Why Knowing Better Doesn't Change the Pattern
I knew. That's the part people misunderstand most about addiction, including, for a long time, me. I wasn't confused about what alcohol was doing to my life. None of that knowledge stopped me. Here's what I eventually understood about the gap between knowing something and being equipped to act on it, and why that gap was never a character problem.
The Smarter You Are, the Harder This Gets
The smartest clients I worked with were not, on average, the ones who changed fastest. I didn't want this to be true. Here's what I eventually understood about why intelligence, the tool that solves almost everything else, becomes a liability in exactly the place people need it least.
You Understand the Pattern. It's Still Running Your Life.
When I was writing Therapy for Engineers, I kept returning to a question I couldn't answer by thinking harder about it. Why do intelligent people stay stuck after they understand exactly what's happening? They know the pattern. They can explain it. And it's still running their life. Here's what I eventually figured out about insight, inertia, and what creates change.