THOUGHT FOR THE DAY 1/11/11

Identifying Addictive Thinking

We have talked about addictive thinking in the past and surprise, surprise... here I go again.

The reason for me bringing up addictive thinking so often? The reason is that I still see that old addictive thinking trying to creep it's way back in from time to time.

So if addictive thinking never goes away... what's the point of all this? Well, even though it hasn't entirely disappeared from my brain, I am getting pretty good at identifying addictive thinking.
Over the years I have developed some pretty bad behaviors that went unchecked for a long time due to my constant drug use. There were things like never completing anything, missing school/work for no reason other than I didn't want to go, and the biggest of them all... rationalizing all of my bad behavior so that it didn't seem so bad.

I would like to tell you that because of all my hard work I have alleviated all of my bad behaviors and am living the perfect life. But... that's not realistic.

What I have become so much better at is identifying my bad behaviors before they manifest themselves. This is what I refer to as addictive thinking. Those thoughts in your head that when they are really examined seem to be what used to feed your addiction.

Even more than just being able to identify addictive thinking, I actually get a chuckle out of some of the stuff that goes on in my head. I find that my addictive thinking can be really sneaky. I find myself saying "ya almost got me" a lot and kind of snickering at myself.

So what gets me through this? I still strive to do the best that I can each and every day. This cuts down on the feeling of things lingering over my head. It also cuts down on dreading the unknown of the future.

Taken from "What Winners Do"