Self-defeating behaviors are hard to identify but the long term effect is the formation of habits that stunt your growth! When you block hard truths from entering your reality, you remain stagnate and can't recognize the root cause of the trouble so there is a tendency to blame and complain. Self-defeating behaviors have both psychological and social motives and, coupled with a unique personality, can result in sabotaging behaviors because of defense mechanisms. Most theorists summarize that people choose these behaviors to deal with their underlying discomfort from: anxiety, conflict, excessive pride to hide self-doubt and/or shame, self-pity, self-criticism, perfectionism or procrastination, self-injury, over/under eating, social withdrawal (by way of alienation or self-directed isolation), relationship sabotage, risky sexual behaviors, over-spending, drug and alcohol abuse, comparing yourself to others, and refusing help. Keep this in mind when you step back into a community with mixed motives (not a rehab center where people have a common goal.)

 

Another blinder besides a wounded self image is recognizing the difference between guilt and shame. Guilt is a private emotion. Shame is a public one. Knowing this prepares you to better handle the array of emotions you feel when you focus on the social transition into your new normal. Researcher Poulson (2000, page 2, 3) says, “Humans are social animals. We live in groups, families, societies. At the core of this structure is an interpersonal bond, a bridge that connects one human being to another …. Shaming practices break this bond.” Research Professor Brown (2012) applies this shaming concept to addiction. She says, the most powerful need for the numbing behaviors associated with addiction seem to come from a combination of “shame, anxiety, and disconnection” (p 138). Feelings of anxiety produce numbing behaviors in an effort to escape the personal and social discomfort of performance tension (Brown, B., 2012). Brown explains that these feelings trigger a downward spiral that prevents you from persevering through the performance tension associated with change. Instead of allowing fear-based emotions to eat away at your recovery, you will need to counter these harmful emotions with 

single-minded faith-filled thoughts that express matching, courageous, actions (Joshua 1:7-10).

• To read more about the psycho-social impact of shame see Appendix 2A. ​

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Decision-making comes into play in every area of your life when you are trying to change habits. When a decision is made that triggers cognitive dissonance, anxiety (re)ignites and begins to destroy your sound thinking and you will become irritable from a loss of peace, the tension brought on by both the denial of your heart knowledge and the interpersonal conflict. This irritable, anxious, feeling is trying to alert you that something is wrong within your attitude or behavior so you can address and correct it, not numb or deny it (an example of head knowledge overruling a heart filled with the Holy Spirit (Philippians 4:8-9, John 14:26).

 

Applied to unhealthy addictions, you will only be able to​ tolerate this cognitive dissonance for so long before you will decide to either move to a new neighborhood or give in to the old habits (James 1:5-8). ​After successfully completing a recovery program where you learned dependence on Christ to resolve your addiction, if you then decide to live back in an old familiar environment that supported your old habits, you are an example of what the Apostle James calls being a double-minded person and what psychologists refer to as a victim of self-inflicted stress due to denial. Jesus likened this to a man that builds his house on sand in Luke 6:46-49: ​

“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you? 47 Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: 48 he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. 49 But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.” ​

For example: If you choose to cling to the “head” knowledge you learned in recovery while deciding to reunite with old friends in a familiar environment, you'll be faced with this dissonance because hurt feelings provoke raw (uninhibited expression of) emotions releasing those self-protective but self-defeating  feelings associated with communication breakdowns.

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These social triggers from a familiar neighborhood will cloud your thinking and cause you trouble in expressing a single-minded - “heart” attitude that comes from knowing God (Proverbs 2:10). Cognitive dissonance becomes obvious when, after you have decided in your head to act as a Christian, the decision you actually end up implementing is another (not a heart decision). Christian heart knowledge is when you act consistently with your Biblical values because you are fully convinced of the way you should walk (Romans 4:20-22). Trying to change the way you walk encompasses so many triggers, habits, etc., that you need the help of the Holy Spirit to keep you grounded in your values as you continue walking past obstacles along your path to a routine, new normal (Romans 15:16). ​​