When looking at drug use, and continued drug use, an important part of recovery is to examine the ways of thinking that justifies drug use. After all, there has to be a mechanism in the brain that makes drug use seem ok in order to continue drinking or using substances.
One popular justification is "I am not hurting anyone but myself". Well, unless you live in a bubble, then it does effect the people you care about in some way. If you do drugs away from family members, then you deprive yourself of the time with your family. Also, some of the ways that drug use effects loved ones is so subtle that we might not see them unless we ask. If you want to prove or disprove this concept, then I challenge you to ask your loved ones how they were effected by substance use.
Another way to justify drug use is to minimize. Minimizing involves telling yourself that the effect of drug use is actually less than what it is in reality. For example, you could justify going to jail by saying that "At least it wasn't a serious crime", or "noone got hurt". In reality, it would better to accept the fact that your drug use is what led to getting arrested (and stopping substance use could be a way for many people to reduce the amount of times they get arrested).
Another justification is blaming. This is common, but can become part of automatic thinking processes after we use it for awhile. When using, or relapsing, you might justify your drug use by saying that the reason you are using or drinking is because "my mother got into an agrument with me", or "my wife just won't see things my way". Blaming is a tactic used to avoid accountability and not take responsibility for our own drug use and alcohol consumption behaviors.
The list of justifications are endless. The important part is to remember that a justification is a form of denial. And denial is so subtle, that you don't know you are in denial. The only way to truly recover is to look at how we think, and change the thought patterns that support drug use. Thinking drives our behaviors.
