Behavioral Loss of Control
I try to act as if I don't care about the problems that are occurring. This is to hide feelings of helplessness and a growing lack of self-respect and self-confidence.
What is an "I Don't Care" Attitude?
I believe I am trapped and overwhelmed because I can't think clearly or do the things I know I need to do to solve my problems. I feel powerless and hopeless. I start to believe that I am useless, incompetent, and will never be able to manage my life.
What is Complete Loss of Self-Confidence?
I can't get started or get anything done. At those times, I am unable to concentrate and feel anxious, fearful, uneasy, and often feel trapped with no way out.
What is a Lack of Desire to Take Action?
I feel reluctant to discuss personal problems and what I am doing in my recovery because I am afraid I will be criticized or confronted. I feel scared, angry, and defensive when other people ask me questions about my recovery program or point out things about my recovery that I don't want to see. I tend to get defensive even when no defense is necessary.
What is Defensiveness?
I start creating problems for myself by using poor judgment and quickly doing things without thinking the consequences through.This usually happens at times of high stress. Sometimes I privately feel bad but I tend to make excuses and blame other people for the problems.
What is Impulsive Behavior?
I start finding excuses to miss therapy and self-help group meetings. I find excuses to justify this and don't recognize the importance of AA/NA and treatment. I develop the attitude, "AA/NA and counseling aren't making me feel better, so why should I make them a number-one priority? Other things are more important."
What is Irregular Attendance at AA (NA) and Treatment Meetings?
I start to think that alcohol or drug use will help me feel better. I start hoping that I can one day return to social drinking and/or recreational drug use. I think I might really be able to control it next time. Sometimes I am able to put these thoughts out of my mind, but often the thoughts are so strong that they cannot be stopped. I may begin to believe that alcohol and/or drug use is the only alternative to going crazy or committing suicide. Using alcohol and drugs actually looks like a sane and rational alternative.
What are Thoughts of Social Use?
My daily routine becomes haphazard. I stop getting up and going to bed at regular times. I start skipping meals and eating at unusual times. I find it hard to keep appointments and plan social events. I feel rushed and overburdened at times and then have nothing to do at other times. I am unable to follow through on plans and decisions and experience tension, frustration, fear, or anxiety which keeps me from doing what I know needs to be done.
What is Loss of Daily Structure?
I take the focus off myself by becoming more concerned about the sobriety of others than about my personal recovery. I privately judge the drinking/using of my friends, partner, or spouse and the recovery programs of other recovering people. I keep these private judgments to myself and don't talk about them. This is often called "working the other person's program."
What is Worrying about Others Instead of Self?
What is Loss of Constructive Planning?
Things seem so bad that I begin to think that I might as well go back to alcohol or drug use because things couldn't get worse. Life seems to have become unmanageable even though I am sober and not using.
What is Dissatisfaction with Life?
I start having difficulty with physical coordination that results in dizziness, poor balance, difficulty with hand-eye coordination, or slow reflexes. These problems cause me to believe I am clumsy and become accident prone.
What is Difficulty with Physical Coordination and Accidents?
I feel depressed more often. The depression becomes worse, lasts longer, and interferes with living. The depression is so bad hat it is noticed by others and cannot be easily denied. The depression is most severe during unplanned or unstructured periods of time. Fatigue, hunger, and loneliness make the depression worse. When I feel depressed, I separate from other people, become irritable and angry with others, and often complain that nobody cares or understands what I am going through.
What are Periods of Deep Depression?
I start doing this to keep my mind off how uncomfortable I am feeling. I get stuck in old, rigid, self-defeating ways of thinking and acting. I tend to do the same things over and over again without a good reason. I try to control conversations either by talking too much or not talking at all. I start working more than I need to and get involved in many activities. Other people think I am the model of recovery because of my involvement in the Twelve Step work and chairing meetings. I become active in my therapy group by "playing therapist" but I am reluctant to talk about my personal problems. I avoid casual or information involvement with people unless I can be in control.
What is Compulsive Behavior?
My plans begin not to work out and each failure causes new problems. I tend to overreact to or mismanage each problem in a way that creates a new and bigger problem. I start having the same kinds of problems with work, friends, family, and money that I used to have when I was using addictively. I feel guilty and remorseful when I have these problems. I work hard to try and solve them, but something always seems to go wrong that creates an even bigger or more depressing problem.
I have trouble "getting started." I have difficulty thinking clearly, concentrating, and thinking abstractly. I believe that I ccan't do anything and begin to think that there is no way out.
What are Feelings of Powerlessness and Helplessness?
I know that I am lying, using denial, and making excuses for my behavior, but I can't stop myself. I feel out of control. I start doing things on a regular basis that I normally would not do that violate my values. I just can't seem to stop or control my behavior.
What is Conscious Lying?
I either start to overeat or I lose my appetite and eat very little. As a result, I start gaining or losing weight. I skip meals and stop eating at regular times. I replace a well-balanced, nourishing diet with "junk food."
What are Irregular Eating Habits?
I convince myself that I don't need to put a lot of every into my recovery program now because I probably will never go back to alcohol or drug use. I tend to keep this belief to myself. Sometimes I am afraid to tell my counselor or other recovering people about this belief for fear of being confronted. At other times, I think that it is none of their business.
What is Believing I'll Never Use Alcohol or Drugs (Again)?
I start to feel depressed, down, blue, listless, and empty of feelings. I lack energy, tend to sleep too much, and rarely feel good or full of life. I am able to distract myself from these moods by getting busy with other things and not talking about the depression.
What is Minor Depression?
I cut myself off from people who can help. I may do this by having fits of anger that drive others away, by criticizing and putting others down, or by quietly withdrawing from others.
I start to think that my life is made up of separate and unrelated parts. I focus on one small part of my life and block out everything else. Sometimes I focus only on the good things and block out or ignore the bad. In this way, I can mistakenly believe that everything is fine when it really isn't. At other times, I see only what is going wrong and blow that out of proportion. This cause me to believe that nothing is going tmy way even when there are many good things happening in my life. As I result, I can't see "the big picture"or figure out how what I do in one part of my life can cause problems in other parts of my life. When problems develop I don't know why. I believe that life is unfair and that I have no power to do anything about it.
What is Tunnel Vision?
I have difficulty sleeping. I cannot fall asleep. When I do sleep, I have unusual or disturbing dreams, awaken many times, and have difficulty falling back to sleep. I sleep fitfully and rarely experience a deep, relaxing sleep. I awaken from a night of sleep feeling tired. The times of day during which I sleep change. at times I stay up late due to an inability to fall asleep and then oversleep because I am too tired to get up in the morning. At times, I become so exhausted that I sleep for extremely long periods, sometimes sleeping around the clock for one or more days.
What is Difficulty Sleeping Restfully?
I start feeling uncomfortable around others and begin spending more time alone. I usually have good reasons and excuses for staying away from other people. I start feeling lonely. Instead of dealing with my loneliness by trying to meet and be around other people, I get more compulsive about doing things alone.
What are Tendencies toward Loneliness?
My alcohol and drug use spirals out of control. Sometimes I lose control slowly. At other times, the loss of control is very rapid. I begin using as often as much as before.
What is Loss of Control?