Choice Points & Stuck Points

29 October 2022

Choice points occur everyday.  An informal definition of a choice point is a moment in which a decision is required before moving forward on one of the available paths before you. 

This can be as simple as having some cranberry juice, water, or cola.  At that thirsty moment, when you open the refrigerator, the choice is whether to act on impulse (emotion) or principle (values).  Some people want to improve and sustain their wellness or health.  As such, some people would value choices like water or fruit juice while more emotionally driven decision makers might go for sensational taste of the cola.

In SMART Recovery, we often discuss the cascading effect of negative self-talk.  What this means is that when you tell yourself you’re an idiot, a loser, or someone who doesn’t deserve to be alive, you have begun to build an internal case toward a lapse.  A lapse is a short, partial return to an unhealthy way of life.  For those with addictions, to lapse is to use again, but probably only once or twice, before returning to recovery.

For the family and friends of those with addictions, a lapse means acting out in a way they have been trying not to act out.  For example, in a tired moment, when a recovering alcohol user is heading out for some shopping, his loved one says, “And don’t stop at the liquor store!” 

Typically, as soon as the words are out, both people are reacting, one with regret, at their lapse into emotions over values, and the other with a dispirited sense that his loved one has no faith in him or his hard-earned recovery. Those are two choice points.  The concept comes from Acceptance & Commitment Theory (ACT). 

Something similar arises in Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) where they’re called stuck points. A stuck point is a cognitive log jam blocking your recovery. Some examples of stuck point statements are:

• “If I hadn’t been drinking, it would not have happened.
• If I let other people get close to me, I’ll get hurt again.
• I have no control over my future” (Resick, Monson, & Chard, 2017, p. 131).

To understand the harm these statements can wreak, we’ll take a brief look.  If you hadn’t been drinking, you would not have been drunk and some things might have happened differently, but not all things.  One person’s drunkenness does not control everything happening at the time of that intoxication.

Concerning the second example, not all people will be hurtful.  Some people are trustworthy and actually trying to help.  If we don’t let others to get close, we are isolated.  That is a more probable, sadder, and less fruitful outcome.

Thridly, there are many things about your future that you cannot control.  But, per the Stoics, you can control your response to whatever happens, keeping that response within your own boundaries of admirable behaviour.  You can also affect some things about your future through the actions you take today, tomorrow, and the next day.

I use choice points and stuck points to help people see how their thinking is affecting the way they live their lives.  If we think of ourselves, leaving home in the morning, for work or for a walk, imagine what the three examples of stuck points do to your day.  For example, if you have had a death in your circle, for which you are assuming an unreasonably large share of responsibility, you have unnecessarily weighed yourself down with guilt.  What is the probability you’ll say, “Good morning” and smile at a stranger you pass while out walking?  Not high.  Instead, you look down at the sidewalk and keep walking.  What do you then tell yourself about that fruitless interaction?  No one likes me.  I can’t get along with people.  I’m a loser?  Such thinking tends to spiral in only one direction: downward.

The more of these examples I see, the more powerful the effect of our thinking and self-talk seems.  Choice points and stuck points are opportunities to examine our own thinking.  With choice points, it’s a matter of stopping automatic responses; with stuck points it’s more often a matter of working with a therapist, able to see your pattern and arrest your behaviour, long enough for you to make a conscious choice. 

There’s a quote from Viktor Frankl (https://understandings.ca/wp-admin/post.php?post=420&action=edit) that sums this up well:

"Between stimulus and response, there is a space.

In that space is our power to choose our response.

In our response lies our growth and our freedom."

- Viktor Frankl

That power to choose rises to the surface in choice points and stuck points. 

Dan Chalykoff is working toward an M.Ed. in Counselling Psychology and accreditation in Professional Addiction Studies.  He writes these blogs to increase (and share) his own evolving understandings of ideas.  Since 2017, he has facilitated two voluntary weekly group meetings of SMART Recovery.  Please email him (danchalykoff@hotmail.com) to be added to or removed from the Bcc’d emailing list.

References

Harris, R. (2019). ACT made simple: An easy-to-read primer on acceptance and commitment theory, Second Edition.  New Harbinger Publications, Inc.

Resick, P. A., Monson, C. M., & Chard, K. M. (2017). Cognitive Processing Therapy for PTSD: A comprehensive manual.  The Guildford Press.