more no less. i felt "i was just breathing air."
i needed to find out who i really was rather than reverting back to the dismal, hopeless ways i thought were true. so addiction and hopelessness went hand in hand.
how can we learn to develop a new way of thinking? what work(ed) for you? how do false beliefs become a self fufilling prophecy? what tools have you learned to change those beliefs to sustain sobriety?