The Role of Thoughts in Recovery, Part 2: Do You Believe Everything You Think?

In Part 1, I wrote about how sobriety interrupted my drinking, but also exposed what drinking had been managing. Alcohol had stabilized my internal state by dulling, numbing, and changing what I felt. When I quit drinking, I disrupted the strategy that had worked best to manage what was happening inside me.

For more than twenty years, I tried to manage that internal distress in other ways. Meetings helped sometimes. The steps helped sometimes. Being needed helped. Approval helped. Helping others helped. Spiritual ideas helped for a while. My recovery identity helped me appear more stable than I felt.

But nothing I did seemed to sustainably assuage my internal distress.

I did not know what I needed, but I did know that what I had been doing was not working. I was desperate to find relief from mounting internal pressure.

That desperation eventually led me to Byron Katie and to the question that opened a new direction in my recovery:

Do you believe everything you think?

The Question That Opened Recovery Beyond Abstinence

When an old friend told me he would be driving to Seattle for a Byron Katie event, I joined him. He and I were on similar paths, both seeking methods and practices for managing our internal distress. Byron Katie, he told me, had been recommended by people who followed Eckhart Tolle, whose book, The Power of Now, had inspired us.

Seattle was less than five hours away, and I was free for the weekend, so I decided to go along.

At the time, I had been sober for more than two decades. I had participated in AA, worked the steps to the best of my ability, helped others, and built a recovery identity that appeared solid from the outside.

Inside, I was still suffering.

My second marriage was ending. After I moved out, my second wife seemed committed to dumping her anger and hurt on me at every opportunity. I tried to avoid her because I was afraid that if I spoke with her, she would attack me. But I had left my seven-year-old daughter in our family home with her, and I was concerned that I might miss an important message about my daughter’s welfare.

I was under the impression that my wife, who was also in recovery, had remained clean and sober throughout our marriage. But the day I moved out, she began to openly and excessively drink alcohol. Her alcohol use quickly expanded to other mind-altering substances and behaviors, and I began to fear for my daughter’s safety.

My divorce attorney convinced me I had no recourse to protect my daughter unless something bad happened. For the next year, I felt completely at the mercy of my ex-wife, Jenny, as she exploited my concerns for our daughter, knowing I would listen to her critical and shaming voicemails and read her texts.

The depth of my suffering during this period seemed bottomless.

AA meetings were no longer the soothing balm they had been when I first got sober. My fear of repeating the mistakes of the past kept me from using relationships to distract and numb. My commitment to sobriety was total. I consciously deprived myself of all distractions and comforts and was without defense against the raw pain of the unresolved past.

I was not looking for a philosophy. I was looking for relief.

The Judge Your Neighbor Worksheet

When we arrived at the Byron Katie event, we were handed Judge Your Neighbor worksheets and asked to fill them out. We had arrived early and sat right up front. The room was packed by the time Katie stepped in front of the room and began giving instructions for filling out the worksheet.

On the stage were two comfortable-looking chairs with a small table and a bouquet of flowers between them. Katie sat and relaxed in one of the chairs, a microphone attached to her ear. With an easy and unpretentious voice, she encouraged us to be petty and to avoid being spiritual as we filled out the worksheet.

That instruction was helpful.

I had spent years trying to be spiritual, trying to be mature, trying to be fair, trying to work a good program, trying to find my part, trying to be responsible, trying to say the right recovery things. But what I felt toward Jenny was raw. I was angry, afraid, humiliated, defensive, and convinced that she was the source of my suffering.

The first statement on the worksheet was:

“I am angry with ______ because ______.”

When Katie asked for volunteers to read from their sheets, I raised my hand. A runner brought me a microphone, and I read my first statement aloud.

“I am angry with Jenny because she is a bitch.”

When Certainty Began to Crack

“What is it that Jenny does or did that has you judge her this way?” Katie asked.

I did not expect the question.

My brain locked up, and I could not think of a single example of Jenny’s abuse. I was sure I was right. I was full of anger, fear, and certainty. But in that moment, with a microphone in my hand and hundreds of people listening, I could not produce the evidence.

She paused before saying, “Isn’t it interesting that you see her that way but can’t think of a single example to explain your judgment?”

I felt a rush of heat in my face and was about to hand the microphone back when I found a way to convince her that I was right about Jenny. Katie had already turned away and was looking for the next raised hand when I blurted a little too loudly into the microphone, “She told me I destroyed the family!”

Turning back to me, Katie asked, “Was she right?”

“No!” I said, feeling angry and defensive. The divorce was, in my mind, entirely Jenny’s fault.

“Who left?” Katie pressed.

“I did,” I said with defiant, justified conviction.

“Who was in the family before you left?” she continued.

“There was me, Jenny, my two kids, her son, and our child together,” I answered, now smelling a trap.

“So, she is right then. You left and destroyed the family,” she concluded.

I felt misunderstood and judged.

My brain locked up again. I sat back down, my face and ears burning with anger and humiliation. I decided to stay put until the next break. I had an impulse to run out of the room but did not want to draw any more attention to myself.

My mind raced, dulling comprehension as Katie continued to talk with others in the audience.

Do You Believe Everything You Think?

Over the next hour or so, I watched and listened. At one point, Katie asked someone, “Do you believe everything you think?”

There was something illuminating about the question.

It had never occurred to me that my thoughts might not accurately reflect the truth. Until that point in my life, I believed every thought that crossed my mind and acted accordingly.

If I thought Jenny wanted to hurt me, I lived as though Jenny wanted to hurt me.

If I thought I had been wronged, I built a case.

If I thought I was being attacked, I defended myself.

If I thought I was unsafe, I organized my life around protection.

That question marked the beginning of recovery beyond abstinence for me.

I had stopped drinking for more than two decades. I had built a life in recovery. I had meetings, language, service, experience, and sobriety. But I had not yet learned to question the thoughts that shaped my suffering.

“Do you believe everything you think?” opened a new direction.

Instead of trying to manage my internal state by finding relief, approval, belonging, distraction, control, or escape, I began to see that my internal state was being shaped by the thoughts I believed.

The Shift from Managing Distress to Questioning Thought

The Work of Byron Katie caught fire inside me that day and began to change every part of my life. Over time, as I applied her method to my thinking, The Work changed my relationships with people, money, time, the past, the future, and myself.

One of the thoughts I worked with from that period was:

“Jenny wants to hurt me.”

When I believed that thought, I avoided her. I criticized her behind her back. My heart raced when she called or when I saw a car that looked like hers. I felt anxious and panicky. I yelled at her when she criticized me. I blamed her for how I felt. I justified treating her badly. My energy was sapped. I could not focus. I was upset.

The thought shaped my body, my mood, my behavior, my choices, and my experience of life.

Then, using Byron Katie’s method of inquiry, I questioned the thought.

Is it true that Jenny wants to hurt me?

Yes. That was my first answer.

Can I absolutely know that it is true that Jenny wants to hurt me?

No. I could not absolutely know it was true, and the fact that I felt hurt did not prove that she wanted to hurt me.

How do I react when I believe the thought, “Jenny wants to hurt me?”

I avoid her. I criticize her. My heart races. I panic. I yell. I blame. I justify. I lose energy. I lose focus. I suffer.

Who would I be without the thought, “Jenny wants to hurt me?”

Free. Peaceful. Focused. Responsible. A listener. Present.

Jenny’s Behavior and My Suffering Were Not the Same Thing

That inquiry gave me something I had not found in sobriety alone. It gave me a way to look directly at the thoughts shaping my internal experience.

It gave me a way to see that Jenny’s behavior and my suffering were not the same thing.

Her words, choices, criticism, and anger were one part of the experience.

The thoughts I believed about her were another.

That distinction created space.

When I began to question my thoughts, I began to see my own participation in my suffering. That did not mean Jenny’s behavior was acceptable. It meant my freedom did not depend entirely on her changing. It meant I could investigate what was happening in me.

This was a radical shift.

Before this, I had been trying to manage my distress.

After this, I began to understand it.

The U-Turn in Recovery

I probably did over 100 Judge Your Neighbor worksheets on my thoughts about Jenny. Gradually, my fear and anger diminished as I grew more aware and more honest. Through this form of inquiry, my judgments were transformed into more peace and freedom.

As I practiced using The Work of Byron Katie to transform my inner state, Jenny continued to blame, shame, and criticize me, but I became decreasingly reactive.

One day my phone notified me of an incoming call. The caller ID read, “Jenny.” My heart raced and I felt panicky.

Then I realized that something out of my control was happening inside. I was automatically reacting to my thoughts about Jenny. A phone alert simply told me she was trying to call. My stories about why she was calling and what would happen if I answered made me feel panicky.

That moment showed me the power of the u-turn.

The u-turn is the shift from giving all of our attention to the external activation or trigger to noticing what is happening inside us. Instead of focusing only on what Jenny said, what Jenny did, what Jenny might do, and what Jenny’s behavior meant about me, I began to notice what happened in me when I believed my thoughts about her.

This is a major move in recovery.

External Activation and Internal Reaction

Without the u-turn, we stay organized around the external activation. We focus on the other person’s tone, facial expression, choices, criticism, anger, disappointment, relapse, rejection, silence, or demand. We replay conversations. We prepare defenses. We imagine future confrontations. We try to control outcomes. We confuse our thoughts about the event with the event itself.

With the u-turn, we bring attention back to our own inner experience.

What happens in me when I believe this thought?

What emotions arise?

What happens in my body?

What do I want to do?

What story am I living inside?

What am I trying to prevent, escape, or control?

This move does not excuse harmful behavior from others. It means we shift our attention back to what is happening inside us, where we actually have some ability to respond and make choices. It allows us to see that our internal reaction is workable regardless of what others do or say and regardless of the conditions of our lives. It gives us a place to begin.

In recovery, this is essential because addiction trains us to manage discomfort quickly. If I feel pain, I want relief. If I feel shame, I want escape. If I feel fear, I want control. If I feel criticized, I want defense. If I feel abandoned, I want pursuit, withdrawal, or numbness.

The u-turn interrupts that automatic movement.

Instead of immediately reaching outward for relief, control, blame, distraction, or escape, I begin to turn inward with awareness.

That awareness creates space.

What Part 3 Will Explore

Byron Katie’s question changed my life because it introduced the possibility that I did not have to believe everything I thought.

But another question eventually emerged.

If a thought is not automatically true, why does it feel so true?

Years later, the Internal Family Systems model helped me understand that many of the thoughts I questioned were being held by different inner reactions, concerns, fears, impulses, and protective strategies within me.

That became the next movement in my recovery.

The thought was not the final truth.

The thought was information.

And eventually, the thought became a doorway into understanding myself.