Is Blaming Others A Symptom Of Alcoholism

One of the key addiction symptoms people experience is difficulty accepting their current situation. We can see this as a kind of denial. For most people, this denial is an unconscious thought process, rather than something that is willed. This means that for a lot of individuals in addiction recovery, there is a struggle with the role of both recognition and acceptance. In order to stop blame-shifting, we need to understand the patterns that underlie this way of thinking. Breaking these cycles of thought and behaviour can allow us to become more resilient and more honest with ourselves. This honesty can be harnessed in various aspects of addiction rehab to help us to make quite powerful changes.

What is blame-shifting?

Blame-shifting can have a potent effect on our self-perceptions and can severely alter our abilities to self-reflect. But how do we know when we are blame-shifting?

Blame-shifting is defined as ‘blaming someone else for one’s own failures.’

For example, if someone struggling with an alcohol addiction relapses, they may be able to list reasons why they have done so.

• ‘it’s been stressful at work’
• ‘it’s been a hard week’
• ‘if you had my life, you’d drink too’
• ‘everyone drinks, it’s not just me’
• ‘I need to drink to deal with work’
• ‘I just need a break’

These can also be applied in the context of behavioural addictions when specific examples are used to excuse or explain engaging in addictive behaviours.

Why do people dealing with addiction blame-shift?

Blame-shifting, in other words, is the act of displacing responsibility on an outside source. This can take several forms, such as:

• externalising responsibility
• minimising consequences
• avoiding accountability

Externalising responsibility

When clinicians talk about ‘externalising responsibility’ they are referring to a specific thought process. This way of thinking is a cognitive distortion, meaning that it is not accurate or rational. Externalising responsibility is a form of projection, as, typically, when we think in this way, we are blaming other people. This means that we do not accept responsibility and, therefore, deny our role in specific events and situations. Externalising behaviour has been linked to ‘the presence of aggressive, disruptive and acting-out behaviours.’ It has been associated with difficulty regulating emotion, reading social cues and the development of drug and alcohol addictions.

Minimising consequences

Minimising consequences happens when we tend to downplay an event. For example, if someone with an alcohol problem starts to drink, they may say that ‘it’s okay, I only had a few’ or that they only have ‘just one,’ and that ‘that isn’t going to do any harm.’ People often use this as a way of dealing with difficult feelings such as guilt. But this ‘inappropriate shrinking’ of events can often mean that we do not live up to consequences. This can have a dangerous impact in the context of addiction treatment when honesty is required for us to move forward.

Avoiding accountability

Avoiding accountability allows us to not have to recognise the difficulty of a situation. It may mean we do not have to face up to the fact that we may have said or done something that we regret. In this kind of mindset, people tend to see their addictions as passive, as something that happens to them rather than something that they can control. This is dangerous because it means we are not being realistic with ourselves. But it can also hurt those around us and feed the idea that a life without addiction is impossible because we have no ability to change our current situation.

Addiction and relationships

 

These thought patterns are, of course, harmful to us as individuals. But they can also really begin to colour the way that we interact with those around us. If we continue to blame-shift consistently, it can lead to tension between us and those we love the most. Blame-shifting can foster:

• a lack of trust
• suspicion and paranoia
• deception
• anxiety
• confusion
• feelings of anger
• arguments and conflict
• reduction in communication
• arguments and outbursts

 

This can lead to the dissolution of relationships and support networks. This can increase feelings of loneliness and also lead to users returning to addictive substances or behaviours for solace, creating a vicious cycle.

Tackling blame-shifting

There are two key ways you can begin to tackle this mode of thinking.

Building self-awareness

• Building self-awareness
• Intervention and rehab

 

Building self-awareness

The first component is to build self-awareness. In order to stop blame-shifting, we need to work on personal growth and acceptance. To do this, you may want to:

• Keep a journal
• Keep a gratitude diary
• Keep a list of when you drink/ use drugs and why
• Assess the severity of your situation
• Assess what needs to change in order for you to recover

Intervention and rehab

Addiction treatment can help you to unpack some of the difficult feelings that can lead to the formation of harmful thought patterns. By allowing yourself to think and talk about your situation, thoughts, feelings and previous experiences, you can begin to extricate the underlying issues that contribute to this type of thinking. There are many forms of approaching this, including:

• Interventions
• Psychotherapy
• Support groups
• Group therapy
• Family therapy
• Codependency treatment

Discussing these ways of thinking can feel very difficult. However, it can also offer you the opportunity to develop and build resilience and adopt new coping mechanisms to reduce the impact this type has on your life in the future.

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