Eliminate Stinking Thinking!

Heaven knows that the thought process for many addicts is seriously flawed. Many of us learned to engage in negative thought patterns like “all or nothing thinking,” “overgeneralization,” “discounting the positive” and “jumping to conclusions.” Let’s examine some of these to see just how they negatively impact our lives.

Most of us probably understand “all or nothing thinking” as “black and white thinking.” When we engage in this mental process, we back ourselves into very small corners. I used to trap myself into being an instant failure with this very limited way of thinking. For example, I was an English/Creative Writing major in college. My career has always involved writing. And it used to be that if I found a typo in something I had written, I was devastated. It made no difference to me how brilliant or well-written my work was, because a single typo could rend the entire work worthless due to my all or nothing thinking. Obviously, this took a serious toll on my self-worth because of my codependency issues. But no more. I have learned to stop thinking this way through recovery.

“Overgeneralization” dove-tails with “all or nothing thinking.” When we overgeneralize we tend to think that one episode constitutes a never-ending pattern of failure. For example, we put on a nice white dress shirt, or dress, for dinner out with friends, and five minutes into a great meal we slop spaghetti sauce onto our nice white shirt/dress. The first thought through our minds is “This always happens to me” when in reality it has happened only once before—in 1988! Other typical overgeneralization thoughts include “If anything can go wrong, it will,” “Luck is never on my side,” and “It always rains on my parade.”

Many addicts are especially bad at “discounting the good.” We tend to see the glass as half empty. And even if 100 people pay us the highest of compliments, we will find a way to turn those accolades into complete failure. Our focus is almost always on the negative. When we give the negative in our lives so much power, it is known as using a “mental filter” or a self-defeating lens. For example, we can give a presentation at work and receive enthusiastic feedback from all but one coworker. As a result, we will “filter-out” all of the positive feedback and dwell on the lone criticism, which then leaves us feeling like a failure when we ought to be rejoicing over our success.

To me, “jumping to conclusions” goes hand-in-hand with making assumptions. We addicts are very good at interpreting most anything someone else says or does as negative against us. An acquaintance can randomly express an opinion, “I think red is a really tacky color when it comes to clothing,” for example, and if red is our favorite color we will assume that he/she is underhandedly shaming us. We feel insulted and demeaned when in fact we have jumped to a conclusion without any facts. Most likely, the person in question wasn’t attacking us. I’ve learned that if I do immediately jump to a negative conclusion like this, I first need to question myself: So I ask myself “what else could they have meant?” and I look for the positive. If I can’t find it, then I will ask the person what they meant by that particular statement. Nine times out of 10, I learn that I jumped to a very negative and wrong conclusion.

If these forms of negative thinking are plaguing you, check out The Feeling Good Handbook by Dr. David Burns. In recovery, it’s important that we retrain our thought processes from negative to positive