Where does denial come from, and how do you overcome it?

I suspect it comes from the judgments of others. When others judge us, it is natural to deny their judgments, for those judgments diminish us and make us feel more worthless. When one is addicted, everyone judges you, generally as a moral failure who cannot control your own passions.

No one wants to admit they can’t control themselves, for that makes them nothing more than animals. It takes away their humanity.

To overcome it, you need to accept the addict. You need to acknowledge and support their humanity. That doesn’t mean having anything to do with them. It just means that you do not judge them. You see to understand them as you would any other human you respected.

If people are respected, they can face their own dysfunctions without feeling like failures; without feeling worthless. They can identify the things they want to change on their own, without the crowing righteousness of others getting in the way. No one wants to admit someone else was right when that righteousness ends up with them being diminished. Most people hate being judged.

People must choose to change. They need support. Being attacked by others does not help.

AA groups work because they take the blame of self away. You must first admit that you have no control. Then they work because they surround you with others like you who do not judge you and who support you by sharing their experience. In this way, once people get it, they can stop denying. They no there will be no shame in being the way they are. And once the shame is gone, they can start to work productively to change their behavior.

AA has no monopoly on these techniques. Anyone could do it, and you don’t need a higher power to do it. That’s just part of the AA culture, and it’s fine. It works for many people. The problem is getting people past the denial that the external culture generates through it’s judgmentalism, so they can come in the door to a group where they can learn to help themselves. There can be much shame to overcome in going to a group like AA. Unfortunately, that will not change any time soon.

There is a another factor in denial, too. That is, that despite the problems of the addictive behavior, it also has benefits. Generally that benefit has to do with coping with pain. An addictive habit makes a person feel good. They like feeling good. It’s better than feeling bad. Duh.

Often they will deny the addiction is a problem because to say they need to stop the addiction is really scary. They have no idea how they will cope with the pain without the addiction. So this makes people deny the addiction is a problem. Rather, they see it as a solution.

The way to overcome this is to teach people other ways of coping with the pain.

It’s a river in Egypt.
To overcome it, most use a bridge but some swim through it and that is a dangerous approach. The best thing to do is to just simply get over it and let it flow beneath you.

@judochop HA!

It is a self-defense mechanism. Things that seem too overwhelming to us to face, our mind protects us from with denial.

To get through denial, you have to be willing to look at the truth. That is hard to do without the guidance of a therapist or counselor.

For centuries, the source of the mighty River was shrouded in mystery in the dark heart of Africa. In Roman times, the phrase caput Nili quærere, “to search for the head of the Nile”, was used as a metaphor for any foolish or impossible endeavour, and many explorers tried and failed to reach the fabled “Mountains of the Moon” from which the river emerged.
Although Lake Victoria is still often considered to be the source, the Nile can actually be traced back
...........oooops your said denial not the Nile…...nevermind

I don’t know if your Q is in relation to you or to someone close to you. But I do know that the answer is not an intellectual one.

Whatever the addiction is, the one thing that will cut through the denial is consequences. When the addict becomes sick and tired of being sick and tired, that’s when they will reach put for help.

Unfortunately for some drug addicts and alcoholics the consequence of death enters too suddenly and puts an automatic end to denial.

For others it may take the consequence of multiple arrests, loss of jobs, loved ones, etc. before the addict comes to their senses.

If you’re speaking about how to help someone else, there’s one thing to do and another not to do. In the NOT category is any behavior or “helping” on your part which enables them to evade the consequences of their actions (legal, financial or otherwise).

The only positive thing you can do is to get together with others who care about them as much as you do and do an organized intervention. There are professionals who can guide you through this. It may or may not work to get them into treatment. There are no guarantees. But at least all the cards are on the table.

That’s the long and the short of it. Intellectualizing about it won’t get the job done. There have been plenty of very smart people who’ve had to admit they needed help and recovery. They couldn’t think themselves out of their addiction and denial.

@judochop Good one!

Denial in my experience is a sort of stubborn unwillingness to acknowledge that things are going wrong. Therapy helps.

I don’t know about denial in addiction, but I assume it’s the same. If I deny, it doesn’t exist, people won’t know I did it, they’ll accept me and everything will be alright. Children sometimes deny when they get reprimanded for doing the wrong thing. What me? Many years ago I remember reading about a woman coming into the bedroom to find her husband with another woman. “What me? I didn’t do anything”, said the husband. Its a form of protection, hiding behind a fake reality rather than acknowledging the existence of same and trying to change.

Denial is the first fighting reaction/mechanism in many things in life.
Past the initial reaction of shock many people experience denial first. Some people never pass beyond this stage. It sometimes takes support to get past it.
Common next stages are anger, bargaining, depression.
The last is finally acceptance.

Denial comes from a situation that you do not want to face. Overcoming it means you must face the situation head on, and don’t pretend it’s black when it’s white. Why some people have such a hard time with that is beyond me.