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Abstract

g.</p><p id="4dfa">There is a name for this in recovery. It’s called believing the Beautiful Lie.</p><h2 id="1eb3">“Drinking will help to relieve my stress.”</h2><h2 id="13f1">“I am drinking because of what he did.”</h2><p id="b91e">The biggest challenge to me in maintaining sobriety is learning how to deal with the hurts in my life because beneath every addiction is some hurt triggering our compulsive behavior.</p><p id="163c">Sometimes, we trade one addiction for another because we haven’t dealt with the underlying causes to our addiction and it’s easier to believe a beautiful lie than telling ourselves the truth after maybe years of rationalizing behavior.</p><h2 id="387d">Relapse</h2><p id="2466">Even after you’ve achieved milestones in terms of months or years in your recovery, your mind can easily slip right back to its old ways of thinking.</p><p id="a4ae">It just takes one thought. One beautiful lie. And we can relapse into our old behavior patterns from avoiding dealing with what’s

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beneath our addiction.</p><p id="aee7"><b>Have you believed a beautiful lie recently?</b></p><p id="37e2">You can recognize a beautiful lie by how you twist the truth and make something you know is not right to seem like it’s actually a good thing.</p><p id="e326">I try to catch myself if I begin to entertain a beautiful lie and nip these thoughts in the bud before they lead me in a direction I don’t want to go.</p><p id="3c15"><b>Progress, not perfection</b></p><p id="c906">This is one of the AA recovery sayings I like best. This should not be an excuse to act out your addiction, but if you do relapse in your recovery, remember progress, not perfection.</p><p id="2d83">Progress means forward movement towards a direction. It means you are actively working on learning to deal with the root causes of your addiction.</p><p id="1ef8">Relapse means you are suffering a period of deterioration after a period of improvement. It often means you’ve stopped working on your recovery.</p></article></body>

AINYF Shorts

The Beautiful Lie

Telling yourself the truth is the key to sobriety

There are recovery lessons everywhere in life.

I saw one the other night in the Netflix series “You.” Don’t worry, there are no spoiler alerts if you’re watching or planning to binge-watch it.

The recovery lesson was how easily the main character, Joe, could rationalize his behavior, whether it be stalking, lying, breaking into homes, stealing, hacking electronic devices, or killing.

He could justify everything or anything. Without flinching.

He could make excuses for every behavior and convince himself what he was doing was not wrong and to make his behavior seem like it was a good thing.

There is a name for this in recovery. It’s called believing the Beautiful Lie.

“Drinking will help to relieve my stress.”

“I am drinking because of what he did.”

The biggest challenge to me in maintaining sobriety is learning how to deal with the hurts in my life because beneath every addiction is some hurt triggering our compulsive behavior.

Sometimes, we trade one addiction for another because we haven’t dealt with the underlying causes to our addiction and it’s easier to believe a beautiful lie than telling ourselves the truth after maybe years of rationalizing behavior.

Relapse

Even after you’ve achieved milestones in terms of months or years in your recovery, your mind can easily slip right back to its old ways of thinking.

It just takes one thought. One beautiful lie. And we can relapse into our old behavior patterns from avoiding dealing with what’s beneath our addiction.

Have you believed a beautiful lie recently?

You can recognize a beautiful lie by how you twist the truth and make something you know is not right to seem like it’s actually a good thing.

I try to catch myself if I begin to entertain a beautiful lie and nip these thoughts in the bud before they lead me in a direction I don’t want to go.

Progress, not perfection

This is one of the AA recovery sayings I like best. This should not be an excuse to act out your addiction, but if you do relapse in your recovery, remember progress, not perfection.

Progress means forward movement towards a direction. It means you are actively working on learning to deal with the root causes of your addiction.

Relapse means you are suffering a period of deterioration after a period of improvement. It often means you’ve stopped working on your recovery.