Of the many challenges a family deals with, one of the toughest
is dealing with a loved one with an addiction to drugs and alcohol. This
challenge multiplies when the person suffering from the addiction is in
denial about their circumstances. The first thing to do is to understand
denial. This coping mechanism of addiction causes the addict to consider
he or she does not have a problem. When confronting the addict, there is a
good likelihood that he or she will simply reject any type of drug usage. If an
individual does not believe that substance abuse is a problem for them they
will be not likely to change their behavior. Even if the damage caused by the
addiction is obvious to everybody else, it may not be so apparent to the
addict. This is because one of the symptoms of addiction is denial. First, we
didn't know there was a problem, then we didn't consider there was a problem,
then we trim down the problem, then we believe we could handle the problem, and
at times we even thought the problem had gone missing, all these are ways we
stayed in various stages of denial. Denial can be passing on to as a refusal to
admit the facts or reality. In psychology it refers to a type of defense
mechanism where people subconsciously decline features of reality that they are
not happy with. Those who are addicted to alcohol or drugs can have no
understanding of their own condition which can cause by denial. Most people
will experience at least some level of denial about things that make them
painful but the addict develops a more firm type of denial that can be
difficult to break in.
Denial is the natural tendency to keep away
from the pain that is caused by thinking and talking about grave problems. By
our very nature we don’t like to practice pain. So when we are asked to think
or talk about things that cause us harm, we try to stay away from the pain by
doing one of the following things:
- Denying that we have problems;
- Denying that our problems are grave; or
- Denying that we are accountable for dealing with our problems.
Most of us have an inclination to lie to
ourselves. There are two causes for this:
We prefer to see things in a way that causes the smallest amount of pain and gives us the easiest answer or the far-out: wanting to take the easy way out is the usual and likely predisposition in each human being. As an outcome, we all have a normal inclination to see things in a way that reasons us the smallest amount pain and give us the easiest answers.
We prefer to see things in a way that causes the smallest amount of pain and gives us the easiest answer or the far-out: wanting to take the easy way out is the usual and likely predisposition in each human being. As an outcome, we all have a normal inclination to see things in a way that reasons us the smallest amount pain and give us the easiest answers.
We can start believing our own
lies: some people call this being sincerely mislead, we believe in the
truth of our opinion in spite of overwhelming and indisputable proof that we
are wrong. We are not in reality lying to ourselves. We just don’t worry about
the evidence because our minds are fabricated. We puzzle the way we want things
to be with the way that things really are.
The term “denial” is frequently used in the
addiction territory to clarify people who deny substance abuse problems. Denial
is the affinity of alcoholics or addicts to either disown or distort variables
related with their drinking or drug use despite of evidence to the opposite.
Some common declarations made by alcoholics
who refute their disease include:
- The genuine problem is other people judging them.
- Their family stresses them out so they need to relax with alcohol and drugs.
- They have a job they don’t like and a boss who makes their life unhappy.
- Life is no fun without alcohol or drugs.
- Their lack of employment prospect is the authentic problem.
- Public who do not do drugs are strange and tense.
- The country is being damaged by the government and this is why their life is so depressed.
- The weather is too responsible.
- The genuine problem is that they do not have a good relationship.
Characteristically, the more rigorous the
addiction is the stronger the denial. This is often mysterious and annoying to
family members and others who care about the addicted person.
There are two kinds of denial:
Type A denial is when a person sees, understands, and identify that they have a specific problem. When meet head-on about the problem they completely deny it, knowing that it is true. This type of denial is absolute deceit or untruthfulness.
Type A denial is when a person sees, understands, and identify that they have a specific problem. When meet head-on about the problem they completely deny it, knowing that it is true. This type of denial is absolute deceit or untruthfulness.
Type B denial is when a being is also
incompletely or totally blind to a problem that they have. Through a hundred
types of self-deception, rationalization, explanation and justification, a
person can essentially consider that they do not have a difficulty, when
everybody around them sees this it is observable. This type of denial comes
from being honestly untruthful or by loss of sight.
The control of the alcoholic’s denial may be so tough that
it taken over to the alcoholic’s family and significant people in his or her
life, compelling them that the alcoholic’s problem is something other than it
is—feeble health, bad luck, accident proneness, depression, and a inclination
to be inattentive and worried
, a
connote temper and incalculable other possible problems.












