• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

SafetyRisk.net

Humanising Safety and Embracing Real Risk

  • Home
    • About
      • Privacy Policy
      • Contact
  • FREE
    • Slogans
      • Researchers Reveal the Top 10 Most Effective Safety Slogans Of All Time
      • When Slogans Don’t Work
      • CLASSIC, FAMOUS and INFAMOUS SAFETY QUOTES
      • 500 OF THE BEST AND WORST WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2023
      • CATCHY and FUNNY SAFETY SLOGANS FOR THE WORKPLACE
      • COVID-19 (Coronavirus, Omicron) Health and Safety Slogans and Quotes for the Workplace
      • Safety Acronyms
      • You know Where You Can Stick Your Safety Slogans
      • Sayings, Slogans, Aphorisms and the Discourse of Simple
      • Spanish Safety Slogans – Consignas de seguridad
      • Safety Slogans List
      • Road Safety Slogans 2023
      • How to write your own safety slogans
      • Why Are Safety Slogans Important
      • Safety Slogans Don’t Save Lives
      • 40 Free Safety Slogans For the Workplace
      • Safety Slogans for Work
    • FREE SAFETY eBOOKS
    • Free Hotel and Resort Risk Management Checklist
    • FREE DOWNLOADS
    • TOP 50
    • FREE RISK ASSESSMENT FORMS
    • Find a Safety Consultant
    • Free Safety Program Documents
    • Psychology Of Safety
    • Safety Ideas That Work
    • HEALTH and SAFETY MANUALS
    • FREE SAFE WORK METHOD STATEMENT RESOURCES
    • Whats New In Safety
    • FUN SAFETY STUFF
    • Health and Safety Training
    • SAFETY COURSES
    • Safety Training Needs Analysis and Matrix
    • Top 20 Safety Books
    • This Toaster Is Hot
    • Free Covid-19 Toolbox Talks
    • Download Page – Please Be Patient With Larger Files…….
    • SAFETY IMAGES, Photos, Unsafe Pictures and Funny Fails
    • How to Calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and Other Health and Safety Indicators
    • Download Safety Moments from Human Resources Secretariat
  • Social Psychology Of Risk
    • What is Psychological Health and Safety at Work?
    • Safety Psychology Terminology
    • Some Basics on Social Psychology & Risk
    • Understanding The Social Psychology of Risk – Prof Karl E. Weick
    • The Psychology of Leadership in Risk
    • Conducting a Psychology and Culture Safety Walk
    • The Psychology of Conversion – 20 Tips to get Started
    • Understanding The Social Psychology of Risk And Safety
    • Psychology and safety
    • The Psychology of Safety
    • Hot Toaster
    • TALKING RISK VIDEOS
    • WHAT IS SAFETY
    • THE HOT TOASTER
    • THE ZERO HARM DEBATE
    • SEMIOTICS
    • LEADERSHIP
  • Dr Long Posts
    • ALL POSTS
    • Learning Styles Matter
    • There is no Hierarchy of Controls
    • Scaffolding, Readiness and ZPD in Learning
    • What Can Safety Learn From Playschool?
    • Presentation Tips for Safety People
    • Dialogue Do’s and Don’ts
    • It’s Only a Symbol
    • Ten Cautions About Safety Checklists
    • Zero is Unethical
    • First Report on Zero Survey
    • There is No Objectivity, Deal With it!
  • THEMES
    • Psychosocial Safety
    • Resiliencing
    • Risk Myths
    • Safety Myths
    • Safety Culture Silences
    • Safety Culture
    • Psychological Health and Safety
    • Zero Harm
    • Due Diligence
  • Free Learning
    • Introduction to SPoR – Free
    • FREE RISK and SAFETY EBOOKS
    • FREE ebook – Guidance for the beginning OHS professional
    • Free EBook – Effective Safety Management Systems
    • Free EBook – Lessons I Have Learnt
  • Psychosocial Safety
    • What is Psychosocial Safety
    • Psychological Safety
      • What is Psychological Health and Safety at Work?
      • Managing psychosocial hazards at work
      • Psychological Safety – has it become the next Maslow’s hammer?
      • What is Psychosocial Safety
      • Psychological Safety Slogans and Quotes
      • What is Psychological Safety?
      • Understanding Psychological Terminology
      • Psycho-Social and Socio-Psychological, What’s the Difference?
      • Build a Psychologically Safe Workplace by Taking Risks and Analysing Failures
      • It’s not weird – it’s a psychological safety initiative!
You are here: Home / Just Culture / I Just Can’t Stop!

I Just Can’t Stop!

January 22, 2018 by Rob Sams Leave a Comment

I Just Can’t Stop!

imageFirst published here: https://dolphyn.com.au/i-just-cant-stop/

“I just can’t stop!

I’m smart enough to know what it’s doing me, but its grip takes over everything; relationships, responsibilities, my very being. I think about it all the time; how can I get it? what if I can’t get it? do they know I’ve had it? It damn tortures me! It’s a disease that I know is trying to kill me, yet I still do it.

I just can’t stop!

People don’t understand what I go through, daily. Some might suggest that I “just stop it” – but they don’t understand – if only they could try to…

Maybe then I could stop…?”

Anon. (Conversation, 2018)

I sat with this person recently as they shared with me the trauma and torment that addiction causes in their life. There was nothing that I could do to stop their trauma, that is their challenge to work on. All I could do was to be with them; not in judgment, but in brotherhood.

Please don’t misunderstand, this was not easy to hear; my instinctive response was to fix, not ‘meet’. However, I’m grateful that I (sometimes) am able to recognise the cues when I’m moving to ‘fixing’ and stopped. There is a good reason for this.

As Canadian addiction expert and medical Doctor, Dr Gabor Mate (see further details below), reminds us:

“Although we may believe we are acting out of love, if we are critical of others or work very hard to change them, it’s always about ourselves. ‘The alcoholic’s wife is adding to the level of shame her husband experiences,’ says Anne, a veteran of Alcoholics Anonymous. ‘In effect, she is saying to the addict, he is bad and she is good. Perhaps she is in denial about her addiction to certain attitudes, like self-righteousness, martyrdom, or perfectionism. What if, on the other hand, the wife said to her husband, ‘I’m feeling good today, honey. I only obsessed about your drinking once today. I’m really making progress on my addiction to self-righteousness.”

Source: In the Realms of Hungry Ghosts

Dr Mate provides an instructive introduction to his perspective on addiction in the video below:

One thing that stands out now that I am working more closely in the social services sector, is the impact that addictions have in our society. Whether they be addiction to; substances, exercise, gambling, work, sex, shopping, perfectionism or social media, they can impact on both our own and the lives of others in many ways. Addictions, just like many of life’s other ‘wicked problems‘, are challenging to firstly understand, and then tackle. This can be especially challenging when we are trying to understand them from the perspective of others.

We can learn a lot about addiction from social psychology, including the importance of language and semiotics. This seems especially true if we contemplate how easily we can be moved to label people (e.g. they’re just ‘addicts’). As my good friend Hayden Collins reminds us in this article:

“Labels or stereotypes shape how we see the world. They unconsciously affect our perception of objects, nature, individuals – including ourselves – social communities and cultures, and subsequently influence our relationships and behaviour. Labels simplify the complexity of the world through categorisation. Once a label is in place it is extremely difficult to remove[4]. When a label is applied to an individual, they are seen as an object – something to be used, possessed, fixed or controlled[5]. The uniqueness and humanness of the individual is lost – along with it the opportunity for building relationships based on care, trust and respect – and enables the exploitation and exclusion of the individual that has been labelled[6]. Labelling affects everyone; even physicians who have taken the ‘Hippocratic Oath’ unconsciously treat their patients differently depending on the label and stereotype that has been applied. With kind and friendly personal treatment provided to those who are perceived as having no responsibility for the injury and impersonal treatment to those seen as negligent with no excuse[7].”

Source: Hayden Collins (2016) see – https://www.riskintelligent.com.au/

We may learn too from noted author on the topic of addiction, Johann Hari (further details below), of how critical our social connections are if our aim is to support people who are gripped by addiction. For example in his book Chasing the Storm, Hari offers that:

“The opposite of addiction isn’t sobriety. It’s connection.”

Source: Johann Hari in Chasing the Scream

So what can we do if we are interested in learning more about, and supporting people with, addictions?

The following resources might be helpful in learning more about how we can support people who face the challenges of addiction. These include:

  • Research conducted by those who have an interest in labels and words and the impact that these can have. One resource that might be of interest is Recovering the Self: A Journal of Hope and Healing by Ernest Dempsey.
  • Work by Zimbardo such as; The Lucifer Effect may also be helpful. It focuses on how easily we can move to ‘dehumanise’ others, including through our words, and the impact that this can have.
  • Speaking of words, if you’re looking for a good introductory book on the importance of words and their impact on our lives, Andrew Newberg’s book Words Can Change Your Brain is a great start.
  • If you’d like to learn more about semiotics, starting with the work of Dr Robert Long is a great way to “better understand how the unconscious is affected by social, visual and spacial arrangements“. This excellent article (https://safetyrisk.net/an-introduction-to-semiotics-and-risk/) includes a beginners guide to semiotics along with the informative introductory video included below:

  • As noted above, when it comes to addiction, the work of Dr Gabor Mate is a challenge to the all who propose that the ‘solution’ is as easy as ‘make a choice‘ and “just stop it”. This is especially challenging for those who cling by the ‘medical model’ as a ‘fix’ for addiction. Ray Moynihan and Alan Cassels in their book Selling Sickness remind us of such challenges in the medical industry, not that it doesn’t have it’s place in dealing with addiction. Rather than suggest a medical only approach, Mate (a medical doctor himself) proposes that addiction can be linked back to a painful experience in a person’s life:

“Not all addictions are rooted in abuse or trauma, but I do believe they can all be traced to painful experience. A hurt is at the centre of all addictive behaviours. It is present in the gambler, the Internet addict, the compulsive shopper and the workaholic. The wound may not be as deep and the ache not as excruciating, and it may even be entirely hidden—but it’s there. As we’ll see, the effects of early stress or adverse experiences directly shape both the psychology and the neurobiology of addiction in the brain.”

  • Mate’s book In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts is an important read if you would like to understand this concept further. He also has a section on his website devoted to addiction that includes some insightful resources including videos and papers.
  • Johann Hari is another who also offers some discerning thoughts during his TED Talk titled Everything You Think You Know About Addiction is Wrong (below). Johann suggests that connection and relationships are key if people challenged by addictions are to tackle them. This article provides some further thoughts on this idea.

It’s tempting to try to understand addiction through the lens (only) of rational thought, but…. how does this make sense? What does it say about us if this is the lens through which we seek to understand? Further, if we feel tempted to fix such challenging situations, maybe a question to ask is; does the dilemma lie with those who face addiction, or does it lie in us?

As noted above, it can be tempting also to simply see addiction as a choice one makes; e.g. between taking a drug, making a bet or buying that next item – or not. What does this simplistic thinking, as provoked in the video below, mean for those who suffer through addiction? Plausibly, rather than helping, instead it may be harmful, as it further promotes the seduction of binary thinking, a way of thinking that causes us to seek out simplistic solutions to complex problems; it seems absurd?

There is much more that has been written about and more that we could discuss in relation to addiction. While such discussion might be helpful (and necessary) in trying to understand, perhaps the best thing we can do if we are fortunate enough not to be tortured by addiction, is to pause and reflect on the questions below. Maybe they could help us make better sense of addiction?

Reflective Questions

  • How do we see others who struggle with the grip of an addiction?
  • What does it mean to ‘be’ with people as they are being tortured by addiction?
  • How can we deal with the challenges of our own assumptions and judgments about addiction, that often fester away in our unconscious?

Maybe we all have addictions? Conceivably we are all drawn (unconsciously) to activities or actions that, given a choice, we would prefer not to do? Why then, are we so quickly drawn to judgment of those caught in its web?

What are your thoughts and experiences with addiction?

References from Hayden Collins’ Quote:

[4] Alter, A., Drunk Tank Pink, New York, Penguin Books, 2014, p. 29.

[5] Buber, M., I and Thou, London, Continuum, 2004, p. 14.

[6] Ibid., p. 30

[7] Radley, A., Making Sense of Illness, London, Sage Publications, 1994, pp. 103-104

  • Bio
  • Latest Posts
  • More about Rob
Rob Sams

Rob Sams

Owner at Dolphyn
Rob Sams

Latest posts by Rob Sams (see all)

  • Do you educate or just provide training? - June 9, 2023
  • Disrupting the Methodology in Safety? - June 7, 2023
  • Beware of Hazardous ‘OINTMENT’ - May 31, 2023
  • My Story is Better than Yours - May 23, 2023
  • We Need Communities and They Need Us - May 19, 2023
Rob Sams
Rob is an experienced safety and people professional, having worked in a broad range of industries and work environments, including manufacturing, professional services (building and facilities maintenance), healthcare, transport, automotive, sales and marketing. He is a passionate leader who enjoys supporting people and organizations through periods of change. Rob specializes in making the challenges of risk and safety more understandable in the workplace. He uses his substantial skills and formal training in leadership, social psychology of risk and coaching to help organizations understand how to better manage people, risk and performance. Rob builds relationships and "scaffolds" people development and change so that organizations can achieve the meaningful goals they set for themselves. While Rob has specialist knowledge in systems, his passion is in making systems useable for people and organizations. In many ways, Rob is a translator; he interprets the complex language of processes, regulations and legislation into meaningful and practical tasks. Rob uses his knowledge of social psychology to help people and organizations filter the many pressures they are made anxious about by regulators and various media. He is able to bring the many complexities of systems demands down to earth to a relevant and practical level.

Please share our posts

  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Just Culture, Mental health Tagged With: addiction

Reader Interactions

Do you have any thoughts? Please share them below Cancel reply

Primary Sidebar

Search and Discover More on this Site

Never miss a post - Subscribe via Email

Enter your email address and join other discerning risk and safety people who receive notifications of new posts by email

Join 7,526 other subscribers

Recent Comments

  • Frank Garrett on Observation is neither neutral or objective
  • Matt Thorne on Observation is neither neutral or objective
  • Matt Thorne on Observation is neither neutral or objective
  • Rob Long on Proving Safety: Observations on “Worker Insights”
  • Rob Long on It is NOT My Responsibility to Keep You Safe
  • Chris. on It is NOT My Responsibility to Keep You Safe
  • Pierre Joubert on Zero Doesn’t Work, Road Fatalities Increase
  • James on We are all equal
  • Rob Long on We are all equal
  • James Parkinson on We are all equal
  • Brent Charlton on What Does Safety Achieve?
  • Admin on We are all equal
  • James Parkinson on We are all equal
  • Rob Long on What Does Safety Achieve?
  • Brent Charlton on We are all equal
  • Brent Charlton on We are all equal
  • Brent Charlton on We are all equal
  • Brent Charlton on What Does Safety Achieve?
  • Simon Cassin on You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time
  • Simon Cassin on You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time

RECOMMENDED READING

viral post – iso 45003 and what it cannot do

Introduction to SPOR – FREE!!

Psychosocial Safety and Mental Health Series

It is NOT My Responsibility to Keep You Safe

The KISS of Death in Safety

Is Your Safety World Too Small?

You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time

When Safety (Zero) is Abusive

Hands Up the Best Safety Fraud!

Communicating Professionally in Risk

How NOT to be Professional in Safety

How NOT to do Anything About Culture in Building and Construction

Celebrating 60 Years of Lifeline

More Posts from this Category

NEW! Free Download

Please take our 2 minute zero survey

FREE eBOOK DOWNLOADS

Footer

VIRAL POST – The Risk Matrix Myth

Top Posts & Pages. Sad that most are so dumb but this is what safety luves

  • 500 OF THE BEST AND WORST WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2023
  • CATCHY and FUNNY SAFETY SLOGANS FOR THE WORKPLACE
  • Free Safety Moments and Toolbox Talk Examples, Tips and Resources
  • Video Series on Learning with Nippin Anand
  • Proving Safety: Observations on “Worker Insights”
  • Safety Acronyms
  • FREE RISK ASSESSMENT FORMS, CHECKISTS, REGISTERS, TEMPLATES and APPS
  • How to Calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and Other Health and Safety Indicators
  • CLASSIC, FAMOUS and INFAMOUS SAFETY QUOTES
  • Road Safety Slogans 2023

Recent Posts

  • Observation is neither neutral or objective
  • Video Series on Learning with Nippin Anand
  • Do you educate or just provide training?
  • Proving Safety: Observations on “Worker Insights”
  • A Conversation About Learning
  • Brady Review, Nothing New, No Way Forward – Republished
  • Disrupting the Methodology in Safety?
  • Embodied Learning in Risk
  • Fake Paperwork Ethics, Spin and The Freedom to Harm
  • Stop the Job You Haven’t Done Your ‘Tick & Flick’
  • Culture Silences in Safety – Language
  • When Blame Comes Easy, A Lesson From Job
  • Identity, Regulation and Risk, It’s not Just Worksafe NZ
  • AI and Safety, Brutalism on Steroids
  • Beware of Hazardous ‘OINTMENT’
  • Embodied Risk
  • The Convenience of Complacency
  • Asking Better Questions in Risk
  • SPoR – Positive, Constructive, Practical, Rational, Visual, Verbal, Social, Relational, Person-Centric, Respectful, Ethical and Real
  • History and Hindsight in Safety
  • Process driven or People driven? What’s your Focus?
  • Anchoring, Framing and Priming Risk
  • What’s Your Agenda in Safety?
  • What is a Safety Reset?
  • The Myth of Neuroscience Safety
  • When Safety Delights in ‘I Told You So’!
  • Beware the Cult of Denial
  • My Story is Better than Yours
  • Understanding Safety as a Cultural Reproductive Process
  • The Unconscious and the Soap Dispenser
  • Thinking Outside the Safety Bubble
  • Understanding Language Influencing, A Video
  • Safetie
  • You are NOT the Sum of Safety
  • Update on SPoR in India, Brazil and Europe
  • It is NOT My Responsibility to Keep You Safe
  • Safety at the Margins
  • Research Basics for Safety
  • We Need Communities and They Need Us
  • Researching Within The Safety Echo Chamber
  • Confirmation Bias, Risk and Being Offensive
  • Lemmings for Lemmings in Leadership and Risk
  • Expertise by Regurgitation and Re-Badging
  • Zero Doesn’t Work, Road Fatalities Increase
  • Can There Be Other Valid Worldviews Than Safety?
  • Evaluating Value by the Value of What You Don’t Know
  • Reality vs Theory, The Binary Divide
  • No Paradigm Shift with BBS
  • The KISS of Death in Safety
  • Is Your Safety World Too Small?

VIRAL POST!!! HOW TO QUIT THE SAFETY INDUSTRY

FEATURED POSTS

Hoarding as a Psychosis Against Uncertainty

Beware the Cult of Denial

Zero ‘Arm

The Learning (and unlearning) that Revealed my Vocation

Promoting Dumb, Anxiety and Harm in the Name of Good

Triarchic Thinking and Risk

Anchoring Safety to Objects

Risk and Safety as a Wicked Problem

Subjecting and Objecting About Risk

We can Value Safety but Safety is not a Value

All You Love is Need

The Link Between Think and Blink

Centre for Leadership and Learning in Risk (CLLR)–Study Calendar

No Moral Compass in Zero

The Language of Priorities

Safety is the Wrong Anchor

Three Cheers for the Safety Literalists

The Worm at the Core

Hoodwinked by Heinrich

SPoR Introductory Workshop Series April 2020

Be Alert, Safety Needs More Lerts

Speaking Truth to Power and Safety

In Praise of In-Between Thinking in Risk and Safety

The Social Psychology of Risk Handbook, i-thou

Meeting is NOT About Technique

Safety is an Art

Sexual Stereotyping Can Be Deadly

Lemmings for Lemmings in Leadership and Risk

Intuitional Ways of Knowing in Safety

No Hope for Safety

Look With Your Heart and Not With Your Eyes

Symbols Matter

SPoR Body of Knowledge – A Video

Holistic Responses to Mental Health

A Picture Tells a Thousand Lies in Safety

Safety – Just a Few Bad Apples

Incrementalism, Catastrophism and All That’s In-between

Chronic Unease is Not Enough

Counter Intuitive Safety

Why People Do As They Do

More Posts from this Category

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address and join other discerning risk and safety people who receive notifications of new posts by email

Join 7,526 other subscribers

How we pay for the high cost of running of this site – try it for free on your site

WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY?

What is Psychological Safety at Work?


WHAT IS PSYCHOSOCIAL SAFETY

x
x