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Recognizing Springtime Triggers

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Spring has finally sprung. If this is your first season change clean and sober I’m here to discuss a new trigger that is probably creating some discomfort for you. Sometimes it’s just reassuring to know that the weird shit tripping up your mood, your mind, and maybe even your overall wellbeing is nothing unusual in the realm of recovery. I always find comfort in knowing that my twisted assessment of my own mental health isn’t unique. In terms of recovery, identification is a step toward dismantling the power of disease-thinking (the stuff that can lead us away from recovery and toward relapse).Disease-thinking (our addict-mind) has a way of taking an hour of emotional discomfort and convincing us that these bad feelings are NEVER going to go away EVER, that life is going to suck always, that pain is here to stay. It’s almost comical when years into the recovery process you catch yourself investing in this lie until a light bulb goes on and you remember that you’re temporarily lost in a hall of mirrors and that – yes  – this too shall pass.

The number one heart-stopper for people in recovery seems to be the first sighting of outdoor cafés that serves liquor.  I mean – the whole package will hit you and wax poetic nostalgia – those balmy evenings or lazy Sunday afternoons lounging around killing a few margaritas or sangria or wine or beer or whatever you ever drank outside. In the memory you are peacefully alone and buzzed or having an amazing time with friends. You are younger, better looking, happier, fitter, richer, more playful – basically your memory will go back to a time when getting loaded was without consequences and when you really had your game on. And during that moment of memory you will feel your heart breaking and a voice will pop into your head that will tell you that this is where you draw the line. “How can you give up the outdoor summer partying? You will never stay sober. You will never again feel that happy.” The whole of your Being will be filled with longing. (Mind you – what I’m describing happens within seconds of catching a glimpse of that place from the corner of your eye but it will hit you with such force that it will be impossible to comprehend that it is simply a feeling and that it’s going to pass).

This is a perfect example of how the disease works. Total amnesia of all the pain and suffering that came along as a result of substance abuse. The focus is narrowed down to specific body memory of relaxation, joy, and probably a time where there was far less responsibility and accountability in your life. This is the siren song the Viking heard before he jumped ship.

I don’t know anyone clean who hasn’t felt this pull especially after a long winter. In a way there is some genuine grieving of youth involved and if you’re newly sober you will still be grieving the loss of your long -term relationship to drugs and alcohol.  It’s important to talk about these feelings with someone to take the power out of them. It is also important to believe that this feeling will pass.  I would suggest you begin creating new memories of outdoor cafes with sober friends and not to park yourself alone at one of your old haunts because – what’s that saying? If you hang around the barbershop too long, you’ll probably end up getting a haircut? In a few weeks you’ll cease to notice anything particularly seductive about these establishments.Until then, the initial sightings will trigger you the same way that passing your old drug-buying block or neighborhood bar did when you first got clean.

To snap out of the obsession find some nature – whether it’s a garden, a tree, the beach, the sky, or a green lawn and spend ten minutes there. Notice the details of the beautiful planet we get to live on. Take deep inhalations through your nose and pay attention to how the air feels entering your nostrils and how warm it feels when you exhale through your mouth. Make a mental gratitude list. Then get on with your day.

My first four years in recovery were spent in Los Angeles and weather never triggered me but ever since I moved back to NYC,  I experience nostalgia for long ago good times whenever there’s a radical change of weather. Outdoor patios, the cozy warmth of a moodily-lit bar during a snowstorm, and even the sound of the ice cream truck will remind me of how much I loved getting high. Luckily I can still access the much more detailed story of all the suffering that occurred on all the other days so I don’t get too seduced by my strolls down memory lane – but they do still hit me because I’m an addict and my disease is always looking for a way to invalidate my life in the present moment so that my fantasy life of this painless past can sing to me until it can get me to jump my Viking ship. I’ve gotta take my hat off to the determination of the disease of addiction. It might be weakened to a minimal heartbeat but that f**ker wants to get its power over me back. It’s not a quitter. This is how I know I am not cured.

Feelings are like our internal weather – the “nature” part of our human nature. Sun, clouds, rain, wind sun again.  Let them move through you and do not fear them. It is wonderful to be clean and alive and human. We are fortunate to be able to have feelings! After all, we know the price of the alternative.

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Eating Disorders in Recovery & our response to them

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National Eating Disorder Awareness Week (Feb. 24-March 2, 2013)

In 1990, I saw the profoundly disturbing movie Eating by Henry Jaglom. Prior to this, I was oblivious to eating disorders. The film was about a group of women cooking for a celebration. Throughout the film, they individually act out in their respective eating disorders. Watching their secrecy, shame, self-loathing, and powerlessness triggered an overwhelming sense memory in me. What they were feeling was no different than how I felt shooting coke in a locked bathroom. It made me realize how similar eating disorders were to addiction. Seeing this film helped me to feel empathy and compassion for my women friends who continued to struggle with bulimia even after years in recovery.

Our society isn’t very compassionate toward people who have diseases that manifest in self-destruction.  “How can I feel sorry for him? No one is putting a gun to his head forcing him to take heroin.”  While society is finally becoming educated in substance abuse and depression, eating disorders make people uncomfortable. It is cruel when adjectives such as lazy, greedy, and glutinous are used to describe over-eaters and those suffering from obesity. It is just as cruel to pretend there isn’t a disease affecting the health of a friend. People in 12-Step meetings become uncomfortable, even angry, if a member shares about vomiting after meals even if they share that this behavior makes them want to get high. The  whispering and dissing of the “skinny girl” is harmful and hateful. Eating disorders do not arise out of thin air. Childhood pain, violence, trauma, abuse, and sexual abuse are often at the core.

Recovering addicts and alcoholics with eating disorders are fortunate to already have a language to describe their experience. They have recovery tools and support. They know how to walk into a fellowship for their specific eating disorder and ask for help.  Yet, even with this leg-up, the road to ED recovery is riddled with potholes. I know many women with decades clean and sober whose recovery from bulimia continues to be two steps forward one step back. Binge eating relapses keep them trapped in a cycle of shame, self-berating, hopelessness, and despair even while they are role models of recovery in their primary 12-Step group.

Sustainable recovery from eating disorders is very difficult and painful and we (society as a whole and those of us fortunate to be in recovery ourselves) should be extending kindness, support, and compassion to anyone who is suffering so that they do not have to isolate in secrecy and shame. We can help by encouraging them to be honest and courageous, and by guiding them to professionals who can give them the help they need. Our generosity and love does not have to be insular. We have enough that it can be shared beyond the confines of our particular substance abuse group.

A dear friend in recovery became anorexic this past year. At first, I tried helping by applying what works to cut through the denial and arrest the disease of addiction but this was different. I realized she needed professional help and we found a therapist willing to work within her budget. After several months, it was clear that she needed a higher level of care – inpatient. Unfortunately, unlike drug addiction, there is very little help available in America for anorexics without financial resources. Anorexia Nervosa is a disease that leads to death – if not from starvation, it can cause a heart attack, fainting behind the wheel, shattered bones, and major organs shutting down. Many anorexics commit suicide before their bodies fail. Yet even with the high suicide rate statistics, there is very little help offered to people without $30,000 to spare or comprehensive health insurance. In my friend’s case though, it’s going to take more than good insurance or extra cash in the bank. Even after being discharged from therapy and told she needs a higher level of care, the denial continues to convince my friend that this disease can be self-managed.

No one could force me to get clean and I can’t force her into inpatient treatment. I hope she becomes willing. I continue to encourage her to not give up, to pray to whatever she believes in or doesn’t believe in, to blindly ask the universe or her own heart to guide her to safety so she can live. She asked me to dedicate this week’s blog in honor of Eating Disorder Awareness Week.

You may have friends in recovery living in shame, guilt and secrecy, suffering from an eating disorder they have not made public. These friends are your opportunity to practice empathy, compassion, tolerance and patience. Help them to feel safe enough to bring their ED out of the darkness. Eating disorders are not gender specific. Men this is your opportunity to bring your ED out of the closet so other men will not feel so alone. Together, in loving kindness, we can all recover.

For anyone reading this blog who may be suffering from an eating disorder, there is plenty of information online for local helplines, resources, 12 step groups. Not everyone needs to go to a treatment facility. Most eating disorders can be arrested and a healthy recovery can occur using a combination of 12 step meetings, therapy, trauma work (such as EMDR or gestalt therapy), and Dialectic Behavioral Therapy (DBT) groups, mindfulness (such as meditation, yoga, breathing exercises). Your life is worth it.

The following is a guest blog written by my friend who has Anorexia Nervosa. I asked her to write about her inner experience living with this disease. Perhaps next year she will be able to share her recovery from this illness.

Anorexia? WTF Happened?

During the course of this vicious anorexia cycle, I have confided consistently with one person. This alone may have saved my life— so far.

I don’t exactly remember when the idea had surfaced that I had an eating disorder.  At some point in late 2011 something started happening internally that resulted in an increase of anxiety, not sleeping, not eating, horrible leg cramps, night terrors, depression, anger, and hopelessness.  By April 2012 I had been in therapy for five months and remember feeling completely disconnected from my body. My mind was constantly spinning and I had 3 years clean from drugs and alcohol. I wanted to escape the screaming in my head and the pressure I constantly felt. Using and suicide bounced in and out of my mind.

I had slowly stopped eating. Well- I wouldn’t eat a couple days, but then would eat a few days and be fine. I didn’t really obsess over it and it was just one of those habits I think I had always had- since childhood. The idea of eating never really mattered to me much and the thoughts of over eating (or watching others over eat) grossly disgusted me. My frame is naturally small and the most weight I had ever gained was through both my pregnancies which I absolutely hated. Even though I had lost all the weight I had gained through my practically back to back pregnancies, my body was left with deep stretch marks which leave me with a strange self-conscience feeling I still have to this day.

Eventually, my first therapist kicked me out after about 10 minutes of what ended up being our last session. She looked at my sick body and advised me to come back after I sought help for my eating disorder. I hadn’t really talked much to this therapist but felt extreme anxiety when I knew I had an appointment that day and felt like I had been hit by a bus when I left. I don’t remember talking to her too much about anorexia.

Over the last year, I’m not sure why I have constantly denied that I could have an eating disorder. Most of the last year and a half has consisted of not eating, weighing myself obsessively, checking my BMI to see if I’m actually underweight (thinking that as my BMI is normal than I must not have a problem), puking every 3-4 days when I do actually eat, migraines, performing google searches about eating disorders, crying, punching walls, throwing chairs, anger, hiding out…

My health has been questionable. My digestive system feels fucked up. My heart rate and cholesterol are high. I’m almost positive I am anemic. I’ve passed out, lost track of time, been in four car accidents, fallen asleep at the wheel.  I have severe leg cramps every night which leave me falling down. I lost 30 lbs on my already somewhat small frame in the course of 4-5 month period and my weight was declining weekly. People were commenting on my body and it infuriated me when they questioned if I ate or if they told me that I’m getting too thin. I read articles and books about how to get help. I went to eating disorder meetings. I wrote letters to the fucking universe expressing my anger and pain and needing help.

Yet with all of the evidence pointing toward the clear fact that I do have an eating disorder problem, I continued to fight it (I still fight it).

I want help and I don’t want help. I want to fix my own problems and my own pain. I don’t want to let one more person close to me. I don’t want to become vulnerable.

I did eventually go to another therapist who specializes in eating disorders. I made as much of an effort as possible to kick this shit and feel better. I deactivated my gym membership, I gave up my scale, I wrote food logs. The terms were up front from the beginning with her. I had to stay honest. I had to do the work. If after a certain amount of time, no progress was made with my health, than she would recommend a higher level of treatment. This was and is one of my greatest fears. Needless to say, I was discharged in January of this year from my second therapist.

I actually made it to 4 years clean in January but feel like I am living my life in active addiction. I feel like I am in a downward spiral but not sure exactly what I am willing to do to get better. I still fantasize about all of this just disappearing on its own.  I feel like my mind is playing tricks on me. I tell myself things like this: I haven’t thrown up in a while now, I ate twice every day for 5 days in a row (only skipping two days of meals), I haven’t weighed myself since being at Publix two weeks ago, I am sleeping more than I had been sleeping, and that I haven’t lost any weight since my last therapy session. All of these things I tell myself eventually convince me that I can fix this by myself because I am obviously doing better than I was when this ‘eating disorder’ surfaced.

I absolutely hate everything about anorexia. I hate what is happening and feel trapped. I hate feeling like  there is something wrong with me and that I can’t control any of this. These are the same thoughts I have about addiction. I despise them both. I hate the internal fight of wanting to die and live all at once. And I hate feeling like I am being attacked by one or the other, if not both

Fuck addiction. Fuck anorexia.

Truth is- with all of my denial, anxiety, rage, depression, etc. -   I do hope that I continue to hold on until I get better.

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The SADs got you down?

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There are going to be times in recovery where you’ll feel like you’re flat lining. And it might happen when there is nothing particularly devastating or even mildly upsetting going on in your life. The signs might go something like this:

You picked up a bunch of produce at the supermarket but just found yourself throwing it out because it was starting to look like something for the compost. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches have just felt easier to make when you’ve been hungry, or a slab of cheese straight out of the package in front of the fridge even though you bought it to put in omelets. The eggs have been sitting there for almost two weeks and you’ve eaten two. Just not in the mood to cook anything. You suspect something is off especially since you’ve made such an effort to become a healthier eater this year. Skipping breakfast, consuming more bread, maybe eating a box of cookies – what’s up with that? You looked at the box of arugula all week knowing it would go bad if you didn’t take five minutes to make a salad but instead you grabbed a slice of pizza on the way home and killed your appetite. Now the arugula is in the trash. Besides, you haven’t even been really feeling hungry. You just throw something into your mouth because you know you have to eat.

The list you keep next to the computer of stuff you need to take care of hasn’t changed much the past two weeks. A few more things have been added on but only one item was scratched off. Nothing is really pressing so there’s been no harm recopying the errands onto next week’s list. You know one or two have to get dealt with this week though.

There’s a pile of bills that needs to be opened. You’re surprised that there’s a turn-off notice and that something else is due in two days. Have they really been sitting there that long?  Crazy, especially since you have the money to pay them.

Thank God you’ve still managed to get to the gym even if you do skip part of your workout. You just don’t have the energy for it. Even the post-workout vitality is short-lived. By the time you get home, you feel like taking a nap. Every day lately you feel like napping. Then you sleep like shit, either wake up after only a few hours or re-set the alarm and sleep as long as you can get away with.

You know you need to get outside and walk for a while to get some fresh air – but its too cold, too rainy, too grey. Maybe you’ll do it later instead.

It takes everything to get to a meeting. You thought you wanted to see people but now that you’re there, you don’t feel like talking to anyone. Maybe someone has noticed how quiet you are and asked how you’re doing. “Okay,” you say, “Just tired”.  You wonder to yourself why you’re always tired lately. In fact, you haven’t felt like masturbating or having sex either. You’ve done it but afterward wondered why you’d bothered.

Most likely, if you are reading this and recognizing yourself, you’re experiencing Seasonal Affective Disorder (the SADs). It’s not just a winter thing – they’ve found depression like this can set in when weather goes from cold to hot as well. Of course, the best prevention is to be aware, vigilant, and stay the course of a balanced healthy routine from October thru April. Personally, I have an anti-SADS routine I try to maintain every winter but I can still identify with everything I listed. Lethargy sneaks up on you. Two days of crap weather and the next thing I’ll notice I haven’t been outside for more than a few hours in five days. The combo of indoor heating and cold drafts zap my vitality. But there is a way out of this flat-lining sensation.

Begin taking the opposite action to what you feel like doing. At first it will feel exhausting and you’ll want to cut yourself a break and slack off – don’t. Begin today. Take a shower and wash your hair, shave your legs/face/whatever you shave. Make an effort. Tweeze the  eyebrows you’ve been neglecting, put on powder, cologne, perfume whatever you’d normally do if you had a date. Make that level of effort with self-grooming before you leave the house. Eat breakfast and do the dishes right away. Make your bed and tidy up all your piles that are starting to make you look like a hoarder. Look at your list of things to do and figure out what you can do today – don’t try to do it all. This is about recreating balance and participating in your life. Open mail and organize your bills. Hit the supermarket and put enough fresh fruit and vegetables in your fridge to last four days and purchase them with a plan in mind so you know what you will use them for. When you return from the market, wash, dry, and cut them up. Now place them in containers so you can access them easily for cooking, salads, and a fruit cup.

Go outside for an hour a day. If that means enlisting the company of a friend, get on the phone. While you’re at it, make a couple dates for coffee or a movie, for a game of pool, or whatever you enjoy doing with a few friends. Now you have something fun to look forward to later this week.

Exercise 3-4 times this week – swim, workout, take yoga, a dance class, play hockey – whatever physical activity will get your blood pumping. If you don’t have money for a gym, jog or power walk.

If you have to nap, set an alarm for 15 minutes or a half hour. Better yet, use that time to focus on your breathing or meditate. If you haven’t taken up meditation yet, go on YouTube and search guided meditations and find one that interests you and give it a try.

Before you go to a meeting, ask a friend to meet you there who wants to hang out for a while afterward. Stay connected to people.

It will be hard to do all of the above but if you use this as a guide-map and follow it for a few days, you’ll start to pick up your old natural rhythm. Your energy will start to return and so will your appetite for nutritious food. Drink lots of water. Relax at the end of the day with a movie, a book, or a bath.  If you treat each day like it matters it will. I guarantee that within a couple weeks, you’ll feel a lot better. It won’t happen by magic though – you have to force yourself to get started. Soon the days will be longer, the smell of spring will be in the air, your libido will kick in and you will feel the joy again.

 

 

 

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“But mom, you know I can’t drink!” Holidays in Recovery

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I stopped eating meat in 1983 yet every few years my mom will say something like “It’s Thanksgiving. You can have turkey on Thanksgiving.” She isn’t opposed to my not eating meat, it’s that she can’t wrap her mind around it during holidays. I suppose the memories that make her warm, fuzzy and sentimental involve us all sharing the same meal.  I mention this because a lot of people in recovery will be going home for the holidays. Many are going to have an experience similar to mine but instead of turkey it will involve alcohol.

If you are new to recovery, you’re going to keep hearing people talking about how difficult the holidays will be and how many people will relapse. This is going to either scare the crap out of you or you’re going to dismiss it by thinking, “This doesn’t apply to me because I have absolutely no desire to drink or get high whatsoever.” The truth is – none of us can predict how we are going to feel ten minutes from now let alone during the holiday season. It’s better to enter the next few weeks prepared for anything. Have a solid recovery plan to increase your accountability to your support group, know where there are meetings ahead of time for wherever you will be traveling to, have people you can call at any hour, and make plans so you don’t spend the holidays in isolation or spend it exclusively in the company of people who are partying or who have the ability to push your buttons (family).  Basically whatever level of daily actions you now take to keep your recovery a priority, increase them until after January 1st. Better safe than sorry – and sorry does not mean relapse. It can mean emotional discomfort, living with heightened anxiety, or riding the roller-coaster of shame, remorse, or anger.

In most cases, your immediate family will be supportive of your recovery but they may not understand the disease. To them, you are doing so well they may not see any harm in a glass of wine at a toast or alcohol soaked desserts. It’s up to you to educate them beforehand on what you need. If you go to 12 Step meetings, tell them beforehand when you will be attending them so they aren’t disappointed if it conflicts with their plans. You don’t want to be in a position where you give up your meeting because your mother is upset. Also, let them know if going for a walk/run/yoga/gym is something you have to do for your mental and emotional well being so that you don’t get moody and lash out. If alcohol drenched sweets are part of the dessert ritual, make sure there is an alternative for you to enjoy. And most important – if your family’s idea of fun is getting sloshed together, know when it is time to leave. Don’t stick around for the insults on how you are now a stick in the mud or debates about whether or not you are an alcoholic.

Self-care and sobriety involves preparing for the holidays. While they are almost always a roller-coaster of the unknown to the newly clean and sober, those of us who have some time under our belt can still be hit with loneliness, grieving for those who are gone, feelings of inadequacy or whatever negative self-talk that can surface when we are the sober one at a party. Thank God, it does get easier. Holidays clean and sober really can be a blast. Even so, it is always good to have a recovery plan in place.

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Safe Sex Anyone?

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The past few months have been extremely busy and I have been traveling a lot which has made it difficult to post weekly recovery blogs. My last entry was on the importance of taking the risk to share the vulnerable feelings you are most frightened to share – especially in early recovery. That story was also written in conjunction with a live video public discussion I was hosting with Dan Griffin on SEX IN RECOVERY for the website www.intherooms.com. Now a second SEX IN RECOVERY discussion is set for October 17th at 9pm EST so you’re about to read yet another blog entry on sex. The style is more along the lines I post on my www.pattypowers.blogspot.com blog (since it’s more of a personal story than a “recovery tips” piece)  but hopefully the recovery stuff in it resonates okay for this blog. Anyway, this is  my “warning – sexual content” disclaimer.

“After everything I‘ve lived through, I’d feel ridiculous if I tested HIV-positive because I had lousy sex one afternoon with someone I decided I hated an hour later.”  This was my contribution to a Safe Sex public service announcement on Canadian television in the early 90s.

I’m lucky I was living with my husband in New York from ’82 until ’87. This meant one sexual partner. And because he wasn’t an addict, I took extra care to clean my syringes with bleach.  I say “lucky” because during those years, my exposure to the AIDS virus was minimal, if any. However, as soon as the marriage ended, my old self-destructive reckless nature took over. The year we split up I took risks with needles that, when I flash back on certain situations, haunt me to this day. Thankfully, by then I was so deep into my addiction sex no longer interested me.

No one was more surprised than I was when I managed to miraculously come out of New York’s needle-sharing early-80s HIV-negative, especially considering people I shared needles with before I was married started dying from the virus in 1983.  Not only did I survive the times – I managed to get clean. It was now my responsibility to remain HIV-negative. This meant using condoms.

Sounds easy, doesn’t it? Except for one thing – I had no experience using condoms. When I became sexually active, the only fear connected to sex was unwanted pregnancy. This was back in the day when cocaine “wasn’t addictive” and sex couldn’t kill you. STDs came and went but that was just how it was in the 70s- nothing  that a few days of antibiotics couldn’t cure.  At 14 I went on the pill.  At 28 I had to start using condoms.

The first thing I did when I got clean was to go off the pill. This was my strategy:  I knew my commitment to birth control would keep condom use in the forefront of my mind in case my judgment fell to the wayside. I didn’t know then that I wasn’t prepared emotionally for the responsibility of safe sex. It meant having the self-esteem and confidence to hold a firm line – condoms or no sex. Newcomer flesh is weak.

I’m an addict. This means if something can change the way I feel, I start negotiating with myself.  How high is the risk? What is considered low risk on a scale of no risk and high-risk behavior? If he says he’s been tested, do I believe him because he is in recovery? Can the pull out method really work? What about not swallowing- is that low risk or no risk? I took all my questions to my gay male friends since they were the only ones who seemed safe sex aware. It never occurred to me that, they too, would be renegotiating terms with themselves. Just because we were all in recovery, didn’t mean we played by the rules. We hadn’t ever played by any rules before recovery. We were all facing new life and death choices yet safe sex was a subject rarely discussed.

When I decided to get clean, I chose life.  It was that simple. I understood that unsafe sex was suicidal behavior and could never slip into denial about this fact. Any time I took any sort of risk – whether it was choosing pull out method over condoms or going on the pill too early in a relationship to know if I could trust my partner to be faithful, my gut always let me know when I screwed up. There is nothing worse than having a headful of recovery and carrying the inner turmoil and disappointment over failing myself once again.

Other than my sexual partners, I wondered if I was the only one slipping up. Was everybody talking the talk really walking the walk?

If I spoke about my feelings connected to bad decisions I made during sex, people shifted in their seats, women searched through their handbags. Everyone sent out the vibe for me to shut up. I was single and freewheeling. Many of my friends had the “commitment talk” after the second or third date. I met a lot of serial monogamists in short-term relationships who didn’t use condoms. Friends began getting pregnant. It felt like I was the only one speaking openly about feelings that came up whenever I acted out in low risk sexual behavior. I was trying hard to remain open and honest.

Early in recovery I went to the LGBT Center for an AIDS test. The doctor was very clear – there was safe sex and there was unsafe sex. The degrees of high and low risk behavior didn’t count.  The truth will set you free and an absence of denial will torment you until you become willing to change.

Change came for me through honest sharing and outside help. As my self-respect and self-esteem developed in certain areas of my life, I abandoned myself less in others.  Personal experience has taught me that I am most at risk of screwing up when I have incredible sexual chemistry with someone. The experience is too transformative – like a drug- and it’s easy for me to start engaging in risky behaviors.  The other is when I start to   fall for someone.  The “high” from feeling romantically “swept away” can impair my judgment. In both cases I must remain vigilant and practice safe sex no matter what my brain and body want to negotiate.

I used to think that safe sex was difficult for those of us who became sexually active before the onset of AIDS but I think it is simply difficult for addicts because of our destructive nature. We change and heal gradually through the recovery process.  If you aren’t having safe sex start talking about it – there is no shame in wanting your actions to mirror the self worth we strive for in recovery.

We come into recovery with our individual stories. It has taken me personally a lot of work and a long time to integrate sex and emotional intimacy. Change came slowly because the thrill seeking persona I held onto didn’t leave much room for growth in this area. I will say it was fun when it was working but when it stopped, it was because I had changed.  Sometimes I miss the old me and sometimes I feel like I’m still in the middle of a transformation and the best is yet to come.

 

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What – me vulnerable? Sex & Recovery

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I arrived in Hollywood California with 69 days clean and $100. I went directly from the Greyhound Bus terminal to a meeting.  I’d gained forty pounds in rehab, had one outfit and a bag of stripper costumes. It was going to be a rough road but I was determined to put a life together for myself  - clean. After the first meeting, I killed time with a bunch of recovering bikers at an IHOP. One handed me keys to his apartment. He was going to New York City and said for thirty bucks  I could stay at his place for a month but he was clear about one thing – if I ripped anything off,  he would find me and kill me. It was my first miracle. Seriously – who gives keys to a newcomer they just met? I will forever be grateful to this man who I never saw again.

All the girls in Hollywood meetings were young, gorgeous, slim, and well dressed. At least that’s how it appeared to me. I sucked it up and pretended I didn’t feel as awkward and insecure as I did.  I wanted to fit in and needed friends. We ran from meeting to meeting stopping for coffee in between. An exciting Friday night was to hit a meeting in Venice to check out skateboarders and surfers or go to late-night where the cute rocker guys were. We might have planned our nights around “where the boys were” but mainly we were our own happy little crew. We were like a gang of teenagers having fun.

One night after a meeting, my girls were chatting with a gorgeous soon-to-be-famous actor.  They’d all grown up in Hollywood so pretty much anyone they talked to they’d known since high school. It was a little alienating for a displaced New Yorker. His friend from New York saw me standing off to the side.  I was thrilled to connect to another New Yorker. The humor was familiar. Too bad he wasn’t my type.

For eight days this guy pursued me hardcore. It was weird and amusing. Everywhere I went, there he was. Finally one night I caved and let him drive me home. I’d decided I was going to sleep with him even though I was indifferent. Maybe there’d be some medicinal value – like stress relief. At least it would give me a break from another evening of 12-step literature. Anything could happen – maybe it would be fun or the sex would blow my mind.  I’d had a few encounters when I got out of rehab in New Orleans but it was mostly an attempt to have fun. That was it – I was letting this guy come upstairs in an attempt to have fun and to connect to my wild side. My husband had abandoned me a year earlier. Now that I was clean, I wasn’t sure if that relationship would mend, if I wanted it to, or what I felt. The area of love and romance was still an open wound. I knew I didn’t want a new relationship. But I could have sex.  We parked and he came inside.

I tried to get into it or at least appear to be into it but, for me, the sex was forgettable as it was happening. I enjoyed the company. When it was over and he was getting dressed I felt relieved. It was what it was. I certainly didn’t want him sleeping over. Besides, it was time to read my 12-step stuff. Once it was obvious I wasn’t trying to keep him there, he relaxed and we started talking about movies we both liked. “Tomorrow let’s go to a movie. Will you be at the meeting?” He wanted to see me again. I liked hanging with him but was afraid he liked me. I just wanted a friend. I didn’t even care if we slept together again. As he walked out the door, the date was made. Tomorrow night.

Throughout the day I began fantasizing about our date. It was nice to be pursued and he made me laugh. It was nice to look forward to an evening that was different from meetings and coffee.

During the meeting I kept peeking outside for signs of him. When he didn’t show, I skipped coffee and went home in case he called or dropped by. Nothing. I was devastated. I felt tricked especially since I hadn’t even liked him and would have been fine if he’d gotten dressed and left the night before. Maybe something happened. Surely he wouldn’t have invested so much time into me just to blow me off.  It made no sense. By the third day I was a mess. I felt like a sucker, angry I’d been played. Confused he even bothered when it wasn’t necessary. I must have been delusional to have thought I was attractive, fun, sexy or whatever I’d felt while he was in hot pursuit. I was delusional to have seen myself that way. I felt worthless. I couldn’t even get this loser to like me.

All I felt was pain and confusion and knew if I didn’t talk about it I would probably use. I knew I had to tell my girls but the idea horrified me. It was the ultimate humiliation. Surely they would think I was “that” girl – needy, clingy, waiting for a guy to make her whole. A girl you couldn’t fuck without her turning into a psycho stalker.  The list of my negative self-judging thoughts was endless. And my disease turned that inner self-hating dialogue up a thousand notches as I prepared to meet my friends. It was going to kill me to admit that a guy I didn’t even like blew me off and that it was hurting me this badly. And to admit this to a group of girls who would probably talk about this among themselves. Ugh.

To my surprise, they shared their similar stories. They were compassionate and kind. I felt I could trust them. No one mocked me except me. I went home feeling better.

I wish I could say that was the end of it, that I woke up happy joyous and free but that wasn’t the case. I continued to have obsessive thoughts about the guy and my self-worth. My confidence had been crushed and I couldn’t let it go. My disease had me. So – I continued to talk about it to these same women day in and day out for thirteen days. The craziest part of this story is that in my heart, I knew this whole thing was not about the guy.  My armor had cracked  with seventy-five days clean and these feelings of vulnerability were new to me. Without the support of these women, I believe I wouldn’t have stayed clean.

These same women continue to be in my life almost 24 years later. We have shared our recovery together – the good, the bad, and the ugly. Looking back, taking that risk of exposing my true feelings, as humiliating as it felt at the time, was probably the first truly important risk I took in recovery. It opened the door for me to trust. There wasn’t anything I couldn’t share with other recovering addicts.

For the record, I never ran into that guy again. The experience probably hardened me with cynicism when it came to men and casual sex for a number of years but it didn’t stop me from being a willing participant until I was able to finally shed a little more armor.  Connecting sex, love, and emotional intimacy has been a slow process for me. I held onto image and thrill seeking as long as I could. It’s funny how the many forms fear can take. I can honestly say that sticking around long enough, recovery has changed me in spite of myself.

The reason I chose this particular story to share is because I believe if I held back all of these feelings in the secret chamber in my heart (the – “taking this one to my grave” chamber) my pride would have had me suffering in private until I was in the emotional corner where drugs would have seemed like the only solution to the pain. I believe we all come into recovery unprepared for the types of feelings that will surface once we are clean. Sometimes they are appropriate to the situation and sometimes they cling to whatever they can while the disease continues to use them to paralyze us into eventual submission. The only solution for me (and many others who have stayed clean) is to walk through the fear and expose our true selves to another human being. You can start out by doing this as an experiment. If you feel worse afterward you can simply move on to new people – the rooms are full of them. That’s how I did it – when I told my story to these women, my back-up plan was to start going to meetings in another part of Los Angeles if I felt too uncomfortable facing them again. As you can see – that was not the case and it probably won’t be for you either.

 

On Sunday September 16th, Dan Griffin and I are hosting an open forum public discussion on Sex and Recovery at 9pm on www.intherooms.com. It will be a live video chat/participation. If you are not a member, you can sign in as a guest. People tuned in will not be seen live unless they decide to share. People can send in comments and questions via instant messenger for complete anonymity. The goal of this forum is to create a space free of judgment to create a dialogue about the feelings, secrets, and behaviors we engage in related to sex once we are in recovery. It is a subject that affects us all yet one that many people do not put a voice to.

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Friends dissing Recovery

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This week I’m taking the lead from my Facebook friends’ topic suggestions. Laurie CS wrote: How about respecting your recovery when others don’t (or just don’t have the understanding). I may have gone off-topic but it inspired me.

I was the only one in my crowd to get into recovery. Until then, I thought not shooting dope meant I was clean. Every now and then, a few of us would decide to get clean. We’d hurry off to a bar so that we could drink enough to make it through the day without using. Sometimes I’d go to Amsterdam to kick my habit. Drinking and smoking hash didn’t count. I’d arrive back in New York clean (as far as I was concerned). A few went on the methadone program to be clean.  It’s not that we rejected complete abstinence. It simply never occurred to us.

I ended up in a treatment center outside of New Orleans and at 69 days clean boarded a Greyhound bus destined for Los Angeles. I arrived with $100 dollars and a desire to stay clean. In my heart I knew I couldn’t go back to New York – not yet. I started my life over from scratch, which included building relationships. I spent my first year clean surrounded by recovering addicts. We were young, crazy, clean and enthusiastic. Twelve-step meetings were our life.  Together we learned how to expose our true selves to one another and the level of intimacy created a bond that I still have with those people. Our lives were about recovery – it’s all we talked about. I chuckle when I imagine what it would have been like to have been stuck in a restaurant booth behind us. One step short of Scientology is one way I’ve heard it put. I’m sure we were a bit fanatical and over the top but we were having a blast and the alternative – well, I probably wouldn’t be here to write about it.

At a year clean I flew back to New York City anxious to see my old friends. I knew it was a dangerous move but I loved these people and they were the only evidence that the stories I told had actually happened, that my past was real.  Although I hadn’t really thought too much about it, I’d spent a year existing only in present time with people who only knew me clean. My old friends had lived through my relationships, my marriage, had known my dog, and met my family. I wanted that connection back.  I hadn’t considered what they would think of the “new” me.

After a few drinks, they startled to dismantle my belief system. “All that happens is that they get you addicted to God” was a major point with them. I said that I wasn’t a believer but they didn’t want to hear this as they laid all their opinions of 12 step programs on me. And no – they had never been to one.  “We’re worried about you Patty. They’re brainwashing you.” I was caught between wanting to cry and wanting to laugh. “You’re right. It probably is brain washing but I guess I needed my brain washed.” That sort of ended it for a while. I knew they loved me but I knew they did not want recovery. The funny thing is, I did not go to New York to get them clean. Truthfully, the lack of support was upsetting and my expectations on my homecoming had been shattered. I was experiencing so many feelings from heartbreak to disappointment to anger to shame that I knew in my gut that if I stayed in that apartment the entire week I could get loaded so I found somewhere else to stay for a few days. As soon as I was away from my old friends, I was able to get grounded again. When I called LA and rehashed the events, my friend Ron summed it up, “I guess you forgot you were powerless.”

Fast forward to four years clean. By now my life was full. Recovery was at the core of it but there was a lot of other stuff going on. I was writing again, performing, working. I had friends both in and not in recovery. I didn’t wear it on my sleeve anymore because the “inside job stuff” had happened.  I’d matured and so had my recovery. I now had other things to talk about. I was married to a musician who’d had a long career in Europe so there was a never-ending stream of touring musicians coming through our house.  These were his old “using” friends.  I was enjoying the company of one in particular but after a few drinks he started spewing all of his opinions about the idiots who end up in recovery. “They are nothing but weak sheep who lack willpower”. Naturally, this led him to the God-addiction and brain washing argument.  I laughed and asked  if he was calling me a weak sheep.  “Is that what you think of me and – “ I listed five of his closest, most respected friends who were now all in recovery. He was on his back staring at the ceiling, silently watching his cigarette smoke curling upward. “That is what I don’t understand. My friends are brilliant – yet everyone is doing this thing. It doesn’t make any sense to me.”  The silence between us was filled with pain. He was surrounded by friends who were in recovery but it was not going to be for him. He drove his car at sixty miles an hour into a brick wall two months later.

Here’s some advice for anyone who is having a difficult time with friends not fully understanding or supporting their recovery:

Make sure you have a lot of other friends who do support your recovery.

You have to know why you are in recovery – what it means to you. Be unshakable. And you don’t have to defend it – just live it.

Check your side of the street. If you’ve been unintentionally trying to recruit them, lay off. If people want what you have they will ask you how you did it and if they don’t, they won’t.

Active addicts and alcoholics are uncomfortable with friends who have gotten clean. They are most likely the ones to start up these discussions. Avoid all conversations about recovery with people who are loaded. They will keep up the argument for days if you let them.

If you are too early in recovery to have boundaries, you shouldn’t be there. It is easy to change the subject or to cut out early. Save your recovery talk for people who want it.

Remember, if you are new, your foundation is still fragile. Don’t take unnecessary risks.

Recovery is YOUR path; every human being is entitled to choose their own path.

Expectations lead to disappointment.

Today I still get people telling me that after all these years I should be able to drink now if I want to. I used to have clever answers like “Well, if I have a drink now, I’ll probably rob you later.” Now my answer is, “I don’t want one”.

Oh – and my old friends that I mentioned – they’ve been back in my life for years. In fact, when I held a party for the premier of Relapse, they were the ones who stayed closing the bar, long after everyone had left, discussing how great the show was.

 

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I didn’t get clean for this sh*t! Unmanageability.

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This has been a crazy summer for me. Not “crazy” in a wild and fun way either (sorry to say) but crazy in an unmanageable “life on life’s terms” way. This is my first summer in New York City without air conditioning and the hottest recorded summer since the 1800s. They decided to re-wire my building (an old brownstone in the Village) and hired one electrician to do all the work. I struggled through one major heatwave after another, sitting inside my apartment feeling like a dog locked inside a car with the windows rolled up.  I found myself crying at my desk for no reason. I’ve discovered that severe conditions can bring on feelings of despair and depression – go figure! I had to turn down several clients because I was in no shape to help anyone and writing was impossible. Instead, I went to visit my folks in Canada for a couple weeks and expected to come back to air conditioning. Well – what do you know – Con Edison went on strike so there is no one to do the inspection. There will be no air conditioning this year. The upside is that I knew enough to leave town to rejuvenate my spirit and have since put myself on graveyard hours so that I can bike in the cooler evening breeze for fresh air, write at night, and see as many matinees as I possible. I’m making my situation as manageable as I can because my mental health matters to me. I am powerless over the circumstances but not powerless over my ability to make choices to improve my situation. I needed topics for this blog to simplify my workload so I asked for help.I got a lot of suggestions. Phil wrote me this, which I felt was appropriate to use first:

Recovering addicts are always asking as to what they can expect to “manage” in the sober future and what they cant.  -Phil

When we look back at the unmanageability of our lives during our using days the list goes something like this: jobs lost, apartment evictions, regularly living without a phone or electricity, calls from collection agencies, owing everyone we know money, significant others leaving after many tears, fights and drama. Our health deteriorates and there are trips to hospitals, jails, and psych wards. Paramedics bring us back to life and even this doesn’t strike us unusual. What’s worse than the exterior unmanageability is our inner life – we can’t handle experiencing negatives feelings yet they seem to be the only feelings we have. Our only coping mechanism was to keep using in the hope of finding some inner peace.

Clean and sober, unmanageability in our lives can look like this: jobs lost, apartment evictions, regularly living without a phone or electricity, calls from collection agencies, owing everyone we know money, significant others leaving after many tears, fights, and drama. From neglecting our health there can be   trips to hospitals. If we don’t change our behaviors we can end up in jail and there could even be times we end up in psych wards.

In recovery, even when our external life can remain manageable, our inner life can be filled with anxiety, self-loathing, pain and torment. “Why is this happening to me?” we cry as our thoughts return to the old solution – getting high.

Recovery is the process of changing our behaviors and our response to situations so that we don’t back ourselves into an emotional corner where getting high seems to be the only way out. If any addict stays in pain long enough, s/he will use.

It’s our responsibility to manage every area of our life in a way to keep chaos and drama at a minimal, We learn to start paying bills on time, communicating honestly, become willing to renegotiate or compromise in relationships, We address health and mental health issues, earn money the old fashioned way of working for a living. The hilarious thing writing this is that I know everyone reading it is thinking “Of course we have to do this. Tell me something I don’t know.” It sounds easy to live an upright, ethical, honest life clean – but is it? I mean – really?

This is what I have seen over the years: some addicts gets clean and lives a very rigid life – so rigid and fearful of making errors that the first chance they get to let their hair down, they get loaded. Then there’s the addict who continues acting out deviously in some areas all the while spewing wisdom of recovery louder than anyone else. I call this the “Spiritual giant who goes home and beats his wife and kicks the dog”-syndrome” (not gender-specific) who, without change, will also eventually gets loaded. And then there’s the middle ground – the category that most of us fall into – we hold onto old behaviors as long as they work for us before we become willing to change. And we only are motivated to change by pain.

I didn’t learn how to pay parking tickets until my car was towed, pay my phone bill on time until I got sick of losing money to reconnection fees. It’s true – there are a lot of people in the world who don’t go to the dentist until they are in excruciating pain but for addicts being in pain brings a cry for drugs. Non-addicts experience unmanageability the same as we do. The difference is that they will not respond to it by self-destructing.

It’s important to understand how the disease of addiction gains ground. It LOVES when we are angry with ourselves. No one can ever treat us as badly as we treat ourselves inside the privacy of our own mind. This is why we need the love and support of other recovering addicts. They remind us to give ourselves a break, teach us how to find working solutions to the problems of daily life, let us know that our fantastic idea on how to beat the system is insane, talk us out of that one last heist, help us recognize when the criteria for a boyfriend is different from the criteria for a sugar daddy. Recovery teaches us how to live without being motivated by the fear that if we let go of our old hustles and irresponsible behaviors, our need to get over on the system, that we won’t make it.

It’s unrealistic to expect to come into recovery and immediately live a life 100% according to new recovery principles. We do our best.  We grow in leaps and bounds in some areas and stay sick and stuck in others. The pain from unmanageability in the form of drama, chaos, and from the consequences of our actions is what teaches us who we really are –in our hearts not in our minds. We discover that don’t want to keep hurting ourselves by living this way and this gives us the strength and courage to change. This is a good thing. Because we don’t want to suffer, we learn how to do things differently.

In recovery we can be free. Not just free from the enslavement of addiction but free from senseless self-made suffering. The calm and inner peace we feel by living a life of less drama and unmanageability will eventually guide us in all our affairs. Nonetheless, shit does happen – economies crash, people die, lovers leave, personalities clash. Sometimes we may have a long string of bad luck and feel like life is not fair. We cry, “Why me?” and an old voice will whisper back, “Fuck this shit. You didn’t feel this bad when you were using. Fuck this recovery bullshit.” Yep – the disease never gives up, always waiting for a moment of weakness, always quick to point out the hopelessness of it all. During these times lean into recovering friends for support, love and guidance.  When times get dark hang on because this too shall pass. It will and it does.

Recovery is harm reduction for day to day living.

 

 

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How can I tell if I’m heading toward a relapse?

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Last week I had the fun experience of being a guest “speaker” on a Twitter addiction chat. I had no idea how I was supposed to be a  “speaker” in 140 characters or less. Luckily it turned out to be a Q&A. The final question  “How can a person tell if they’re starting to relapse and how can they stop themselves?” seemed like a good topic for this week’s blog post.

The interesting thing about a relapse is that afterward the addict will swear, “I made the decision to use” when really, “I made the decision a while ago and using was the anticipated outcome” is more likely the case. When we’re clean we always have a choice. By the time the “decision” to use comes along, we’ve already given up that choice by not recognizing and correcting the behaviors that were leading us toward a relapse in the first place. When we are in the disease clean, the window of opportunity to choose recovery gets smaller and smaller until our disease is stronger than our recovery and we use.  We forget we are powerless once we use. Almost every addict who has relapsed tells me immediately afterward, “If it gets bad, I’ll get clean again”. Really? If it was that easy to get clean, why wouldn’t I use one day a year?  They get amnesia about what it took for them to ever have had the desperation to get clean in the first place.

So what are these behaviors we need to watch out for and take seriously that have the power to eventually lead us back to using?

We start to come up with reasonable sounding reasons to start missing meetings (or IOP or whatever support group you are part of).

We start finding our recovery/sober friends annoying. We don’t feel like being around people and are much happier when we’re alone.

We feel a general crankiness toward everything.

We feel an endless hunger for anything (food, shopping, money, power, sex, attention, caffeine, tattoos, seductive pain) outside of ourselves to make us feel better, to feel excited, to feel alive. We long for euphoria.

We stop doing things we used to enjoy in our fellowship such as service, group activities, fellowship, stop working the steps (usually after step 5), stop talking to our sponsor/sponsees. In fact we start feeling judgmental toward both.

We start acting out in asshole behaviors without noticing such as gossip, anger, deceit, and righteousness. We nurture our resentments and start keeping secrets. Consequences include shame, remorse and guilt yet we do not talk about these feelings or their source to anyone.

We’re Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired.  We take no action to remedy it.

We start hanging out with people who are not in recovery more often than people who are. Watching our friends who are not addicts use and drink starts making us have thoughts that we can do it too. We tell no one this.

We hang with using addicts and alcoholics and enjoy it. We believe it is not affecting us. We make less time for friends in recovery.

We act out in self-destructive behaviors such as cutting, eating disorders, sexual       compulsion, unsafe sex, compulsive Internet cruising and tell no one.

We isolate in abusive or unhealthy romantic relationships wanting someone who         doesn’t want us yet going back time and again expecting different results.

If you are doing ANYTHING that your head says is nobody’s business (not even the person you trust most with your recovery) LOOK AT IT.

I really believe that if an addict stays in emotional pain long enough the only solution guaranteed to bring relieve will be using.

A relapse can usually be traced back to a combination of these behaviors occurring over a period of time. If you see any combination of these happening in your life, start taking the opposite action. This can be as simple as removing yourself from the situation, recommitting to meetings, service, reconnecting to your support group and being thoroughly honest about devious thoughts and actions.

 

 

 

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How do I stop my kid from becoming an addict?

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I have been approached by parents time and again asking what they can do to prevent their children from becoming addicts – which is a different conversation from asking what they can do to spot the signs of using or get their child help.  Many books have been written on this subject and there is a lot of information available online. As usual, I’ll begin this blog with some personal stories from my life as an adolescent drug user.

I remember my first acid trip, at twelve, as something magical. By high school I was pulling books on drugs and addiction off the library shelf. Each book was filled with sociological evidence of the trajectory of drug use. Marijuana led to heroin addiction, criminal behavior and prostitution. I wrote it off as propaganda. Besides, despite fitting the profile for a potential substance abuser, I was confident I’d be the exception to the rule. Sixteen years later I went to rehab.

For clarity, I will say that mine wasn’t an immediate downward spiral into the perils of active addiction. It was more a full-steam-ahead approach to life that included a lot of fun and adventure in which drugs were always present.  Occasionally I’d attempt to control whatever I’d been abusing or switch to milder drugs. Giving up drugs didn’t occur to me.

The price of addiction is always loss and over the years the price kept escalating. I lost jobs, friends, apartments and, at times, my health. Drugs kept me away from my family and many of my friends died. I was lost from myself, directionless and drifting. For years, a constant underlying despair accompanied me and I was always trying to eradicate it with a substance. I never stepped off the ride until it became a  choice between life and death.

Like I said, it wasn’t a one-way street to hell after the first time I got drunk at the roller skating arena in 1972. (btw the gateway drug for all addicts is alcohol. I guess it slipped the minds of researchers when they came up with the term “gateway drug”). The progression of my drug use, like most addicts, occurred over time.

Not everyone who takes drugs is an addict. There are people who drink or get high recreationally, who can take it or leave it. There are substance abusers who may party hard for a year or two and then get it together and move on (without any outside help), and others who catch themselves before they become full-blown addicts and seek professional help to get it under control. And then there are addicts for whom control is not possible.

I have compiled this list of helpful tips based on my personal philosophy with parents of young children in mind. I’ve also included help for the family of using addicts.

Openness: Kids will censor information if they believe it is unwise not to. They intuitively know if what they say will worry or upset the adult so they will suck up their feelings to protect the parent. Children want to be loved unconditionally – exactly as they are. Judgment and criticism is a form of rejection. They are acutely aware of every time they have heard a parent criticize or judge others so they may not feel safe expressing their true feelings and fears.

Communication: By learning how to process emotion and walk through fear and uncertainty early on, they won’t seek comfort from something external. If you have very young children, raise them in a household where everyone is safe to express their true feelings. If this has not been the case and you cannot get your children to open up to you (when your heart knows something is going on) make sure they have someone they feel safe talking to (a relative, teacher or therapist).**** If there has been abuse, trauma, or active alcoholism/addiction in the home, get professional help.

Belonging: If they’re unable to bond at their school or feel like an outsider, find clubs and activities where they can meet friends with similar interests. The feeling of “other” is common among addicts.

Be the parent: Children need boundaries, rules and codes of ethics. They are also brilliant bullshit detectors. It can’t be a “do as I say and not as I do” situation. Children don’t want to know about a parent’s sex life or hear glory tales of drug use only to be later told, “Sex is bad. Drugs are bad.” If you are confused how to draw from personal experience in a positive honest and healthy way, ask a professional or seek out community parent groups. (If you feel shame about your own past, it’s time for you to do some work to gain acceptance and forgiveness. I’m a big believer in therapy but people also heal in support groups, 12 step programs. Speakers and workshops by people like Marianne Williamson, Melanie Beatty, Deepak Chopra, and Louise Haye have helped thousands. There are many avenues to seek help getting right with yourself so that you can be 100% available to your child.)

Validate: Praise every triumph, encourage every effort, and remind your children that they are perfect and wonderful whether they come in first or last on the sports team, whether they get A’s or D’s. Showing up and giving it your best after a disappointment is praiseworthy. D’s can turn to A’s with extra help and perseverance. Raising children with a sense of self and self-worth gives them a strong emotional foundation and make them less likely to fall to peer pressure or seek comfort in substances.

For loved ones: Active addiction affects everyone in the family. Al Anon and Alateen are 12 Step fellowships that offer support and tools for healthy coping. (Google for information and local meetings). Http://www.intherooms.com is a website where you can connect with other people who can share experience, strength and hope. They also have live video online meetings.

Helping the addict: Interventions can help get an addict into treatment before they hit bottom. It’s true they may agree to go to get the family off their back, to keep financial support coming in, or for any number of reasons without any genuine desire to get clean but often a spark of hope is awakened while in treatment and they may choose recovery for themselves. Rarely is an addict exposed to recovery able to go back to using without carrying the knowledge that there is another way to live. Even after a relapse, many addicts will return to recovery.

Powerlessness: We cannot get anyone clean but we can instill hope and let them know they have a choice. In the end, recovery will always be a personal decision.

I know for an addict to want recovery, the desire has to be in their heart – but desire without action is fantasy. Talking about, thinking about, or preparing to get clean is a game many addicts play to either get someone off their back or to give themselves the illusion that they are doing something about their problem. What is always behind this lack of momentum is fear. Addicts can look down the barrel of a loaded shotgun but they cannot handle emotional discomfort. Despite what I used to think when I was using, I got high over my feelings – to avoid them and to numb them.  If you raise your children to embrace their emotions, they will not fear them – and hopefully won’t have the need to find an external substance to manage them.

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