Most people struggle with judgments of ourselves and self-criticism. Our inner critic is usually trying to motivate us, help us learn, or change our behavior, but when is it too much and really not helpful?

Self-examination: Ask yourself these questions

1. Why are you angry or upset with yourself?  
2. What is your inner critic afraid will happen if you don’t listen to it?
3. Is the criticism even true or is it an overgeneralization?
4. What do you regret? What do you wish you could have done differently?
5. Are you struggling with accepting that the past is over? What can you learn from your mistakes? How do your regrets and mistakes help you clarify your values?
6. Do you believe the myth that by hating and criticizing yourself that you will improve yourself and your behavior? Has that worked for you so far? Hateful self-criticism makes most people irritable, depressed, ashamed and then feel they want to act out or use substances to numb. 
7. Are you only focusing on your perceived mistakes and not on the things you have done right and are doing well today?
8. Just because the voice is in your head, doesn’t mean it is you.  Who does your inner critic sound like? It may be the voice of people in your life who criticized you or abused you. You may have internalized the messages from your family or society that may or may not be true.
9. What good does your inner critic want for you? Ask it. It may have good intentions, but ineffective or mean techniques for communicating its concerns. The self-critic usually wants to make you socially acceptable, but has a limited and fearful view of life based on your past or on cognitive distortions.

Suggestions for Solutions:

1. Remember, you are a precious, unique gift to the world. You have all of the potential of any human being. You have innate goodness and worth.
2. You are imperfect like everyone else. That is OK. 
3. You cannot afford to drink the poison of self-hatred! It leads to insecurity, anxiety, ill health and depression. 
4. If the voice in your head is mean, tell your self-critic, “That hateful, shaming tone is not helpful.” If the information is needed, it can learn to come back nicely. Ask it if it would like to learn to be a coach and ally, not a bully.
5. If it is a message from someone in your past, you may need to tell it to “Shut up!” and stop listening.  It’s OK to set limits with mean people.
6. Be kind to yourself. You deserve it. 
7. Positive reinforcement works better than judgment, anger, and hatred.
8. Grieve the past and your regrets then move into today. Make changes to your life to work toward what is fulfilling to you. Listen to your longings.
9. Feel the feeling and let it pass, but don’t make it worse.
10. See a therapist who can help you deal more effectively with your inner conflicts.

© 2018 Lisa Cottrell, LPC
Well Being Psychotherapy, LLC

For my friends and clients in recovery to read and remember daily:​

Because I am an alcoholic/addict, and have a chronic, incurable brain disease, I will ALWAYS (at times) think I can have one more drink, one more drunk, one more pill, one more binge WITHOUT CONSEQUENCE, and that is a LIE that will destroy my life, hurt the ones I love, and ultimately KILL ME. 

I will also try to convince myself that I don’t have the disease, and that I can be a “normal social drinker” or casual user. I need to realize that is my addictive thinking and that I need to treat this disease every day, with the help and support of others in recovery, a sponsor, AA/NA or other types of recovery meetings, and my Higher Power. I accept the reality of my disease and that I can NEVER be successful alone.

12 Step recovery works if you work it. Working the steps transforms you. You know how to stay sober and clean for 24 hours. Do that.

Do the next right thing, whether you feel like it or not, and with the help of the program, you will succeed!

NO MATTER WHAT, DON’T PICK UP, DON'T DRINK!

No one else can make you drink or use.

With love,

© 2012 Lisa Cottrell, LPC
Well Being Psychotherapy, LLC
Decatur, GA
404-931-3066

I have long been influenced by existential philosophy and by Buddhist thought. As a psychotherapist, I try to help people find meaning and happiness. One of the key tools to effectively help people recover from depression and anxiety is to help them understand and take responsibility for their lives. I have recently been re-reading Irvin Yalom’s classic book, Existential Psychotherapy. Irvin Yalom wrote, “Responsibility means authorship. To be aware of responsibility is to be aware of creating one’s own self, destiny, life predicament, feelings, and, if such be the case, one’s own suffering.” We construct our interpretations and experience of life, consciously or unconsciously. How we interpret what happens to us influences how we feel. As the Buddha said, what we think, we become. 

Many of us may feel as if we are helpless victims when we are no longer. We may well have had times we were powerless such as when we were children, especially if we were abused. Though there are many circumstances beyond our control, we still have the freedom to choose our attitude and response. Even in the concentration camps, Victor Frankel observed the ability to choose one’s response to that horrific abuse. Some people chose defiance, some chose kindness toward fellow sufferers, some chose collapse. It’s easy to understand feeling the helplessness of no escape.

Martin Seligman’s research on Learned Helplessness shows how we can become conditioned to believe the efforts that we make will not be effective in relieving our suffering. When animals are shocked and can’t escape, they eventually stop trying. When they are then presented with shocks in conditions where they could escape, they no longer try as they believe it is futile. In fact, their circumstances have changed but they don’t realize it. People with learned helplessness become depressed. People with an excessive sense of over responsibility can also become negative, anxious and depressed, as discussed by Aaron Beck. 

So, we need to realize our power to choose, and that includes our ability to change our mental habits and habits of behavior. It is helpful to realize the truths of reality and human existence, so we can become more effective in our lives. Clients report learning to accept more responsibility for their lives is a valuable outcome of therapy. See the list of existential truths below.

We often have resistance to seeing the truth and accepting it because we don’t want to face our freedom and our responsibility. Yesterday, a friend of mine helped me see the ways in which I was not taking responsibility for the way I was viewing and reacting to a specific situation. It is easy to do. We may want to be dependent. We may fall back into feeling and reacting like we are still being traumatized, when the victimization is in fact over. For trauma survivors, it takes a lot of work to help the body and mind catch up with current reality.  Being mindful of the truth in the moment is like meditation: we forget, but we need to remember and be willing to return to the present and the truth of our current strength.  All we have is this moment and how we respond, how we act, how we create meaning, how we can choose to be good to ourselves in the face of life’s struggles. 

Realizing The Facts of Existence

1. I recognize that life is at times unfair and unjust.
2. I recognize that ultimately there is no escape from some of life’s pain and death. This is common to all of humanity. 
3. I recognize that no matter how close I get to other people or how much support I get, I alone must face my life and choose how to respond. 
4. I realize that no one else can live my life for me. 
5. I realize I must make my own choices and live with the consequences of my decisions.
6. As I face the basic issues of my life and death, I can live my life more honestly and get less caught up in trivialities.
7. I must take ultimate responsibility for the way I live my life no matter how much guidance and support I get from others. 
8. While I can not control everything that happens in my life, my choices create my life. 
9. I can choose my attitude, my responses, and my moment to moment choices. 
10. With awareness and willingness, I can change my habits, one choice, one moment at a time. 

Relax, breathe, look around, see how you think and feel right now. What do these statements bring up in you?  Do you believe them to be true? I’d love to discuss this with you. How can you choose in a way that is in alignment with your highest values, the truth of your freedom and power to choose? How you can choose to move effectively toward the life you want today?

I created this list of existential facts. The list was inspired by Irvin Yalom’s work. It includes my modifications of five existential statements by him and his colleagues. I added five statements of my own in alignment with my experience, mindfulness and existential philosophy.

Be well.

© 2018 Lisa Cottrell, LPC
Well Being Psychotherapy, LLC

For the Addict/ Alcoholic: (P.S. Alcohol is a drug.)

What you need to know about your Addiction.For the Addict/ Alcoholic: (P.S. Alcohol is a drug.)

1) It is a brain disease that happens to some people because of the way our human brains respond to mood-altering chemicals. 
2) You probably feel shame for some of the things you have done when using or in order to get drugs. It’s not your fault. Yes, you did do drugs, but you did not plan this. No one says "Hey, I'm going to do drugs and alcohol until I become an addict and do things I would never do if I were in my right mind!" You set out to have fun and feel better, or maybe even just OK inside your own skin. Maybe you never learned other coping skills or struggle with depression or anxiety. Now you have those problems and an even bigger problem called Addiction.
3) Yes, we really mean it when we say, this disease is cunning, baffling, powerful, and with time, it will land you in jail or mental institutions, and KILL you! I am sure you already know of people who have died or overdosed, been arrested, etc. This is reality.
4) If you want it, there is help. There is hope. There is a way that millions of people have found happiness and friendship and a way out of suffering. It is called getting clean and sober and practicing a new way of life using the 12 steps of recovery. Detox, treatment and therapy are needed by most people to be successful with fewer or no relapses.
5) Addiction is not a question of a lack of will power. No one can just will themselves to not have a disease, especially one that tries to convince you that you don’t have it!
6) IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO BEAT THIS THING ALONE! You need help. You CAN choose, with help, to do what it takes to stay sober, JUST FOR TODAY, just for this hour, just for this minute.
7) The promises CAN come true. You can have a happy, sober life that is better than average. You have to treat this disease every day and work a program of recovery.

What it takes to beat this disease:

1. Other people. Support. People who know the lies your disease tells you and can call you on them. I know of only a FEW places where that happens routinely. ONE - at 12 step meetings talking with other sober people. TWO - On the phone or in person with someone who has more experience beating this disease than you do, such as a sponsor, a therapist, a treatment team. THREE - sober living halfway houses.
2. Willingness. We all want an easier way where we don’t have to change, and we can still stop suffering. That is not REALITY. You keep doing what you are doing, you keep getting what you got. You are NOT the exception. Deep down, you KNOW you are an addict. Stop trying to prove you are not! You can want to want this. If you want a chance at life, PLEASE stop using again and surrender to the fact that right now, you DON’T know how to do this thing called life. Accept the truth. You need it to live.
3. ACTION. Do the next right thing, whether you feel like it or not! Go to at least a meeting a day for at least 90 days, get a sponsor, call them, tell the truth, be open, work the steps and NO MATTER WHAT do not pick up, use, drink or harm yourself!
4. Compassion. You need to start learning that you are NOT what you have done, or the bad choices you have made. You can be a winner. You deserve to live. You deserve love and happiness. Every day is a new beginning.
5. Look online for local meetings of Narcotics & Alcoholics Anonymous. Go. Listen. Share.

For the Co-Addict or Co-dependent (the person living with the insanity of you in your disease):

1. You need to decide if you are going to love your addict/alcoholic or their disease. Enabling them to keep doing what they are doing (using) if they are not treating their disease is helping their disease to progress.
2. You can’t reason with someone in active addiction who is high or in withdrawal. Their brain drives them to use by sending cravings, as they have permanently imbalanced their neurochemistry with their use. Their old survival brain believes they may die if they don’t use, and soon!
3. When they are using or wanting to use, without the support of a solid program of recovery and a period of clean time, you (and everyone) become either a way to help them get drugs or an obstacle to them using. When faced with “possibly dying today” (addict mind thinks it may die without drugs) versus “dealing with everything else”, which do you think they will choose?
4. It’s your job to tell them you are not going to watch them kill themselves and to support them in getting appropriate medical treatment and support as soon as possible after a relapse. When they are still using (less than 30 days ago) they are not necessarily in a space to make the decision to want sobriety, but time (at least 30 days) in a safe, monitored, sober place of recovery with peers can help them want it.
5. The GOLD standard of care for addicts and alcoholics is 90 days of residential treatment with supportive halfway house living for at least 3 to 6 months after that if needed. The next best is 45 days. If a person has dual diagnosis or personality disorder traits, they probably need longer. Unfortunately, not everyone can get that level of care. Ask mental health therapists for recommended treatment centers with good reputations.
6. The younger a person is, the more likely it will be difficult for them to want recovery. It is important that they learn life skills in treatment and become open to finding meaning and spirituality (that which connects us) in their life.
7. This disease and your powerlessness over your loved ones makes you sick and crazy in predictable ways (codependent and neglecting your own health.)
8. YOU DID NOT CAUSE IT. YOU CANNOT CURE IT. YOU CAN NOT CONTROL YOUR ADDICT. YOU CAN MAKE THE PROGRESSION OF THIS DISEASE (theirs and yours) WORSE OR BETTER BY YOUR RESPONSES AND BOUNDARIES.
9. Go to Al-Anon or Nar-Anon or CODA and get help, NOW! http://www.alanonatl.com/ Therapy is good for you, also, as dealing with addiction and trying to stay sane is one of the hardest things anyone can do. Check out this webpage on how to intervene. http://lovefirst.net/wpt/ Reach out to a qualified interventionist specialist to get your loved one into treatment, if you need them and can afford them. http://associationofinterventionspecialists.org/ais_members.php
10. Do what you must do today to stay sane and set clear boundaries and tomorrow will take care of itself. Do what you can, let go of the rest. Ask for help.

Be well, be strong, get support, make the next right choice.


Lisa Cottrell, LPC
Psychotherapist
Well Being Psychotherapy
Atlanta, Georgia
404-931-3066

Specializing in treating Addiction, Trauma, PTSD, Depression, Anxiety
Copyright August, 2012
Lisa Cottrell, LPC
Psychotherapist
Well Being Psychotherapy
Atlanta, Georgia
404-931-3066
www.wellbeingpsychotherapy.net


Specializing in treating Addiction, Trauma, PTSD, Depression, Anxiety
Copyright August, 2012
Lisa Cottrell, LPC
Psychotherapist
Well Being Psychotherapy
Atlanta, Georgia
404-931-3066
www.wellbeingpsychotherapy.net


Specializing in treating Addiction, Trauma, PTSD, Depression, Anxiety
Copyright August, 2012