Tag Archives: disease

What do you mean I have to feel everything?

March 12, 2012All Things Recovery12 step, AA, addiction, Alcoholism, angry, clean, disease, Drugs, Feelings, fellowship, HALT, lonely, Narcotics Anonymous, Newcomers, obsession, recovery, Relapse, relationships, sober, Sobriety, Stress, support, thinking, tips, triggerpattypowers

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.

What’s that noise in my head?

February 29, 2012All Things Recovery12 step, AA, addiction, Alcoholism, anxiety, clean, disease, Drugs, exercise, Feelings, fellowship, health, lonely, meditate, Meditation, Narcotics Anonymous, obsession, panic attack, Powerless, recovery, Relapse, relationships, sober, Sobriety, Stress, support, tips, triggerpattypowers

When I got clean I sofa-surfed. There was never a shortage of people who needed a little help with their rent in exchange for a place to stay. After nine months, I moved into my own place: an apartment next to MacArthur Park in Los Angeles. The Asbury is a gorgeous art deco building in a city full of peach colored pre-fabricated stucco luxury slums. Six floors above the street with a view of the park, I felt like I was living on Central Park West. It was $400 a month. They offered indoor parking for an additional $50 but it seemed pointless for a ’68 Dodge Dart.

A year later, I realized I was sitting inches from my television with the volume turned to the max. I asked a friend in the building what was going on, if there was construction or something causing the racket. She laughed. There’d always been constant noise. If it wasn’t the traffic thundering down 6^th Street during the day, it was police helicopters over the park, or waking to middle-of-the-night police microphones shouting “Get out of the car with hands raised. Lay face down and chin up in the center of the street.” Apparently this was life at the Asbury. Shortly after this, walking several blocks from my car to the building at 3am, I noticed how sketchy my neighborhood was. Rifles wrappers on the stairs of my entrance, blood on the sidewalk. I got it – you didn’t pay to park to protect your car. You paid to protect your life. At the time the Rampart Division had the highest crime rate in the city.

It took eighteen months of being clean to land back into my body. I was present. It was an amusing new experience because I thought I had been present. The reason I hadn’t noticed the noise in my apartment for a year was because the noise in my head was twice as loud. As for my neighborhood, I was so used to bad neighborhoods and a certain element of danger when I was getting high that it was normal to me. Suddenly I felt visible. Not a good thing for a girl coming home from work at three in the morning.

There’s a lot to be said about landing back in your body. For one thing, it means you are no longer completely consumed by the noise in your head. The noise that blinds us to so much outside of ourselves. Being a captive audience to our internal dialogue is nice way of saying self-involved and self-absorbed. It’s something all addicts and alcoholics have in common. It’s not big news that when left unchecked after days in isolation, we can go straight back to that place even with years clean.

Let’s go back in time. At the end of our using, our inner dialogue distracted us from the simple fact that our lives were unbearable, and drugs kept us numb enough that we didn’t have to “feel” our loneliness. Inner conversations kept us company, kept us distracted, and helped to keep us loaded by repeatedly traveling down memory lane until we felt horrible and worthless, filled with regret and remorse. We’d revisit every single resentment (no matter how old) toward whoever we believed had done us wrong, and when that soundtrack ended we worried about money and drugs. Once we’d get high, these thoughts were replaced by fabulous future events in which we all somehow imagined we’d have our shit together. Our thoughts kept us company in the abusive relationship we were having with ourselves.

It makes sense when people say the disease of addiction lives between our ears. After our physical addiction is over, it’s our head that’s always searching for something to make feel uncomfortable enough that we start to think about using. It starts out subtle – a series of random thoughts eventually moving toward the usual repertoire of negativity and anguish or it fill us with so much fear and anxiety it feels like we can’t breathe. If the pain is great enough long enough we’ll start thinking about getting high – maybe just one time – to straighten our “head” out. In recovery, we can’t afford to let pain reach this level.

Remember how the noise increased when we were detoxing. We thought we were losing our minds, convinced we weren’t going to be able to handle the insanity without getting high. But – we did. As the days and weeks passed newly clean, the intensity of our inner dialogue lessened and we began to feel better. This happened because we were in twelve-step meetings, in rehab, in outpatient groups, with a therapist, or surrounded by loved ones. We weren’t doing this alone. By moving out of isolation and connecting to others, our head began to quiet.

When I started writing this blog, it was because I wanted to talk about anxiety – but it’s all sort of connected.

When we isolate in recovery, the old inner dialogue – the one that likes to torment us – returns. The funny thing is that most addicts and alcoholics will be the last to recognize that they have cut themselves off from the world for too long. Instead they try to control their thinking. They’ll throw themselves into a home project or into workaholic behavior, hoping that if they stay busy and not “think about anything” it will go away. And when this fails, addicts spin out of control until they are wracked by anxiety. A small problem or decision can get caught in the loop of obsessional thinking until it becomes so intense that you feel like you can’t even breathe. Sound familiar?

Ever lay in bed watching the clock, freaking out as hours continue to roll by, now adding the fear of sleeping in to the anxiety list. Ever arrive at a destination without any recollection of how you got there? What roads you took? Were the streets empty or did you pass anyone while walking? Stay so busy that the hours flew by and when you looked at the clock it was four-am and you had to wake up at seven? Making wrong turns, losing your phone, umbrella, keys? Spinning, spinning, spinning, so you don’t have to think? So you don’t have to feel? While you’re busy trying to make the thoughts go away you’re actually making the world disappear.

When you get to this state, do you call a friend, make plans to get out of yourself by spending time with another person, confide in another recovering addict? Most likely, these things won’t occur to you until you realize you’ve been thinking a drink would take the edge off, until you realize you really want to get high.

Most of us started out drinking and getting high in a social environment, at parties, clubs, with friends. In the end we used alone. In recovery, our solution was based on connecting with others but as time passes we often we drift back into our cocoon without realizing it. We tell ourselves we’re tired, that we need quality time alone. Though this may be true, if we aren’t connecting with others, it’s easy to slip back to old ways. Without warning, the noise returns. Never underestimate how powerful the disease is. That saying “an addict alone is in bad company” isn’t talking about a cozy weekend at the cottage with a book and a fireplace. It means endless days avoiding the phone and avoiding people until, like old times, we end up either consumed by anxiety or inside an existential bubble – watching life with detachment. Most of you know what I’m talking about – that peculiar feeling that we’ve become somehow estranged from the world and can’t get back.

There may be other mental health issues going on but next time you feel depressed or crippled by anxiety, take an inventory of the prior week. Have you spent too much time alone, are you avoiding friends, are you returning phone calls? When these uncomfortable feelings come up do you coddle them or do you take positive actions such as eating properly, fresh air, exercise. Are you going to meetings or connecting with your support group? Are you helping others in any way? Is there balance between work and play? If you have been having difficulty sleeping, what actions do you take besides listening to your endless inner-monologue.

In recovery, there are always actions we can take to not remain stuck in painful situations. The antidote usually begins by reaching out to another recovering addict or someone we trust who can help. Without action, our thinking often leads us back to using.

Eventually you become capable of enjoying time alone and a new desire will rise up to seek out ways to quiet the mind even more – though this time instead of quieting it to rid yourself of pain, you are seeking a deeper level of inner peace. There’s a huge difference between peace of mind and inner peace. You have to stick it out in recovery long enough to discover what that means.

LIFE WITHOUT DRUGS (21 days and counting)

January 21, 2012All Things Recovery12 step, A&E, AA, addiction, Alcoholism, clean, disease, Drugs, gratitude, HALT, health, lonely, Meditation, Narcotics Anonymous, Newcomers, obsession, reality tv, recovery, Relapse, sober, Sobriety, support, tips, triggerpattypowers

This week I’m going to continue the thread of my recent blog posts geared toward those people who got clean and sober on New Years Day, for anyone new to recovery, on a relapse, or those who are about to embark on this crazy voyage called life without drugs.

I love being stimulated and challenged and lose interest in anything that gets boring.. Having said this, I’ve yet to become bored with being in recovery. Life stays interesting and quirky enough to keep me engaged.

My first year clean was, by far, the most surreal. I had to experience everything: from learning how many pots of coffee a day were too many, to figuring out what my taste was now that I had money to buy clothes, to having sex without being loaded. Sure, I had to feel rejection, insecurity, and all the shit I’d rather avoid at all costs but I also got to forge bonds with people who are still my closest friends, act out scandalously in public, figure out who I was underneath my many personas and coats of armor – but really what turned me on the most was that for someone who’d experienced every aspect of life under the influence of something from 12-28, being off drugs was a lot like being on acid. It’s the equivalent to what an acid trip would be like for someone who’d never taken acid before. It made me laugh to realize that I, Patty Powers, was choosing not to use drugs over the option of using them. If anyone would have ever told me that this would be something I would choose, let alone want, I would have said they were crazy. Twenty-three years later, it still makes me chuckle. So, if you are just getting clean, enjoy the ride because life without drugs is often like a cross between a John Waters and a Fellini move. Our life is really the only thing real that we have – so why not experience all of it – the good, the bad and the ugly!

It’s the 21^st as I write this. Hopefully you’re still here and celebrating 21 days clean and sober.

If you relapsed, don’t let guilt, shame, and remorse stop you from starting over. Although relapse is not a requirement, it is a big reality with addiction. Relapse rates are high for addicts regardless of what avenue of recovery they pursue (and I’m talking everything from harm reduction to 12 Step Programs and everything in between). I come from the school of “never give up” because I have watched people struggle for years, constantly relapsing, and then one day they start putting time together and end up with years clean. Everyone has their own path, the main thing is to never give up hope that you can recover and have freedom from active addiction and alcoholism.

What happens to addicts after they relapse is that they torment themselves in a way that no one in the world could ever torment them. All those thoughts – how you fucked up, how bad you are, how you disappointed the few people who helped you in the program – are created by and are fueling the disease. These thoughts are set up to make you feel so bad about yourself that you’ll believe that only drugs can bring relief. Eventually, the drugs are no longer quieting your head. Other negative thoughts start creeping in and they’re all shame-based, dark, and really personal. They’ll keep tearing you down (inside your own mind) until you start feeling like you don’t deserve anything good. Remember – none of this stuff in your head is real. It’s how the disease operates. No different from one addict to the next. Trust me – if you go to a meeting, put up your hand and say you relapsed the negative voices will quiet down. In fact, if you start counting days clean again, chances are most of those thoughts will start disappearing within a week. The noise they are making right now is a mind trick to keep you using. The antidote to relapse is to call someone in recovery and tell them the truth.

Go back and reread my last two posts and try to follow the suggestions 100% and see if you don’t get different results this time. It’s worth a shot, right? What have you got to lose?

For those who have 21 days clean and sober today, congratulations. You should be getting some sleep by now. Feeling physically better. Your complaint, if anything, is probably that you’re exhausted from being so busy. You’d really like to take the weekend off from all this recovery stuff and lay in front of the TV. Go ahead, add some down time into your routine this weekend but still maintain the basics – eat well, get some fresh air and a little exercise, go to a meeting (or two). Call up some of your new friends in recovery and see if anyone wants to come and watch a movie and order pizza (or get a movie and spring the idea when you see them at a meeting).

Alone-time is great and everyone needs some – but addicts REALLY like alone time. Its easy when you’re new to suddenly be in front of the TV with the phone off for a whole day but after an entire day alone with your mind you’re suddenly too comfortable to go to a meeting. “I’ll hit two tomorrow” is usually how the rationalizing goes. Then it gets easier to just take the whole weekend off meetings. I mean – you’re home and not hurting yourself or thinking about getting high, right? Beware: this is how a lot of relapses start.

I’ve been known to watch 9 hours of Breaking Bad in a day so I get that whole “I just want a day to myself “ thing but early recovery is a whole different story. You are sort of in “recovery training camp” right now. Sticking to a regiment now will pay off later – because clean and sober, you’ll be free to choose whatever kind of life you want. Recovery will be part of your life – you won’t be standing at the shallow end of the pool learning how to swim.

Let’s review the past week – what have you been slacking off on and what are you doing about it this week? It’s really important to be putting in time with people you’ve met in meetings. If you haven’t been meeting people then you need to raise your hand and say that you haven’t been reaching out and need phone numbers. Don’t rush out the door when the meeting’s over. Linger. Let people talk to you. This week you should be feeling people out to find a temporary sponsor. The suggestions I made in the earlier blog posts will help you to have balance in your life, to feel more grounded, to feel healthier faster, and to keep you from having too much time in a dark room alone. It’s going to be the 12 Step fellowship you attend, the people you meet, and a sponsor who’ll take you through the steps that will keep you clean.

Diet and exercise alone will not keep you clean year after year, nor will a new relationship – so this week grab your cell phone, your email, your face to face encounters and really make an effort to connect to others and start building up friendships with people you can hang out with outside of the meetings. Nothing’s worse than a day off when you’re feeling a little lonely and the only people you know are ones you got high with. It’s up to you to make sure this doesn’t happen because it’s a bad set-up for relapse.

Everybody looking back knows how hard they worked for that first 30 days. You’ve been earning every single day you’ve been clean and sober. The odds to succeed, they say, are stacked against us but we do recover. We are the proof.

I also have a blog of personal stories. They are updated less frequently. http://www.pattypowersnyc.blogspot.com

Starting the 3rd Week Clean and Sober

January 15, 2012All Things Recovery12 step, A&E, AA, addiction, Alcoholism, clean, disease, Drugs, exercise, Feelings, fellowship, gratitude, HALT, health, meditate, meetings, Narcotics Anonymous, Newcomers, obsession, reality tv, recovery, Relapse, sober, Sobriety, triggerpattypowers

For anyone just checking into this blog for the first time, last week I wrote about what to expect for people who made Jan 1^st their first day clean. (Go to pattypowersnyc.com/my-blog to open up all previous blog posts). Hopefully this continuing thread will be useful to anyone newly clean or thinking about getting clean.

Let’s talk about physical withdrawal. How quickly your body snaps back to feeling normal is dependent on your drug of choice, how big your habit was, and how long you were doing it. Most likely, if you were coming off legal drugs, you did it at a detox center or by gradually lowering your dose over time with a doctor. It takes longer to feel physically better when you get clean from legal drugs (alcohol, painkillers, benzos, ambien, methadone, suboxone). Illegal drugs are quicker. Heroin is a horrible kick but after 3-4 days the worst of the dope sickness is over. Meth, coke, crack and club drugs have no real physical withdrawal – other than feeling completely run down. Vicodin-Addiction-Withdrawal-Symptoms-273x300

Getting clean is a lot more than getting the drugs out of the system – believe it or not, that’s the easy part. Most addicts have had to go without drugs for one reason or another so physical withdrawal is nothing new. The real hell is what happens in your head: the mental obsession. This is the inner torment and twisted logic which continually comes back around to the idea of giving up. You know – the voice that says you weren’t that bad, 12 step program’s aren’t for you, you can do it different this time and keep it under control, or just straight -up screams “Fuck this shit. I’m getting high and I’ll deal with this later.”

It’s the 15^th today, and if you got clean on New Year’s Day you’ve come to the end of your second week. 15 days clean! You’ve probably noticed by now that you stopped late-night weeping over the time in 1999 when your parent’s sent you hard-earned birthday money that you spent on drugs, or the hospital visit or funeral you missed because you were too loaded, or any number of long-forgotten memories of things you fucked up or people you disappointed. These crept into your head whenever you tried sleeping those first 8 or 9 days clean. Haunting regret arrives the 2^nd or 3^rd day clean and creates so much inner noise and torment that it makes you want to get high just to escape it. I mean, seriously, if this is what it’s going to feel like to be clean, to have to live with all these horrible feelings and thoughts – why do it? But, as you see, they start to lose their power during the second week clean. Aren’t you glad you stuck it out? Oh, they’ll sneak back into your head from time to time but it won’t be as debilitating because now you have the experience to know that these things do pass. You’ll hear that expression a lot in meetings “This too shall pass.” Now you know what they mean.

I bet you probably still aren’t sleeping or not getting much, if any. I didn’t sleep either. I took little cat-naps for four or five months. It may have been withdrawal or maybe it was all the late night after-meeting espresso I was drinking. Who’s to say? I promise though, you will sleep again.

Did you follow the suggestions I left last week? They’ll help speed up your physical recovery and lift your spirits out of the darkness. If you didn’t and you still feel crazy and your body feels like shit, do it this week and see if you can feel a difference. It’s important to have a daily plan – an addict new to recovery with too much time alone, too much time alone with their mind, with an idle body and a lousy diet will not fare well. This doesn’t mean you won’t stay clean but you’re making a choice to make this process harder on yourself. Plus, if you don’t see things getting better, you’ll convince yourself that it sucks to be clean and lose the desire to keep trying. The most common bullshit addicts tell themselves when they decide to use again is “If it gets bad, I know what to do.” (meaning: get clean and go to meetings). There are two flaws in this logic. One, they are forgetting what “if it gets bad” really means. It means loss, suffering and more pain. Two, how long did they fantasize about getting clean before they ever got around to doing it this time? Months? Years? How long will it take before they are ready to try again, really? So if you didn’t follow the suggestions in last week’s post, maybe now is a good time to commit to them. Feel better physically and mentally, and start creating new habits to fill your time. Remember staying clean works by having the willingness to go to any lengths – which means doing things people suggest that worked for them even when you don’t want to.

“Nothing happens until something moves.” -Einstein

If you did follow the suggestions you’ve been eating 3 times a day and drinking a lot of water, you’ve been getting outside for a walk every day, you exercised at least 3 times, you’ve had some quiet time, you’ve been to at least one meeting a day and you’ve started building some friendships up with people who are clean and sober. So what’s going to change going into week three?

What you eat affects your energy and your mood. I‘m going to emphasize diet this week because you want to feel better – right?

If you’ve been piling on lumberjack-size portions at every meal, look out. Everyone starts to freak out at 30 days that they have gained a ton of weight. I believe that, in some respect, the body’s in shock and the metabolism isn’t up to par but I also know that 3 pieces of pie or potatoes at two meals a day is going to put on the pounds regardless of your metabolism. It’s fine to load yourself up on food the first couple of weeks. I always make large portions for my clients because I am trying to help them land back into their body and feel a little grounded but by week three it starts to change. This week I want you to have salad with 2 meals a day. I don’t care if it’s a small salad on the side of your plate or a large bowl. If you hate lettuce, slice some tomatoes and cucumbers or any fresh raw vegetable – I don’t care what it is – have a small portion of raw vegetables with lunch and dinner (or a larger salad sometime during your evening). I want you to also have cooked vegetables twice a day with your lunch and dinner. This doesn’t have to be huge. It can be a small portion – but not canned vegetables. I am not counting yams or potatoes as vegetables. In fact, whenever you have yams, potatoes, rice or pasta, make those portions smaller than you have been doing your first two weeks clean (if you were loading up on them). Don’t stuff yourself full of bread as a meal either. I am not putting you on a diet by the way. Just have regular sized meals that include salad and vegetables. Fresh fruit is good with breakfast, and as a snack. Be sure to eat fresh fruit at least twice a day – during or between meals. If you eat fruit daily, you’ll notice you’re less likely to grab for pastries or sweets. One of these days I will do a blog specifically about food since it can improve mental clarity, energy and it’s a fact that poor diet contributes to depression.

Fresh air and walking: did you get outside much last week? I don’t mean walking from the car to the door. Did you go for walks like I suggested? This week I want you to walk further. Add ten to fifteen minutes to last week’s walk. It’s Day 15 – you can do it.

What about exercise? If you skipped this one last week, this is the week to really give it your best shot. Whatever you decided to do – swim, jog, the gym – make sure you do it 30-45 minutes three to four times this week. It’s going to alleviate anxiety and help you sleep better. Remember your pleasure receptors have been messed up with drugs so you want to get them activated again. Hitting an endorphin high with exercise will not only feel good but it will start repairing the damage you’ve caused. Any age, but especially if you are over 30 – make sure you stretch before and after your work out. You can find stretching techniques online.

Meetings and fellowship: did you go every day? If you didn’t, what was your excuse for not going? Did you use every day? You should definitely go as much as you used. They suggest 90 meetings in 90 days for a reason. It takes 90 days to create or break a habit. Plus, the truth is, if you go every day, you’ll start to know people and they’ll notice if you stop coming around and call you – but no one will call you if they don’t know you. They’ll also notice when you feel like shit and ask what’s going on. It’s better to have people watching out for you than being self-reliant because as smart as you are, you couldn’t figure out how to control your using/drinking. In fact, your best thinking got you here. Learning how to live with the joys and disappointments in life without getting high over them takes time. Which brings me to:

Have you been calling any of the people you met in meetings? Have you gone out for coffee or a snack with anyone or with a group after a meeting yet? This is the hardest thing for many addicts/alcoholics who are newly clean and sober but it is the one thing that will help you to stay clean. I know – you don’t relate. You think half of them are assholes. You wouldn’t have gone to a bar with any of them. You’d have never gotten high with them. Well, this may be true but remember – you may know a lot of things about a lot of things but you don’t know how to stay clean and they do. Let them teach you how. This week make an effort to get to know a few people. Go out one or two times with people from your meetings. You don’t have to stay long. Just make the effort. It might make a difference between staying clean or getting loaded this week. (By the third week I’m with a client I make them go on “play dates” without me. It’s hell getting them to do it. Unlike them, you haven’t had me taking you out with a group of people every night after meetings so you probably aren’t at this stage yet. If you are, terrific – keep building up your support group. If you aren’t, make this week a week where you at least go out with the group one time. Definitely start calling some of the people on your list.

Yoga: Ha, I could actually see you cringe as I wrote that word. If you have an ounce of adventure in your spirit, go to one class somewhere this week. Everyone else, go to Youtube, the library, a yoga or book store and get a dvd of the easiest yoga they have out there and try it at home. Just give it one try and see how you feel afterward. If you spend a lot of time at the computer, you’ll feel your shoulders open up in a way they haven’t in years. You’ll feel all the tension you’ve been carrying around leave. Doesn’t that sound appealing? Tai Chi is another thing that works your core and reduces stress. Just try something this week. You can knock off one workout if you do it.

If you have the money, this week treat yourself to a massage. There are schools that charge a low fee. See what’s available where you are located. It’s a treat but you’ve worked hard to get here. Plus, it’s like having someone take the psychic sludge off your Being that you’ve been piling on while you were using. Ha – that sounds hippy-dippy but there’s something to it.

By staying busy with this schedule, you’ll have less time for mental torture. It will still come up but like I mentioned earlier, these thoughts will pass. Any real wreckage from your past will get taken care of once you find a sponsor and start working the steps. Rome wasn’t built in a day and you don’t have to clean up your entire life this week. Keep the focus on right now. This is a time where you are taking baby steps to learn how to live without drugs and alcohol. It is a HUGE positive thing you are doing. Don’t diminish it by telling yourself you’re a fuck up and things will never get better. They will. You’ll see.

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

Have a great week.

FIRST WEEK CLEAN AND SOBER

January 7, 2012All Things Recovery12 step, addiction, Alcoholism, angry, clean, disease, Drugs, exercise, family, Feelings, fellowship, fresh air, gratitude, health, lonely, meetings, Narcotics Anonymous, Newcomers, obsession, recovery, relationships, sober, Stress, support, waterpattypowers

THIS 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 1^st your first day clean and sober, I applaud you. I bet when you made that decision you were feeling pretty optimistic. It’s the 6^th 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 1^st. 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.

More Holiday Thoughts

December 7, 2011All Things Recovery12 step, AA, addiction, clean, disease, Feelings, HALT, holidays, meetings, more, Narcotics Anonymous, Newcomers, NYC, obsession, panic, Powerless, recovery, Relapse, sober, Stress, support, thinkingpattypowers

I posted two blogs already about the holidays but the amount of email and conversations I have lately seem to keep going back to this subject. Here is what I noticed: people who have been clean and sober for a period of time (18 months or more) have a built in memory of the sneakiness of the disease at this time of year so they have upped their recovery time, maybe by going to more meetings or by making extra effort to connect with their sponsor and support group. They are not living in fear of the holidays – they are simply taking the actions needed for a smoother ride through the month. Almost everyone I know who has less than a year down to early days in recovery do not seem to think the holidays are going to be an issue for them. Some have even thought it out logically and are convinced that all this ‘high alert” stuff program people keep talking about will not apply to them.

I don’t fault the newcomers for it. From their point of view, they are being honest in how they feel. What they don’t seem to have yet is an awareness of how the disease of addiction continues to lurk, waiting for an opportunity to strike. Before I got clean, the insanity in my thinking and the level of stress I experienced was intense and only seemed to hit a level of calm and clear thinking after I used. Part of this was because the stress of withdrawal was removed by using but since the disease lives in the obsession/compulsion part of my mind it would come up again even while I was high – to get more, to say that amount wasn’t enough or it wasn’t strong enough – get more. Basically, the disease really only ever had one thing to say “MORE” and the rest of me – body spirit and mind – was enslaved to make it happen. Trying to exert control over it “I’ll get more tonight” resulted in a subtle level of mental agony and physical discomfort until the whole idea of getting more “tonight” turned into “getting more within the hour”. I’m sure we all know what it was like to be controlled by the disease, cave in to the compulsion and obsession by putting everything we wanted to do second to feeding the disease. When we first stop using, we are so amazed to look back at how completely enslaved we had been. We recognize how – despite our intelligence – the disease was more powerful. So we get clean and around the holidays, a sort of amnesia comes over us in early recovery. We can’t seem to connect with how powerless we had been. We feel like the disease is in the past (if it even is a disease) because we’ve been free from that level of obsession and compulsion for a while. In fact, most days, we feel all right.

“What’s this holiday panic we hear about in meetings?” This is how the disease works – newcomers often hear the experience of old-timers as if we are all panic-stricken about the holidays, living in fear of using. Meanwhile, this “panic” is not happening. People with clean time are simply stating that this is the time of year to be vigilant because the disease is “cunning powerful and baffling” and is capable of sneaking in and gaining a foothold if we are complacent about recovery. We say this because we have years of experience going through various feelings, early recovery emotional rollercoasters, core issue trauma and pain surfacing out of nowhere at this time of year and we have watched many people relapse. Old-timers are not biting their nails anticipating crisis. Instead we acknowledge the power of the disease and do what we have been told so that we can stay one step ahead of it – so it can be a smooth sailing holiday season. But – the newcomer doesn’t hear this – the newcomer hears fear but since they don’t feel the fear themselves this must not apply to them. This warning must be meant for someone else who is new at the meeting. Not them. But this line of thinking is precisely how the disease gains foothold, making them believe they are the exception to the rule. Closing their mind to recovery tools that will strengthen and protect them.

What I know as an addict with 23 years clean who has watched numerous friends with 20 years relapse, is that when it comes to the disease, we are never fully free of it. It lurks in the shadows of our Being waiting for ways to make the “program” experience of others no longer apply to us, as if we are cured. Someone’s advice on jobs, dating, or financial matters – it really may not apply to me. But their experience with recovery usually does. I am not immune to relapse but as long as I continue to take actions the disease can not blind me and move me away from recovery, there’s a good chance I will stay clean.

This time of year – if you are new to recovery and you hear people sharing about their struggles during the holiday season recognize that this sharing is recovery in action. If you feel fine but notice yourself attending less meetings, feeling like you are “over” some of your friendships with people you’ve met at meetings and decide it’s time to clean house on your cell phone, you start spending a lot of time alone because it feels better than being with others – beware. Take the opposite action to what your head is telling you is true.

If you are new and starting to feel like this recovery job takes up too much time and you miss the simplicity of your life before you got clean – this sort of thinking will put you in a dangerous place this month. Even if it’s true you that miss your old life and old friends and hate going to so many meetings – do yourself a favor, put in the extra time this holiday season and trust me – it won’t always be like this. Being self reliant shouldn’t come so early in recovery. Remember – your best thinking is why you ended up in meetings in the first place. This holiday season, keep and open mind and let experience members guide you. This is not the time to do it alone.

Feelings: Family & Holidays Triggers

November 25, 2011All Things Recovery12 step, A&E, AA, addiction, Alcoholism, clean, disease, Drugs, family, Feelings, gratitude, health, holidays, Meditation, Narcotics Anonymous, NYC, reality tv, recovery, Relapse, sober, Sobriety, triggerpattypowers

Q. I am new to sobriety and lately at meetings all I’m hearing about is how hard the holidays are. Why is everybody freaking out?

A. The danger of any experience that triggers feelings of fear, shame, guilt, remorse, and negative thoughts about oneself is that they fuel the disease and can lead to
relapse. As active addicts, we used over uncomfortable feelings.

Everyone has different trigger times. For some people, a birthday can awaken inner criticism of having not achieved certain goals. Being without a date on a Saturday night can trigger feelings of loneliness, insecurity and escalate to fears of dying alone.

Holidays are a minefield for intense emotion and affect most recovering addicts and alcoholics. Anyone experiencing a first holiday season clean/sober is especially
vulnerable. The trigger for many is family – whether missing them from a distance or visiting them for the twentieth time, a lifetime of memories and feelings surface: joy, love, and excitement, anger, shame, guilt, old resentments, unfulfilled expectations, sadness and loss for those who have passed away.

The disease grabs onto any feeling of discomfort, magnifies it, and then judges us for having it. While caught up in this inner turmoil, it seems like people who are drinking are the only ones having a good time. This is why it is strongly recommended to stick close to your sober support group, plan ahead and map out meetings wherever you are going, have on hand alternative places to stay if the family environment is difficult and remember – it is OK to leave a party early.

Part of relapse prevention is to share whatever is making you uncomfortable – if it is fear of going home for the holidays, work parties, loneliness, or thoughts of drinking or using. Sharing on a group level takes the negative power away and lessens the fear. It also invites experienced members to take you aside and tell you how they handled similar situations in recovery.

When you hear people in meetings sharing their fears you are witnessing recovery in action. This is what works to keep people clean and sober.

Tips for Staying Clean through the Holiday Season

November 25, 2011All Things Recovery12 step, A&E, addiction, Alcoholism, angry, clean, disease, Drugs, exercise, family, Feelings, fellowship, fresh air, gratitude, HALT, health, hungry, lonely, marathon meetings, meditate, Narcotics Anonymous, NYC, reality tv, recovery, Relapse, relationships, support, tips, tired, trigger, waterpattypowers

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.

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.