Thinking

This blog reflects on the powerful impact of our thinking in recovery, emphasizing how unhelpful thought patterns can lead us down destructive paths. By learning to pause and ask whether a thought is helpful or hurtful, we can begin to rewire our minds and build healthier mental pathways.

Mark Hampton

4/4/20252 min read

Thinking

By Mark Hampton | Director & Founder

I lacked the skills and emotional regulation to cope with the toxic thoughts—and the thinking that quickly followed

the intial thought.

Due to trauma, addiction, and the wiring of our brains, we develop pathways that act like superhighways. These superhighways act as traffic lanes for our thoughts and triggers. They often lead us to destinations in our minds—bad neighborhoods, so to speak.

So how do we avoid those bad neighborhoods when our thinking goes astray? How do we take a different route when our thinking is broken? It starts by asking the question:

That beginning process builds a small footpath in comparison to the superhighway. However, as we continue to use a strategy or coping skill, we begin to widen that path. Over time, the superhighway begins to shrink, and the footpath grows into a one-lane road. One side continues to shrink as we learn new coping skills for our thinking, and the new pathway grows into its own superhighway.

It takes time and practice to achieve these changes. It also takes capturing our initial thoughts and challenging them—before our thinking takes us down the wrong road. I hope if you decide to read “Don’t Believe Everything You Think,” you find it as helpful to you as it was for me. God bless you all—and if you need assistance, please call us at 253-735-0665.

I recently listened to a new audiobook called “Don’t Believe Everything You Think.” I remember when I first got into recovery, a sponsor I once had told me, “The thing we struggle with the most is our Thinking.” He also went on to say that what was broken in me was exactly that—My thinking. A counselor I once had also stated, “Your addiction is all in your head.” I remember thinking, “What does he even know?!” How naive I was for thinking those thoughts.

Furthermore, when I reflect back, one of the most common threads in my struggle with staying clean was my thinking. Most of the time, I had very little control over the flood of thoughts I would have, along with the thinking that would immediately follow those thoughts in my mind.

Helpful or hurtful?

In the book mentioned above, I read that if we could just capture the initial thought and ask ourselves, “Is it helpful or hurtful?” we might be able to head off the barrage of thinking that overtakes us shortly after.

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