What Change? Start with Getting Real...

“We’ve got them”. (General George A. Custer, on being attacked at the Little Bighorn, 1876).

So yesterday I learned that my friend Barrett, now in jail (again) on a parole violation for an assortment of infractions is going to go back to prison. My guess would be a five-year parole violation. That’s a lot of time for “not getting it”, although, as I have written before – since this is far from Barrett’s first rodeo, I’m pretty sure there are some sub-conscious drives on Barrett’s part making prison his payoff of choice. It’s hard to imagine that anyone would choose prison over freedom, but it really happens all the time – and for a long list of reasons which perhaps will make the topic of another blog.

Barrett is an addict. It doesn’t matter what he’s addicted to (drugs and a cross addiction with relationships are the major factors in his case), his addictive behavior colors his perceptions, his choices and creates consequences completely in opposite to his state goals.

AA/NA has an old say, “Think what you always think and you’ll get what you always get.” That’s a great recognition that our thinking completely defines our outcomes. As long as he thinks that his addiction isn’t his problem, he won’t be able to change anything.

If you're unwilling or unable to identify and consciously acknowledge your negative behaviors, characteristics or life patterns, then you will not change them. (In fact, they will only grow worse and become more entrenched in your life.) You've got to face it to replace it. Barrett’s transformation and healing will begin the moment he says, to himself and anyone else who’s still listening, “I’ve made some really bad choices – I need to address these issues.”

Imagine going to the doctor and the doctor asks whether you’ve been having dizzy spells, and rather than admit it, you say, “Well, not really.” What’s going to happen? The doctor isn’t going to be able to treat you and you’ll keep getting dizzy. Which is fine if you like getting dizzy, but if you don’t – it’s a real waste of both your time and the doctor’s.

In the behavioral sciences community there is a dynamic called “Perceptual Defense” – this is a mechanism that protects us from those things that our minds, at some level, determine we cannot handle or which we do not want to face. In addicts, there is a slight variation on this where “Perceptual Defense” isn’t protecting the person from challenges, but the addiction itself.

Perceptual Defense is active in all phases of our everyday life. It keeps us from seeing things we don’t want to be true. The problem is that in protecting some part of our ego structure, it also keeps us from picking up on warning signs, or realities that would enable us to make more productive, or positive choices.

Interesting studies have been done on how effective our perceptual defense system is at keeping us from recognizing warning signs and indicators that our life isn’t on track, or at least isn’t on the track we want it to be.

Being able to crack this system requires honesty. In the case of my friend, Barrett, he has to look around himself and say, “Wow – jail again. Something must be wrong with my strategy.” He has to personalize the experience, and own that he is the creator of the experience. His choices landed him where he is. That’s simply the straight fact. Jail isn’t where he says he wants to be, yet there he is. The logical conclusion that something is really wrong isn’t hard to reach. The trick is having to personalize it…”I am responsible,” “I create my reality,” – somehow, since I knew we only do what “works”, this is working for me. How screwed up is that? And then, ask ourselves to dig deeper.

When we start this personal line of inquiry or investigation, we begin to crack the perceptual defense system. We start to understand that change is possible, but in the process of creating that change for ourselves, we have to get real about ourselves, our situation and acknowledge that something is out of kilter. Seriously out of kilter in some circumstances.

Acknowledgment means slapping yourself in the face with the brutal reality, admitting that you are getting payoffs for what you are doing, and giving yourself a no-kidding, bottom-line truthful confrontation. You cannot afford the luxury of lies, denial or defensiveness. The best friends you will ever have are the friends who tell you the truth. No one is served by just feeding you what you want to hear (we have learned how destructive that is in the political arena, or with celebrities like Lindsey Lohan, who surrounds herself with people who just tell her what she wants to hear, rather than what she needs to hear.) Healing starts when we are willing to be best friends with ourselves, and own, admit, acknowledge – and otherwise fess up to the negative, life-limiting behaviors and patterns that keep us from really recognizing and living our potential.

Acknowledgement isn’t saying “Yep, I’m an addict” because that’s what we expect people want to hear from us – Acknowledgement isn’t saying anything that we say for the benefit of other people, or to manipulate them into thinking we’re changing or going to change. Acknowledgement is a no-kidding, unvarnished, bottom-line, truthful confrontation with ourselves about what we are doing or not doing, or what we are putting up with in our life that is destructive. This also means that we recognize we are getting payoffs for our behavior, and committing to understanding what the payoffs for those things are.

Remember the Jack Nicholson character in “A Few Good Men”? “You can’t handle the truth,” he shouts in the courtroom near the end of the movie. If we were honest, most of us would need to admit that we aren’t always great at handling the truth. What most of us really want is validation, not truth. We want reinforcement for our thinking – and we seek out people and information that support the conclusion’s we’ve already reached.

The insistence on being right can have tragic outcomes. Barrett’s a great example – his insistence that everything else is to blame for his current predicament, other than his addiction, has landed him for the umpteenth time in jail.

Changing requires acknowledging what the real story is, what the real issue is and recognizing that unless we deal with the reality – it’s like repainting the ceiling to fix a leaking roof. You may cover up the damage – but only until the next time it rains.

Where are you now? If you hope to stop creating misery in your life, or negative, un-wanted consequences - you have to be honest about where your life is right now. No situation is too bad to fix and it's not too late to fix it. But be honest about what needs fixing. Get real. Get better.