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Is there a faster way to learn patience?

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Vigilance – the process of paying close and continuous attention; wakefulness, watchfulness

Never-give-up

“Vigilance is especially susceptible to fatigue”

Staying in the recovery process requires vigilance. If change takes time and fatigue is the enemy of vigilance –what’s an addict to do? The answer is simple: we need to learn patience.

We want what we want when we want it and our society caters to this fact. The 60’s invented fast food drive-thru restaurants and instant add-water meals. God knows no one has time to wait for anything. If we don’t see results immediately, we lose interest in going to the gym. We can now get liposuction if we don’t have patience to diet. Who has the time to wash and cut vegetables, never mind prepare an entire meal? If we have to wait for anything our first thought is “What’s the point?” and then we lose interest – whether it’s in learning a new skill, preparing a healthy meal, or sitting to meditate. If we can’t be at yoga within minutes of leaving the house, forget it. And I’m not even factoring being a recovering addict into this rant. Everyone is born hungry.

While lacking patience can have consequences for anyone, for addicts impatience can lead to the “fuckits” – the precursor to relapse. This is why we have to keep being reminded that recovery is an ongoing process and that it requires vigilance.

In early recovery, it feels like we’re constantly being hit by an onslaught of feelings. After years of dulling or numbing ourselves with substances, the reawakening of our emotions is new to us. Fear seems to lie underneath every sensation. Even joy can be accompanied by the sensation of waiting for the other shoe to drop. Anger makes us want to use, sadness makes us want to vanish from existence. We look at other people in recovery who seem to be at peace with themselves and we want to know how they got that way. We want to be like them right away. We expect recovery to give us instant results. “I worked my steps and go to therapy but I’m still a mess. What am I doing wrong?” Instead of accepting that change occurs over time, we blame ourselves.

Sometimes we can will things to happen – or so it seems. It could just be that everything aligned and we get what we want right away. Instead of it being an isolated incident, it makes us think if we don’t get things right away, we mustn’t be doing something right. Anxiety builds and patience evaporates. Enduring time passing is not the same as being patient. Being patient is an act of faith – faith that time will pass and things will change – however they will change. Patience is not counting the days and minutes.

People always ask, “What’s the trick? What work can I do to acquire patience quickly?” (Yes I’ve really been asked this). Translated, I think they’re admitting that they understand the concept “change happens slowly over time” but want to know how can they exist inside of this unknowable timeframe without having an anxiety attack or pulling their hair out. The trick is to create mindfulness habits so they can slow themselves down – whether it’s by quieting the mind or reducing physical anxiety. This makes not only the passage of time more bearable; it will probably be more enjoyable.

There is so much information readily available on mindfulness techniques and practices. A quick search of Google or YouTube can bring up thousands of links. When I was in early recovery I couldn’t focus my attention on anything for very long before I felt like I was crawling out of my skin. The idea of meditation was nice but I drank far too much coffee to attempt it. I’d overthink everything and believed I’d need to take a class, join a group or read a book on it before I could start. If I was going to meditate, I wanted to do it right. Truthfully, it was easier to sit in a café with my friends drinking coffee than it was to set aside 20 minutes to try to quiet my mind. No one ever explained to me that if I could set aside this time, I wouldn’t feel that “crawling out of my skin” feeling as often or as intensely. Had I known what the payoff was going to be I might have tried it sooner. I was resistant because, deep down, I equated meditation with edgelessness. Now I know that is not  the case.

There are a few quick tricks anyone can do throughout the day. They are pretty low-effort but you’ll feel results immediately. You can do them at any time, anywhere.

Start by taking a few deep breaths. Get on your tiptoes and reach up over your head and stretch out all the way through your arms to your fingertips and wiggle your fingers until you feel the stretch go all the way to through your fingertips. Lift one foot off the ground and rotate your ankles and stretch out your toes. Now do the other foot. Meanwhile flex and release your leg muscles. With one hand to the sky and the other pointing to the ground lean to the left and feel the stretch move down your sides. Do the opposite side. Tilt your pelvis forward and backward then rotate your hips in a circular motion and reverse the direction. Roll your shoulders in a circular motion and reverse. Tilt your head all the way forward and all the way back, and then try to touch each ear toward your shoulder. Roll your head slowly in a clockwise circle several times then reverse. Squeeze your shoulders up toward your ears and release. Do this several times. Now bend forward and let your arms hang. Swing from left to right and slowly move up your body, both arms swinging from side to side. Raise your arms over your head and bring your hands together and lower them toward your heart. By now your body should feel relaxed and energized. You can do all of this in less than 5 minutes as often throughout the day as you can remember. In fact, why not schedule it into your phone now to do 5 times during the day until it becomes a habit.

Take a look around. Pay attention to the immediate details to your surroundings. It doesn’t matter whether you’re standing at the back of a restaurant or on the sidewalk, pay attention to the colors, the light, and the sounds. This brings you into the moment. When you are in the moment, fear doesn’t have power over you. By existing in the moment, you’ll be less distracted by your thoughts.

Another quick decompressing trick you can do is to take ten deep slow breaths. Inhale through your nose until your lungs and belly have expanded as far as they can and then blow all this air out through your mouth until you are completely empty. You should be feeling the muscles in your chest and stomach relaxing with each inhalation and exhalation. It may feel like your heart is racing but it’s really just the awareness of your heart and your body. It’s nothing to worry about.

By stretching and breathing, you’ll become conscious of your body and breath so this next trick will be quite easy to do. Whether your eyes are open or closed, feel the air moving into your nostrils. It should feel slightly cool on its way in and warmer on its way out. Control it by inhaling and exhaling slightly longer. Most likely you’ll have to yawn several times. Feel the stretch in your jaw when you do. By doing this exercise you’re going to start noticing the way the air feels entering and exiting your nostrils throughout the day. You’re building a relationship with your physical body and an awareness of the moment you are in.

You’re probably wondering what any of this has to do with patience and vigilance. By creating these habits and incorporating them into your daily routine early in recovery, you are exercising some discipline over how time is being spent. It gives you control over how you want to feel physically and emotionally. Less anxiety means less fear. And fear is what sends signals that say, “If it’s going to feel like this, why bother ?” Less fear means less pain. Vigilance is not giving up.

We are like a porcelain vase that fell off a table and shattered across the floor. A lot of damage has been done. We gather up the pieces and enter recovery hoping someone will tell us how to put it back together. And people tell us how – but they also say, “It takes time.” We start going through all the pieces and start to figure out what fits where so we can put the vase back together again. It takes time and patience but we know the pieces will eventually all fit. If we approach this task in a hurried, stressed out way, we’ll make a mess of it and end up taking longer to get it done. By practicing some mindfulness, we are able to enjoy the process and we’ll feel excited when it begins to look like a vase again. It takes vigilance and patience to put ourselves back together. Honestly, if the payoff didn’t exceed the work we put into recovery, no one would stay clean. This payoff is why we keep blindly moving forward even when we can’t see what’s ahead. Patience teaches us that the real prize is the journey.


 

 

 

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

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caution_relapse

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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For the Ladies: Hormones are a Bitch!

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hormonepic2Let me set the stage:  I wake up feeling relatively normal. It’s true the night before I was starting to have a few alienating judgmental thoughts about one friend or another but I didn’t trip on it.  Today I’ve been busy on the computer and taking care of a few things around the house. I  make it through the first half of the day without talking to anyone. Now it’s time to head uptown. On the subway, as people begin to crowd into the train, I notice a few minor character assassinations take place in my head whenever someone stands too close to me. When I switch trains, the walkways fill up with people who have no urgency in their step. I pick up my pace and aggressively snake through the crowd. It isn’t until I descend the stairs to my connecting platform that I spot the source of the pedestrian traffic slowdown. Two people are standing at the foot of the stairs having a conversation during rush hour. I shoulder hard into them on my way down but really what I want to do is grab them and throw them onto the tracks. How can anyone be so selfish and stupid as to block a stairwell in New York City during rush hour? These two clearly deserve to die.

I tell this story because this was a regular occurrence in my life. In fact, it was a monthly occurrence. This is how the first sign of my PMS would announce itself – homicidal fantasies. Like character defects that often only appear when dealing with others, the beginning of PMS would be undetectable until I was out among the human race. This would be my yellow warning light for what was to come.  In the hours after my subway rage, I would turn the anger and disgust toward myself. I’d become both judgmental and insecure. Character defects would flare up and I’d act out on resentments with gossip followed by shame and paranoia. In the end I’d be so raw and vulnerable and filled by self-loathing that all I could do was hide or cry. On day two my abdomen would swell and a visible layer of water weight covered my thighs, back and butt. Puffy eyed and dragging with fatigue, the countdown would begin. On the third day my period would start and with it came a sense of relief. It was as if the pressure valve had opened and my emotions were restored to sanity. Hormones are a bitch!

When women get clean and sober, like men, we ride the emotional rollercoaster of early recovery. People tell us what to expect and reassure us with “You’re where you’re supposed to be. This is normal.”  What no one tells us is that we are also powerless over our hormones and that they will make us emotionally unmanageable. Usually it isn’t until we have spewed venom and insanity to a female friend or sponsor that we are asked, “Where are you in your menstrual cycle?’ To which we respond with anger. The question sounds belittling and condescending. After all, doesn’t it dismiss the validity of the feelings that have consumed us?  There’s nothing like PMS to make a woman want to argue – even if it’s to argue against the very idea of PMS.

Many of us didn’t experience PMS during our using because we were too high to notice. We were always under the influence and intuitively used substances to control our feelings – including those of PMS. I know personally, I was on the Pill from 14 to 28 and my last year using my periods stopped coming so PMS was a non-issue. I decided to remain off the Pill once I got clean because I was single and knew I’d be more apt to use condoms if I had no other birth control. Now that I was single after a monogamous marriage, I didn’t trust myself when it came to practicing safe sex – since I had no experience with it. I figured fear of pregnancy would keep me on the straight and narrow of condom use. So from day one clean, I began experiencing my natural hormonal cycle for the first time since adolescence and I had no idea what to expect.

Newcomers, it is important to pay close attention to what is going on with your body so you can make the connection between emotional unmanageability and your menstrual cycle. All it will take is 4 months of charting the patterns and you will know pretty much what to expect for years to come. The reason this matters is because when you know your period is coming and the general pattern of your rollercoaster, it is much easier to accept “oh these feelings are hormonal and not connected to real life things”. This is damage control.  This will stop you from acting out on anger, nitpicky-ness, righteousness, or from damaging friendships. It will put feelings of inadequacy and loneliness in check. When you look in the mirror and hate what you see, you’ll know you are looking through a hormonal veil of distortion and tomorrow the reflection will be much different. This will save you a lot of agony. Recovery is life on life’s terms and hormones are part of life’s terms –so until you have experience riding this out clean, they will trip you up and cause you to suffer.

The easiest way to map it is this: keep track on the calendar of when your period starts and ends. Look back at the days leading up to your period when the rage and vulnerability came, when the distorted body image came, when the bleeding started. Often early signs of PMS will appear 7-10 days before your actual period but it is a window of 3 days prior that we become lunatics (even if we hide this fact from the world). You need to list your bizarre thinking, track your emotions, and note any physical symptoms (from water weight, sore breasts, cramps, constipation, lower back ache).  You will notice that your PMS is most severe every other month.

Talk about it. Find women’s meetings where you can say when you feel like blowing your brains out or throwing people under the bus even though you know its PMS insanity. When your head wants to take you down a dark street of the mind, tell yourself – this is PMS and probably not real. This helps you to keep perspective so you don’t have to end relationships, quit jobs, or disappear from the lives of everyone you’ve ever known. Trust me – there is so much comfort in knowing that the insanity is temporary, that nothing real has changed between Monday and Wednesday other than a shift in  thinking. We are powerless over our hormones and our thinking has become unmanageable and in a few days, we will be restored to sanity. Our job is to limit the damage we cause until then.

The fantastic thing about staying clean is that we begin to have an awareness of our body and our relationship to it. It begins by observing menstrual cycles but becomes so finely tuned that you will notice when any other area is off as well – when your body is fighting off a virus or flu, when your immune system is weak, when you’re in optimum health. Recovery is a process of moving from your mind (where the disease has held power) back into your body. Without this, it’s impossible to truly experience living in the moment.

I wish every woman in recovery would talk openly with one another about their experiences with menstrual cycles, PMS, safe sex, condom use, STD’S, abortions, and sex. It would save us all a lot of suffering. Sadly, these subjects don’t get enough discourse and women continue to struggle to find their way through these uncharted emotional territories  – often alone and unsupported.  In time, I will do my best to open up these topics in a very public way.

 wt__emotional_rollercoaster_by_raincookie-d3e8e63

 

 

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Therapy & Psych Meds in Recovery

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mental health

In the early years of my recovery, a lot of my friends tested positive for HIV and the AIDS virus. I went along with all the lifestyle changes to support them. Overnight we became non-smoking, macrobiotic, vegan, aerobic-class enthusiasts reading A Course in Miracles and quoting Marianne Williamson. Considering we’d all been art-damaged, punk rock-nurtured criminals and sex-working gay & straight IV drug users, throwing ourselves enthusiastically into every possible holistic and spiritual way to heal ourselves expressed our collective desire to live. And we never missed an opportunity to laugh at ourselves. Some of our adventures in spirituality-seeking bordered on the ridiculous but we needed more miracles – the first miracle being that the desire to use drugs had left us.

Years passed, we accumulated clean time, and life-saving HIV cocktails became available. The miracle had happened. Without the threat of impending death motivating lifestyle change, some people started picking up and putting down cigarettes again, ordering steak, going from sex-abstinent to sex-abundant, opting out of cardio for yoga. Over time, we exited the self-help route and found therapy.

In recovery we continue striving to enrich our lives, our relationships with others and most importantly, our relationship with ourselves. I encourage people to seek professional help whenever needed. However, Rome wasn’t built in a day. For many addicts, learning how to live with our feelings must come before we are ready to dig deeper. We do this by staying clean, building a foundation, and gaining courage by living life on life’s terms. For others, staying clean would not be possible without healing the wounds of trauma with a professional early on. Wherever you fit in this spectrum, the combination of listening to your heart and the suggestions of those with more experience will be your guide.

Therapy is a commitment to show up and be honest so it is important that you find a therapist who is a good fit. This can be done with a little research and interviewing. You can often get names of therapists from various centers connected to organizations dealing with GLBT, Women’s Services, victims of violence or sexual abuse, sex workers, runaways etc. You can Google “therapist, your location and whatever specific issues that may concern you” and see what comes up. You can ask your doctor, ask friends about their therapists. Once you begin seeking, names will come. You can find sliding scale often connected with larger university mental health facilities, some therapists take insurance and others are cash only. Prepare questions for the first meeting – it’s okay to ask them about themselves and their practice. You will intuitively know who you feel safe with. Remember, you are building a new relationship so don’t expect an instant fix. It takes time for many of us to build trust before we are able to be thoroughly honest. This is not surgery. Healing happens over time. Therapy is really a case of “more will be revealed”. The willingness to begin is all you need to start the ball rolling toward change.

People often ask “Was it worth it?” and want to know what I got out of the experience. Often during therapy I’d be asking myself the same question. I tackled many different issues according to what was happening in my life, how I was handling situations, and feelings. For example, nothing ever seemed to get me angry yet I would cross a line (usually because I felt I wasn’t being heard) and literally see red and start swinging. I knew this was strange and wanted to know how to have a different experience. That was one reason I sought help. In retrospect, what I have gained from therapy is that I now experience my feelings as they come up. I don’t intellectualize them and I don’t check out. This has enabled me to live fully in my body and be present in the moment in my life.This had not been the case for most of my life. I numbed out feelings that either were painful or scary first with drugs and then clean with escapist behaviors. These days I wouldn’t even know where the switch was to flip it to the “off” position if I wanted to. I believe this change is definitely the key to the contentment I feel most days.

I’m going to talk for a moment about medication. Personally, I’m not against meds in recovery. I do not believe we have to suffer to prove our willingness to be clean. I also know addicts have a history of preferring a pill to hard work, that we are self-deceptive and very skilled at deceiving others. So this is my own personal philosophy on the matter. I was offered anti-depressants a number of times by my therapist. It  is her job to offer solutions – and medication is a solution. I decided to exercise, meditate and get fresh air to see if it helped first. I also pinpointed things in my life I could change (people, places, jobs) that were bringing me pain. I did the work and felt better. The depression lifted without medication. If you do not try alternative methods first, my guess is you want a pill to fix it. Now there are people who will not find relief from depression or anxiety no matter what holistic avenues they take or what lifestyle changes they make. And there are people with other mental health issues. It is important to be completely honest with your psychiatrist and to choose one who has a lot of experience working with addicts. I know a psychiatrist in NYC who believes no one needs more than 3 medications to deal with disorders common to addicts. I’ve had clients come to me who have a regiment of 8 pills a day. Since I’m not a doctor all I can do is insist they get a second opinion. Also, if you came into recovery on anxiety meds, Adderall, antidepressants and sleep medication, my question is always “Did your doctor know you were abusing drugs? The symptoms that he treated, could they have been partial withdrawal symptoms from your drug of choice?” I don’t care if you’re 30 and you have been on these meds since you were 16. It is possible you were misdiagnosed because you were using at the time. Be willing to get honest with a psychiatrist who specializes in working with addicts in recovery and trust him to evaluate you.

At the end of the day, we have to learn to be honest with ourselves and honest with mental health professionals. We have to be willing to make lifestyle changes and to heal old wounds in order to find peace and comfort in our skin if we are to stay clean and sober for the long haul.

 

 

 

 

 

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What do you mean I have to feel everything?

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FEELINGS

The first time I heard someone say “I used over my feelings” the first thing that popped into my head was “Really? I used to have fun.” I couldn’t relate. In fact, I felt kind of sorry for him. Using over feelings -what did that even mean?  By the time everyone in the room finished admitting that they had also used over their feelings, I felt like I was in that depressing group therapy scene in Drugstore Cowboy. The lighting is stark in the bleak, institutional room and we see Matt Dillon’s character disengage emotionally as everyone takes turns being grateful for their seemingly pitiful little lives.  I knew how he felt at that moment and recognized the look on his face. He wasn’t going to stay clean and neither was I. After this experience, I continued to get high for a few more months but I couldn’t get that guy talking about “using over feelings” out of my head. Once I’d heard the truth everything changed. I couldn’t seem to get high enough to forget that I had a choice about it.

Until then, I’d never given any thought into why I used drugs. As an adolescent I was consciously constructing my persona. Rebellion was in the air throughout my childhood – in the news and in the movie theatres. There was a new generation saying, “fuck you” to conformity and kowtowing to authority. I was too young to really grasp what was going on in the world but it mirrored something I felt deep inside. Until then, I’d felt very alone. I found my people, the counter-culture freaks and anti-heroes, on the big screen. It was a look, an attitude, and a style. Once I adopted the image of the edgy, thrill-seeking, wild girl all I had to do was find drugs to legitimize it.

Writing this as a long-time recovering addict, it’s obvious that I was searching for a way to change the feelings inside of me. And I found something outside of myself that did the trick. Like every other addict, I used over my feelings.

Recovery is about learning how to deal with our feelings. Since experiencing feelings is not in our skill-set (even clean and sober) we continue to find ways to avoid them – always seeking something outside of ourselves to change the way we feel. In early recovery we drink pots of coffee, chain smoke, try or hope to have lots of sex, or search for love. Later in recovery, we spend endless hours on the Internet,  work out until we’re injured, fast for ten days instead of four, spend until we’re bankrupt, work 60 hours a week, stay busy every minute. We tend to create drama in situations because one large pain is easier to focus on than feelings of insecurity, loneliness, worthlessness, disappointment, self-doubt and self-loathing. When life is going great, we worry about what it’s going to feel like when something goes wrong. I’ve known addicts who take Tylenol in case they get a headache. Simply put, addicts can face down the barrel of a shotgun but we don’t do well with emotional discomfort.

So what happens when we stop running? We feel fear. Remember how the fear of withdrawal kept you using long after you wanted to be clean? Fear controlled us. It doesn’t just go away because we are clean and sober. So we do what we’ve always done – we try to control it. Seeking outside stuff to escape into, to alter our feelings, to change the direction of things. We’re fortunate to have a lot of pillows to land on when we get clean. I think going from feeling nothing to feeling everything, we’d surely explode and run back to using. So while we get comfortable with some of our feelings, we avoid others by throwing back pots of coffee, eating until we can’t move, having sex, shopping, getting 40 tattoos. As long as we don’t use, we gain positive experience from the feelings we do sit with (they didn’t kill us) and it helps give us courage to face new ones. But there’s a trick to all this: if you get clean and spend all your time “acting out”, avoiding feelings, seeking comfort, pleasure and escape and you don’t deal with anything you’ll probably relapse. Remember we use over our feelings and this also means if we don’t start to get comfortable in our own skin, we will use again. Pain and fear don’t magically disappear no matter how great the sex was, how many tattoos you got, or how whole your new relationship makes you feel. It takes work to stay clean.

You need someone to talk to. This can be your 12 step community, a therapist, friends you trust who love you – do not give this job to your romantic partner. You need a safe place where you can be honest about what is going on in your life and in your head and how it makes you feel. To lower the pressure on a tire you have to let some air out. Becoming vulnerable and honest with other human beings is how this process begins. You don’t need advice – you just have to let it out. This is often the first experience addicts have acknowledging how they feel. And I will give you a tip: it’s easy to talk about how angry you are, how much hate you have but it takes real courage to reveal jealousy, loneliness, disappointment, sadness, hurt. These are the feelings under the anger. Our feelings get hurt – just like when we were kids. Talking about this stuff, taking the air out, will reduce the pressure. It will feel weird at first but you’ll notice a shift in your mood and it will give you momentum to do it again. Remember – you don’t need feedback or advice. We start the process by hearing ourselves connect with what we are feeling. As time goes by, feelings become less frightening.

You’re tired all the time, you’re masturbating every day, can’t believe your appetite? My guess is you are having some feelings. Look for the signs. We don’t have to run anymore. Sometimes feelings suck. There’s no other way to describe it – thankfully feelings also pass. Feelings may not be facts but it is a fact you’re experiencing feelings. Face them and recover or run from them and hope you find some courage before you use again.

Although this post is geared toward early recovery, even after years clean our knee jerk reaction to an uncomfortable feeling will still be to find something outside of ourselves to change it or delay it.  With practice, it happens less and less.

 

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FIRST WEEK CLEAN AND SOBER

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first week clean and soberTHIS POST IS FOR THOSE PEOPLE WHO GOT CLEAN AND SOBER NEW YEAR’S DAY OR ANYONE STARTING OUT IN RECOVERY.

 

When I was a kid I remember thinking the year 2000 sounded futuristic so I did the math to see if I would still be alive. (I’d be 40 – which is like saying 80 to an 8 year old).  Little did I know that in my teens I’d adopt the belief system of “live fast, die young, leave a pretty corpse” basically accepting I’d be dead before 30 – which was a real possibility given the way I was living. Glad I got clean at 28 and not only lived to see 2000 but am still here in 2012.

I love the phrase “Welcoming in the New Year”. It sounds so cheerful and optimistic. I’ve never been big on New Years’ resolutions but I know people make them. In fact, if you decided to make January 1st your first day clean and sober, I applaud you. I bet when you made that decision you were feeling pretty optimistic. It’s the 6th as I write this so by now you probably have had 6 days of inner dialogue that sounds something like this:

“Maybe I should have waited and done this______ (1,when my vacation time comes up, 2 when I don’t have so many things to do, 3. When I get a job/apartment/car, 4. Some other time).”

“I feel like shit. I didn’t feel this bad when I was getting high/drunk.”

“I haven’t slept all week. I have too much to do. Maybe these other people can go without sleep – but I need it. I should call my doctor and get something to help me sleep.”

“If another person tells me to join a gym or meditate or go to yoga I am going to start screaming. These people don’t have any idea how I am feeling. Are they crazy? Half of them don’t look like they’ve been to a gym in their life. I hate everyone.”

“What I need is a drink.  I bet if I have one drink I will be able to sleep tonight.”

“It feels like I have no skin and my nerve endings are exposed.  Everything makes me feel so intense. I cried during a commercial yesterday. I’m going crazy.”

“If I don’t take something soon I’m going to end up hitting someone – then I’ll wind up in jail. Seriously – why am I even doing this? I feel so angry that I’m probably a danger to society.”

“I feel so lonely – like “I’m so lonely I’m gonna die” lonely. How the hell am I ever going to meet anyone if I can’t go to bars? This makes no sense. I can go to a bar and order a coke. Yeah, right – and  then what? Sit with a coke and feel crazy. I won’t be able to talk to anyone. Great – I will be clean and sober and in the end I will die alone.’

“What the hell is wrong with me? I have been masturbating like a teenager. I’m pathetic.  I feel crazy. I bet if I got laid, it would straighten my head out. At least maybe it would help me sleep.”

“I don’t even remember why I decided to get clean Jan 1st. I never make resolutions. This is ridiculous. I have been useless and crazy for 6 days and it’s affecting my life. I don’t have time for this.”

“I just talked to ____ and told them I’m clean and they told me I wasn’t an addict. Maybe they’re right. I wasn’t that bad.”

Does any of this sound familiar to you? The crazy part is that this dialogue is probably occurring even when you’re having an okay time.

HERE’S THE TRICK: don’t use or drink NO MATTER WHAT and this noise and discomfort will lessen and eventually stop – guaranteed. If you stay completely abstinent, these feelings will pass. If you cheat – if you have that one beer or an ambien or anything to make your feelings more manageable  – you will remain in the obsession and it will get worse not better.

Getting clean and sticking it out those first few weeks isn’t easy.  The worst thing you can do is spend too much time alone with your mind. Television, Netflix, and gaming will not keep you clean – whatever bullshit your head is telling you about how these things are calming you down more than meetings do.

 What you need is a plan for each day. Include this in your 24 hours:

1. Drink lots of water (move those toxins out of your system).

2. Eat healthy food. Don’t skip meals. Healthy food means incorporate fresh fruit and vegetables into your daily routine. Make that a start anyway. I’m not saying stop with the pizza and fried chicken but don’t have it every day and   balance it out with salads and apples and food that is not processed.

3. Get fresh air for an hour. WALK! Even if you feel too weak, walk as far as you can, sit, and walk back. Aim every day for a little further.

4. Exercise. Not every day but try to do something at least 3-4 times a week. If you belong to a gym, great. If you can afford yoga, perfect. If you have access to a pool, swimming is the best starting point for someone who never exercises. If you have no financial resources, you can go to the library and take out a home workout video, find something online or on YouTube, you can jog, bike ride, power walk, you can do sit-ups. There is no reason you can’t move your body. It will reduce a lot of the anxiety you are experiencing. That alone makes it worthwhile.

5. Take some quiet time somewhere peaceful – not on your sofa or bed. Look at the clouds, whatever nature you can find. I mean REALLY look at the details – the way a child can be fascinated by a spider. (Most likely, this is one suggestion you are most likely to want to skip but it really is an important one. It will feed you in a way that will bring a sense of wellbeing and – really – at this point in the game you need whatever you can get).

6. Write a list of everything you are grateful for – even if it turns out to be the same as the list you wrote yesterday.

7. Call, email, or text a few people you met at meetings – whether you know them or not. If you have nothing to say, simply ask them to recommend a meeting that day. Who knows – maybe they will meet you there and go for a bite to eat afterward. Its funny how after you talk to someone on the phone once, they pay more attention to you when they see you. You go from feeling invisible to feeling visible. (BTW this is the hardest thing for people to do. When I work with clients they will wrap their legs around their head in a yoga class they don’t want to go to before they will take any action to try to make new friends. I always tell them that without friends who are also in recovery, they really are not going to ANY LENGTHS to stay clean and sober. It works by going to any lengths – which means doing things people suggest that worked for them even when you don’t want to).

8. GO TO AT LEAST ONE MEETING. (If you aren’t working and it’s possible to go to more, do it). If you are like me, it was never too hot, never too cold, never rainy too hard, I was never too busy or too tired to get high so there should be no excuse to not be able to get to a meeting. Even if you hear nothing and sit looking at the floor counting the minutes until it’s over, the act of going to a meeting sends a signal that you are serious about staying clean and sober to that part of you wanting to give up. It will help weaken it. And like I said before – by weakening it, the obsession to drink and use, the compulsive thinking about it will go away.

Look at this list. I didn’t even give you 10 things to do each day. That means there is time for a movie, family, an outing, or a social activity with friends.

End each day with a hot bath (or shower if you don’t have a tub). In fact, whenever you feel your body uncomfortably tense and your legs are cramping, a hot bath will make you feel better.

And if you can’t sleep and feel crazy, go online. Intherooms.com as online meetings, groups, and members you can instant message with who can help you.

Check back. I will be posting here every week now.

 

 

 

 keep calm and stay sober

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Tips for Staying Clean through the Holiday Season

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Increase (not decrease) your meeting attendance.

Find out what is happening in your fellowship – marathon meetings, dances, social events. Whether you are seeing family or alone for the holidays, stopping by these events is an excuse to leave an uncomfortable situation early (if you have to be with family or in social situations where there is alcohol) and for newcomers it is an opportunity to meet members on a more social level and make new friends. Remember – volunteers are always needed and welcomed.

Ask around and you will hear about social gatherings and parties various members of your group will be having in their home. Usually someone is having a party or members are organizing group activities.

It is better to be tired from too much fellowshipping than rested and alone at home.

Pay attention to HALT (Don’t get too hungry, angry, lonely, or tired)

Don’t bottle up feelings. Tell people what is going on inside of you. (No one is sick of hearing it).

Be of service – Google volunteer organizations in your area. If you have free time, helping others will lighten your mood and energize you. Many places are happy to have one-time-only volunteers.

If you have to spend time with people who push your buttons or be in an active environment, prepare an exit strategy. Plan ahead to meet someone from your support group afterwards. Be accountable to someone.

If you are leaving town, get a meeting list for that area. Find an alternative place to stay so you have options if you need them – put the info in your phone (local taxi and hotel).

If you are newly clean/sober, stick close to your new friends in recovery. One holiday season away from your using and drinking friends won’t destroy the relationships that matter. Put yourself and your recovery first.

Keep phone numbers of your fellowship friends handy and use them to check in and stay connected.

Get fresh air and exercise daily to keep the blues away.

exercise

 

Don’t over-indulge in caffeine or sugar and drink plenty of water.

Set aside time to meditate or reflect on the positive changes you are making.

Gratitude is a mood changer.

be grateful

 

 

 

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