Your Brain Is Lying Again

July – September 2026

How Catastrophising Gets Us

For more than a decade, using drugs and gambling provided me with so much entertainment and fun then when I finally got into recovery, I grieved.  

Even when the wheels of life started to fall off, there would still be fleeting moments of bliss and ecstasy – when you and all your friends are on the dancefloor and the DJ drops the song you’ve been listening to all week, when you’re all sitting in your friend’s room laughing heartily at something silly or when you’re all sitting in a bar and the team everyone pooled money to bet on scores the winning goal with the last kick of the game.   

Through the highs, my mind inextricably linked drugs and gambling with fun. I can still hear myself saying "I'll never be able to have fun without using or gambling.” 

The reality is, however, the complete opposite. Life is now more fun. This is not some far-away positive hypothetical that an old timer in recovery said to me, trying to encourage me – it is my own experience.  

And that’s one of the ways catastrophising has lost its grip on me – by being debunked by my own personal experiences.  

I am slightly embarrassed to admit that I am fast becoming that old timer spewing far-away hypotheticals. 

Catastrophising is rife in the minds of those struggling with addiction. Here’s how catastrophising works: you take one moment, feeling, or fear and stretch it into an absolute, irreversible worst-case outcome.  

It is a thinking trap, and for people in recovery, this pattern is especially harmful as it can make challenges feel insurmountable and eventually push them back towards their addiction. 

For someone not in recovery, an example of catastrophising can be that you think you’re going to mess up an important presentation despite being fully prepared for it, or that you’re somehow going to reenact your own version of a Final Destination scene. 

While speaking to people for this article, another example that came up multiple times was them thinking that they would be fired when a supervisor asks to speak to them first thing in the morning – despite having performed well at work. 

If you find yourself catastrophising, it simply means your brain has fallen into the habit of stretching one moment of fear into the absolute worst ending imaginable. It isn't a sign that you're broken or weak – for many of us in recovery, it's what years of chaos and consequences have conditioned our minds to do.  

We spent so long bracing for the next disaster that our brains just never quite got the memo that things had changed. The good news is that you can push back against it. Here are three ways.  

First, pause and ask yourself honestly – "Is there actual evidence this is going to happen, or am I just scared?" More often than not, the answer is the latter.  

Second, drag yourself back to the present moment, because catastrophising almost always plays out in a future that doesn't exist yet.  

Third, say it out loud to someone you trust. There is something almost comical about hearing your own catastrophic thought spoken into the air – it has a way of shrinking dramatically the moment it leaves your mouth. 

And if you do catch yourself catastrophising, please don't beat yourself up about it. It is one of the most human things there is, and being in recovery doesn't make you immune to it.  

What matters is simply being aware – because the moment you can name it, you've already taken away some of its power. That awareness, small as it seems, is everything. And with time and enough real experiences to look back on, that catastrophic voice gets quieter.  

Not gone, maybe – but quieter. And quieter is enough.  

By Jat 

Jat is on the Comms team at WE CARE