Managing Thinking

That moment of yielding fully to addiction is what Alan Marlatt, director of the Addictive Behaviors Research Center at the University of Washington, calls the abstinence-violation effect (AVE). "The abstinence-violation effect is a form of black-and-white thinking," says Marlatt. "You blame [your failure] on internal factors that you consider beyond your control." Those factors — whether they are, as in Oprah Winfrey's case, a thyroid condition that causes weight gain, or a belief that addiction is a disease that robs you of free will — are what derail thousands of quitters and abstainers from their New Year's resolutions.

We are always thinking. William James, the father of American psychology, called this the stream of consciousness, because thinking is never-ending though it has many forms and an infinite variety of contents. Even though thought creates every ounce of our experience, most of us are unaware that we are thinking and that we are free to control the content of our thoughts.

From a Buddhist perspective, addiction might be considered the archetype of attachment... When we find ourselves in a place that we cannot live without exercising this attachment, whatever it may be, we have fallen into a state of addiction. Within the context of addiction, people often feel that they do not have a choice. Nothing could be further from the truth. We always have a choice.

Transcript of podcast interview: David Van Nuys, Ph.D. interviews Addiction Medicine Specialist Dr. Goldstein about some of the ways mindfulness techniques are entering into many forms of psychotherapy today. The influential substance abuse psychotherapy researcher Alan Marlatt, Ph.D. is working on a mindfulness based version of relapse prevention with grant support from NIDA, and other researchers are incorporating mindfulness into cognitive behavioral psychotherapy.

An important part of recovery is being able to recognize our triggers and how cravings and urges manifest in our bodies and minds. The practice of Mindfulness gives us a unique tool to slow time down and bring awareness to the thoughts, feelings, and sensations associated with the triggering event while it is occurring.

At workshops and conferences across the country, students, counselors and psychologists in private practice throng lectures on mindfulness. The National Institutes of Health is financing more than 50 studies testing mindfulness techniques, up from 3 in 2000, to help relieve stress, soothe addictive cravings, improve attention, lift despair and reduce hot flashes.

Throughout the course of our lives we develop certain habitual styles of thinking that serve as defenses or distortions of reality, feeding into craving and urges and aiding in the cycle of relapse of addictive behavior.

The burden of perfectionist expectations is all too familiar to anyone who has struggled to kick a bad habit. Break down just once — have one smoke, one single drink — and at best it’s a “slip.” At worst it’s a relapse, and more often it’s a fall off the wagon: failure. And if you’ve already fallen, well, may as well pour yourself two or three more.

Low self–esteem is at the root of behaviors which make your life feel unproductive or unmanageable.

Thinking can alter in various ways when panic or phobias occur. You may experience unhelpful thinking styles, such as jumping to the worst conclusion.