Addictive Thinking: Understanding Self-Deception

Abraham J Twerski

Jun 2009 · Sold by Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

Author Abraham Twerski reveals how self-deceptive thought can undermine self-esteem and threaten the sobriety of a recovering individuals and offers hope to those seeking a healthy and rewarding recovery.

In addiction, a person with a substance use disorder undergoes a negative change in thinking and behavioral patterns. A person’s character is overthrown by addictive thinking: displacement, projection, shame, and hypersensitivity are addiction’s survival mechanisms. With Addictive Thinking, both addicts and loved ones familiarize themselves with these addictive signatures and more, and begin the fight for recovery.

With more than 200,000 copies of Addictive Thinking sold worldwide, the eminent Abraham Twerski, M.D., outlines the destructive and terrifying illogic that marries a person with a substance use disorder to his addiction. “Stinking thinking” and irrational thought are byproducts of addiction and they only worsen with time. Twerski, with a deep psychological understanding, steps in to explain and contextualize all of the actions that arise from addictive thinking.

It might be easier to point at abnormal behavior from an addict and simply think, “there she goes again.” But there is reason and consistency underneath the pandemonium. If nothing is learned, if nothing is done, an addict’s rock bottom will continue to sink. By educating oneself about the addictive illogic and its reasoning, one will understand why the person behaves as she does and how everyone in her life becomes controlled by addiction. Then control can be taken back.

Ratings and reviews

I just read this book and truly enjoyed it. The reference to pop-psychology creating holes/openings for addicts to justify behavior blaming parents to the noticing of contradicting statements .... The author certainly has a grasp of the true patterns that show up over and over again and digs all the way to the unconscious level with how they show up. I feel a joy of understanding and that I have read a rare gem/found a rare gem of an author. Raw, direct, perceptive.

it is an awesome book I can't stop singing it's praises

Powerful and useful read

About the author

Dr. Abraham J. Twerski is founder and medical director emeritus of the Gateway Rehabilitation Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A rabbi, psychiatrist, and chemical dependency counselor, he is the author of numerous journal articles and books, including Self-Discovery in Recovery, I Didn't Ask to Be in This Family: Sibling Relationships and How They Shape Adult Behavior and Dependencies, and, with "Peanuts" cartoonist Charles Schulz, When Do the Good Things Start?