Tag Archives: lonely

When You’re in Recovery but They’re Not

April 22, 2015All Things Recovery12 step, A&E, AA, addiction, alcoholics anonymous, Alcoholism, angry, anxiety, clean, fellowship, gratitude, HALT, health, heroin, lonely, meditate, Meditation, meetings, Narcotics Anonymous, Newcomers, obsession, Powerless, recovery, Relapse, relapse prevention, relationships, tipspattypowers

The following post is based on a series of conversations that keep popping up lately. I use a masculine pronoun but this story is not gender specific. Perhaps this blog will hit home for some people new to recovery. To be clear, the situation I’m describing involves having a partner who’s a casual consumer of substances – not someone heavily dependent or in the grips of their own addiction.

You did it. You’re finally clean and sober. What an achievement! Maybe you’ve even been exercising, hitting some yoga classes, and spending as much time as you can with your new sober friends. In fact, the only thing that feels shitty is going home to your partner.

Driving home you find yourself praying his car won’t be in the driveway. Sometimes just the thought of him unleashes a flood of negative feelings you swallow down. You walk into the house and feel the hate rising when you see him. Oblivious, he smiles and asks how the meeting went. Then he gets up to give you a kiss and inwardly you collapse into confusion, wondering if you’re going to have to divorce him. You see, he isn’t tormented over his substance use and has no desire to stop. Because he suffered through your suffering, he was 100% behind your decision to get clean. Compared to what you’ve heard from other people in recovery, you have it easy. No complaints when you head out to a 12-step meeting after dinner, always willing to watch the kids, to leave parties early, and not force you to go anywhere you feel jeopardizes your recovery. Yet, you resent him so much for not offering to quit using for you that you’ve convinced yourself the clock’s ticking on this relationship. When you aren’t angry, you feel guilty or jealous. Sometimes you start wondering if being sober is worth it.

Do you remember what motivated you to enter into recovery? It was the solution to your pain and suffering. Try not to lose sight of this simple truth. After you’ve been sober for a short time and the pain diminishes, you may get amnesia and forget why you are sober. What’s really happening is that with the pain of using gone, you’re starting to experience an avalanche of feelings. This is the “roller-coaster” you hear people in recovery talking about. Usually it’s like being hit by waves of anxiety and depression. Your mind will try to search for something to blame it on. Fear of feelings always underlies our attempts at control. If we can figure out who or what is at the source of our emotional discomfort, we can get rid of it. Or in this case, get rid of him. The disease-mind will start laser focusing on the problem and convince you that you have two choices – leave him or drink. Black and white thinking. Divorce or drink.

While it’s normal to feel disappointed that you can’t always get what you want, you do have a choice about whether to see the glass half full or half empty. Loving support is valuable. Stay in conscious gratitude for anything that is making it easier for you to attend to your sober needs. At this time keep the focus on yourself and stay close to your support system. Continue to exercise, meditate, go to meetings and talk about your feelings with your sober friends and therapist (if you have one). Remember, no one responds well to the pressure of recruitment. Try to accept that for now he may not have the same relationship to drugs and alcohol that you have. If he isn’t suffering, he isn’t suffering – and without a private pain connected to his using, there’s nothing to motivate him into recovery. Very few people surrender in any kind of real way if it is forced upon them. No one knows what the future holds but one thing is true – the disease-mind uses words like “never” and “forever” in connection to all unpleasant feelings and difficult life situations. This is untrue. Our lives (and our inner-lives) are ever-changing. Keep the focus on yourself. Practice patience and tolerance, and apply the golden rule by treating him with the love compassion and respect that you want for yourself. Stay close to your support and allow time to pass. More will be revealed.

The emotional roller-coaster has very little to do with anything other than your brain chemistry responding to being cut off from drugs and alcohol. It will eventually come to an end and your emotions will stabilize. You’ll experience moments of equanimity and be able to assess your situation, your needs, and your relationship more clearly. This may be a time to consider couples’ therapy to work through any distress that may linger.

Applying “live and let live” isn’t always easy, especially when it involves your intimate romantic relationship or life partner. As a newcomer it’s better to trust in the process of recovery and allow some time to pass rather than take impulsive actions in response to chaotic feelings. Avoid causing irreparable damage you may regret.

You’re sure “busy” isn’t going to kill me?

January 14, 2015All Things Recovery12 step, AA, addiction, alcoholics anonymous, Alcoholism, angry, anxiety, clean, depression, disease, Drugs, exercise, Feelings, gratitude, HALT, heroin, lifestyle, lonely, meetings, Narcotics Anonymous, Newcomers, Powerless, recovery, Relapse, relapse prevention, relationships, sober, sober strategies, Sobriety, Stress, substance abuse, support, tips, triggerpattypowers

I began 2014 with a commitment to spend the year blogging more about how to enrich an already clean and sober lifestyle – how to have more fun and increase feelings of wellbeing. For 2015 I want to get back to basics and address early recovery – creating coping skills, what to expect, and how to ride out the tough spots without relapsing.

There is a misconception that the majority of people who get clean do it as part of a New Year’s resolution. If that were the case, every January there would be ridiculous amounts of people celebrating anniversaries in 12-Step programs. I’m talking out of the ballpark numbers. The truth is, attendance at most 12-Step meetings doesn’t go up noticeably in January. My guess is that many addicts spend January and February deep in self-loathing for not being able to comprehend why their countless attempts to control or abstain keep failing. Maybe January is a month for New Year Resolutionists to hit bottom. This year my blog is geared to helping people create lifestyle changes to support sustainable recovery, ease stress, and put an end to isolation.

Whenever I begin working with new clients one of my goals is to create new healthy lifestyle habits, create a weekly routine and to guide them through their resistance to all of it. There’s a predictable pattern. They start out willing to do whatever I suggest because they want to stay clean and sober and are motivated by fear of failure. A couple weeks into this routine and they’re complaining that they’re exhausted, that they can’t keep going at this pace without everything in their life falling apart, and that I can’t possibly understand how serious this is. I call this the “whiney phase’. This is when we fine-tune the routine to make sure there’s enough balance so they’re not in a genuine prolonged state of HALT (hungry angry lonely tired). This crankiness (which usually occurs between 14-30 days) passes and the benefits of implementing these new activities begin kicking in to bring on good feelings and a noticeable lessening of stress.

Anyone’s who been to rehab remembers the intense daily schedules – moving from one activity to the next. God knows I never was happy to be doing jumping jacks in a rainy yard early in the morning. Every day the addicts would get together and complain that the seemingly pointless daily routine business was because they needed to justify keeping us for 30 plus days.

Here is why it is important to create a weekly schedule in early recovery:

1. The worst-case scenario is for a newly sober addict to have hours pass with nothing to do except think. The disease is still very strong and loud in the weeks following that last drug or drink. The “feed me feed me feed me” mantra is the basis of restlessness, anxiety, depression, insomnia, mood swings, even physical symptoms of extended withdrawal. It can make us believe a headache is surely evidence of the need for a future lobotomy. And the worst part of all of this inner chatter is that left alone, our humor about ourselves dwindles rapidly. Taking the “edge off” becomes appealing and less frightening.

2. Exercise, yoga, meditation, healthy eating, time with friends, leisure time for activities (sports/movies/live music/dancing/comedy), 12-step meetings (or whatever recovery support groups you attend) added onto your daily routine will promote energy, mental clarity, reduce stress, improve sleep and leave you less time to think about yourself in negative ways. Regardless of what hopeless negative chatter your mind may want to kick up, you will have evidence that each day you are staying on point and are willing to go to ANY LENGTH to stay clean and move toward goals of happiness, inner peace, and freedom from fear of feelings. Your daily life is recovery in action.

How does all of this begin – especially for people who are new to recovery doing this on their own?

Create a hard copy (pen and paper) weekly calendar and a copy into your cell calendar with notifications. Each morning set alarm reminders on your phone for activities, appointments, meetings etc. Find a system that works for you. The main thing is that you plan your week ahead of time so you don’t spontaneously over-commit yourself at the expense of screwing up your day.

Here is an example of a weekly recovery plan.

Make a list of 12-Step (or alternative) meetings you will attend for one week. This way you won’t agree to working overtime or driving the kids without knowing what is at stake and having time to find an alternative meeting you can put into your schedule rather than believing you’ve screwed up and now have to miss the meeting. Remember – sustainable recovery is something you build through effort. By sticking to this early recovery lifestyle to-do list you have daily evidence that recovery IS your priority no matter what negative crap goes on in your head.

In your weekly planner include 30-60 minutes a day outside (walking, exercising, relaxing). Include 3-5 hour slots for fitness (whatever that looks like for you).

Make time to spend with other recovering addicts/alcoholics and a checklist of new people to contact via email, on www.intherooms.com chat, phone calls. Reach out and try to build a support group.

Always plan so that you have food and time to eat. Skipping meals or waiting too long to eat tends to make people cranky, outright angry, or weepy.

If you feel like you have been running non-stop to get everything done from the minute your alarm went off until you are about to turn in – take an extra 20 minutes to unwind with some music, YouTube a calming guided meditation, take a relaxing bath, or create your own end of day chill out space to reflect and unwind.

In the coming weeks I will elaborate on every activity that helps strengthen recovery and explain not only how to do it without it costing any money but also what the short and long-term payoffs are.

Remember – within the first couple weeks of following a daily recovery routine it’s normal to feel exhausted and overwhelmed and want to crawl back in bed and say fuck it. Power through this phase. Remember the agony of creating healthy habits is temporary and nothing compared to the agony of wanting to get clean and being unable to surrender again.

Amnesia and the Holidays

December 23, 2014All Things Recovery12 step, AA, addiction, alcoholics anonymous, Alcoholism, angry, anxiety, clean, depression, disease, Drugs, family, Feelings, fellowship, HALT, health, heroin, holidays, lonely, Narcotics Anonymous, Newcomers, panic attack, Powerless, recovery, Relapse, relapse prevention, sober, sober celebration, Sobriety, Stress, substance abuse, support, tips, triggerpattypowers

I wonder how many people reading this pre-Christmas blog are thinking about giving up their clean time to “enjoy” a few drinks over the holidays?

I wrote, “enjoy” in quotes because when the disease speaks to us it tends to create advertising strategies that would rival the Mad Men of Madison Avenue. For example, a couple years ago I was passing a park in New York City when the smell of weed hit me and a voice in my head responded with, “That smells RELAXING”. It was such an absurd adjective to describe weed that I recognized it as an impulsive ploy by the disease to try to get me to relapse. In fact, immediately following the word “relaxing” came “All you have to do is walk into that park and take a hit off that joint and you won’t have to write a recovery book and you can walk away from all the pressures that come with being self-employed“. Of course there is more to the story – it was the 4th of July and I hadn’t made plans so I was feeling sorry for myself and a little lonely. I was exhausted and hadn’t had a day off in ages and I did have a lot of writing deadline pressure – in a sense, it was a perfect storm of ongoing stress and HALT for the disease to gain a bit of a voice again (after 23 years clean). This is what is meant when we tell newcomers to respect the power of the disease – it’s always looking for a way to regain control. I loved heroin but if it takes weed to get me back to heroin, then the relapse-strategy of the disease will use weed. If you were a meth addict, a glass of wine will appear harmless by comparison (in the strategy of the disease mind). Pay attention to the way you think about drugs and alcohol this holiday season. The subtle use of language in your head is a trick the disease will try to use to gain traction. It’s part of the disease’s seduction.

It might use the color of wine or the rarely used holiday cocktail glasses you see at a party to get your attention or the jolly bar scene that appears through the window as you pass by on a snowy night. Rarely will the disease let you equate Christmas “cheer” with a syringe or a crack pipe. Instead, it will suggest partaking in the midnight champagne toast on New Years, or spiked eggnog on Christmas. Maybe it will start by tricking you into eating a dessert that you already know is dosed with rum. Recovering addicts and alcoholics can’t afford to get amnesia over the holidays. We must be alert to our actions and tell on the bargaining voice that assures us that we “are not in danger”.

Amnesia is how relapse begins.

I am currently with someone who is in withdrawal from Suboxone. When she started to use pills after several years clean, she’d convinced herself that the emotional pain and discomfort she was experiencing (over romantic disappointment) was greater than the pain of opiate withdrawal. Another way amnesia plays into relapse is that it distorts the hellish process we went through before we were ever able to summon the courage to get through detox. You know – the voice that says “It’s okay to drink throughout the holidays because you can get sober again in the New Year”. We forget all the times we tried to get clean but couldn’t make it 48 hours before giving up.

This holiday blog is meant as a reality check for anyone who is bargaining with himself or herself over whether or not to drink or get high this holiday season.

Yesterday was my friend’s first day off of 2 mgs of Suboxone (which, by the way, she got down to through an outpatient detox of 6 weeks. This involved a weekly taper which was equal to low level withdrawal misery). Last night she continually shifted from the bed to the floor, to the tub, to blankets, to no blankets while she went from sweating to freezing. It brought it back home to me – that horrible sensation of being so uncomfortable in your bones that no position allows for sleep. I could hear her moan, whimper, and weep all night long. There’s no way through it except through it – and by late tonight the worst will be over. Hopefully by Christmas she is through the physical withdrawal because we’ll be able to address the anxiety and depression that always follows detox by going to meetings and using stress reduction tools. A year ago when she relapsed, she really believed her emotional pain was so great that the only thing that could relieve it was a narcotic. Watching her pay the price for this error of judgment last night was heartbreaking. Alone with our mind, our disease will always suggest that life is more painful than active addiction. This is the amnesia I speak of. This is the lie.

Cravings always come about as a result of feelings and lack of self-care. When I talk about holidays being trigger times, I don’t mean that they will come in obvious ways. Instead, they’ll appear as an advertising campaign equating joy and community, intimacy and alcohol OR they will be in response to feelings of insecurity around specific people we have a history with, or in response to the void we feel around the grief of people who are no longer here. Cravings will kick up around loneliness, grief, disappointment, insecurity, hopelessness, and future fears. It will appear as nostalgia for a time when drugs and alcohol worked to bring relief and intensify good times, nostalgia for youth and innocence. The cravings will not be obvious connect-the-dots stuff. It might be a certain smell, or a body memory, or self pity that gets a voice in your head rationalizing how you can control it this time, stop when you want, use one drug and avoid others.

You do not have to be the victim of addict amnesia. There are tools to address every feeling, a fellowship and a community of people in your support network to share your deepest fears with, preventative actions and exit strategies you can put into place before stepping into environments where there are people drinking and using this holiday season. And most of all – minimize your time alone no matter how long you have been sober. Even if you insist that holidays have no power of you, the disease knows where you are vulnerable. It will manufacture a pro-alcohol advertising campaign in your thoughts while creating amnesia so that it’s impossible to get a reality check on what is truly at stake if you relapse.

Have a safe and happy holiday. Reach out. Volunteer. Don’t be alone.

Relapse and Suicide

September 3, 2014All Things Recovery12 step, AA, addiction, alcoholics anonymous, Alcoholism, anxiety, depression, disease, Drugs, Feelings, fellowship, gratitude, health, heroin, holidays, hopelessness, lonely, meetings, Narcotics Anonymous, Newcomers, Powerless, recovery, Relapse, relationships, sober, Sobriety, Stress, substance abuse, suicide, suicide and relapse, suicide prevention, support, tipspattypowers

World Suicide Prevention Day is coming up on Sept 10^th. If you have been in recovery for a while chances are you’ve known someone who has committed suicide while on a relapse. In fact, it’s not unusual to have been touched by suicide even before coming into recovery. A life spent in both active addiction and recovery carries within it a lot of tragedy and grief. There’s usually a body count.

We know that drugs kill yet I have seen many people protect their own recovery by avoiding friends who have relapsed. They may reach out once or twice but when the friend doesn’t get clean right away, they get cut off. I’m not suggesting that people in recovery need to open their lives up to the level of drama an active addict can bring into it but I do think it’s important to open up a discussion around what we can do for our suffering friends. The loneliness, hopelessness and self-hate may be what bring them back into recovery but it may also be a level of pain (especially after having lost substantial clean time) that makes the idea of suicide an option to them.

I’ve had several friends commit suicide while they were on relapses. One had tried getting clean repeatedly and had burned out most of his friends by the time he killed himself. He’d been a popular well-liked guy and the funeral was attended by at least a hundred recovering addicts. His closest friends were racked with guilt for having cut him off but believed it was the only way they could maintain personal sanity. The question on everyone’s lips was “What could we have done?”

It’s important to have boundaries, especially with people who are in active addiction. No one wants someone showing up at the door unannounced, constantly being asked for money, or having to live in fear of break-ins and theft. But we can’t forget the loneliness and hopelessness of active addiction. Small acts of kindness go a long way – and it can be done without surrendering your safety or sanity. A regular phone call, dropping by with some sandwiches, offering to accompany them to detox or a 12-step meeting can be done with support from other recovering addicts. By showing unconditional love they’ll know they can come to you when they’re ready to get clean. It requires a level of commitment to be consistent with contact – whether daily, once a week, or you divide it up among friends. It’s important that the person on a relapse knows they can call you to talk about anything without being judged. But remember, when it comes to thoughts of suicide, many addicts hold them secret. They may never confide these thoughts to you because their experience has taught them they will be judged for having suicidal feelings. Look online or contact a local suicide prevention center and ask if they have an information card that you can give to someone you are worried about. It’s okay to hand this to your friend and say “I don’t know if you would ever tell me if you feel like killing yourself but keep this card if these thoughts ever come up”. Also tell them you will always take them to the hospital if they ever feel like they are a danger to themselves. Check the laws in your area to see if they have a 72-hour psychiatric watch in place for people suspected of being a danger to themselves or others and get information on it. Some states call this the Baker Act. If your friend refuses to re-enter recovery, suggest seeing a therapist to treat depression. If you can get them to do this, it is one step closer to helping them move toward recovery.

Handling a friend who’s on a relapse requires unconditional love, patience, and compassion with boundaries. A group effort is less emotionally taxing. Do not neglect your own self-care. Share your feelings with others. While ultimately we are powerless over what another person does, we are not powerless to provide them with information and options. Relapse is reversible but suicide is not.

Laughter Matters!

July 10, 2014All Things Recovery12 step, AA, addiction, afterpartychat, alcoholics anonymous, Alcoholism, Anna David, Bill Hicks, depression, Drugs, Feelings, fellowship, gratitude, HALT, health, heroin, laughter, lonely, Marc maron, Narcotics Anonymous, Newcomers, Powerless, recovery, Relapse, sober, Sobriety, stand-up comedians, Stress, substance abuse, support, WTF podcastpattypowers

How do YOU get your laugh on?
I’m not talking about a few chuckles. I’m talking about the spontaneous kind of laughter that comes from deep inside – when the release your body experiences is so overwhelming it feels like you might start crying. And during that split second of emotion it’s almost scary to lose control. But we don’t cry. In fact we feel so alive that we keep waiting and hoping it will happen again. It’s such a transformative experience we can’t wait to share it with people. “You’ve got to see____ you will pee yourself.” “I laughed so hard it hurts.” Laughter always makes us feel better.

Let’s face it – being a grown-up is a lot of work and it can get pretty serious keeping it all together, so much responsibility, people depending on you, jobs to be done, errands to be run – we all have so much to do. Even the good stuff gets added onto the never-ending to-do list. Worked out – check. Yoga – check. Manicure – check. Paid bills – check. Returned calls – check. The list never ends. While it’s satisfying to complete tasks, sometimes you just have to bust out of the “life-is-a job” routine and laugh until it hurts.

At 7 years clean the novelty of self-care and even working a program seemed to have fallen into the “to-do list” category. It was a cold dark winter. I was sick of healing myself 24 hours a day. Winter depression was sneaking in and because I was afraid it would kick my butt I went to the video store (yes it was that long ago) and began renting old comedies and my entre attitude began to change. These days I get my laugh on by Youtubing stand-up comedians, going to comedy clubs, and listening to podcast interviews with comedians (who are often in recovery). I want to use this week’s blog to bring some laughter into your life to help release the stress you’ve been carrying around. Spend an hour with a stand-up comedian and enjoy an hour not spent thinking about you. It pays off.

Comedy is subjective. What makes one person laugh their ass off may not get a chuckle out of the next person. So find what works for you and indulge yourself. Really great comedians are the philosophers of our time. Not only will they entertain you, they’ll plant seeds for new ways of seeing the world. You may not agree with them but they will get you thinking and exploring your own ideas. This makes comedy a personal creative experience.

One of my favorite comedians – well I have many – is Bill Hicks. A long time addict and alcoholic, Bill eventually got clean only to discover he was dying of cancer. His last major tour produced his greatest work. I have included a snippet of it at the end of this blog. His message is very spiritual. And his drug stories will have you shout out “Oh my God – he’s nailed it!”

Comedians are like us – a great number of them are active addicts and alcoholics and almost as many are in recovery. Comedians are relatable. Marc Maron is one of the best interviewers on the Internet today. His podcast http://www.wtfpod.com/ is fantastic. Many of his interviews are with people in recovery and he holds back nothing. You’ll be surprised by how emotionally raw these interviews are while still being wildly entertaining. Another great podcast is http://afterpartychat.com/category/podcast/. Anna David’s guests are all in recovery and many are comedians.

Two years ago I was going through a very dark time. It was over 100 degrees in New York City and my building was being re-wired so there was not only no air conditioning but the workers damaged so many pipes that my bathroom ceiling collapsed and my apartment was filled with mold. Add to this six friends died in a three-month period – all of them had been in 12-Step programs at one time or another. My oldest and dearest friend managed to get 6 days clean and then overdosed on methadone. During this time I experienced a level of grief I didn’t know existed. I leaned hard on stand-up comedy – I went to comedy clubs alone, watched comedy specials on cable, and YouTube’d stand-up until dawn. I swear between my recovery support group and comedy I made it through this very sad time. Laughter helped to heal me. Comedy has the power to transport us away from the prison of self-obsession and return us a little lighter and more capable of dealing with whatever is at hand.

Get your laugh on. It matters and it heals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMUiwTubYu0

Love Dressed Up in Fur

June 20, 2014All Things Recovery12 step, AA, accountability, addiction, alcoholics anonymous, Alcoholism, cats, depression, dogs, Drugs, exercise, family, Feelings, fellowship, fresh air, gratitude, health, lonely, love, meetings, Narcotics Anonymous, Newcomers, nurture, pet stories, pets, recovery, Relapse, relapse prevention, relationships, sober, Sobriety, Stress, substance abuse, supportpattypowers

I’m writing this from Ontario Canada during an impulsive visit to see my folks. I come from a dog family. I can’t recall a time when my parents didn’t have a dog. In fact, I was so used to having a dog around that when I moved to New York City at 18 the first thing I did was buy a Maltese I named Soprano. That dog was my loyal companion for nine years. When I moved to Los Angeles in 87 not expecting to survive my addiction, I left Soprano at my mom’s house. Even when I had no hope for my own life, I managed to put her safety first.

After I got clean, pulling Soprano out of her cushy retirement home (my mom’s) didn’t seem fair and it didn’t occur to me to replace her. She was, to me, irreplaceable. Besides, my social life in early recovery kept me too busy to want to get “tied down” with another pet. By the time I moved back to New York and discovered a “no pet” clause upon signing my lease I’d grown used to living pet-free. I’d forgotten the brand of joy that comes from a furry friend.

Three years ago my parents bought Harley (the dog in the photo). A Jack Russell puppy is not the sort of dog you’d expect a couple of 70-somethings to own. The dog has boundless energy. I made it my mission to lavish playtime on him whenever I visit. What happened was this: Harley opened up a place in my heart that I forgot was there. The dog-shaped hole. Now I have this new unrest inside of me that is crying for a dog of my own. This will mean either leaving the apartment I’ve been in for 21 years or it could mean leaving New York. Dog-ownership’s going to require a major lifestyle change – but I feel it coming because of the longing I now experience whenever I see a dog on the street.

I once had a friend in recovery who suffered from severe depression and suicidal ideation. He tried every medication but found no relief. Instead of tormenting himself, he began adopting cats. At one point he had close to 20 of them. I’m sure his neighbors were horrified but he loved his cats and felt responsible for them. He said that no matter how he felt he could never kill himself because he wouldn’t want his cats to starve or be put in a shelter. Years later he said that his cats had saved his life until he was able to find the right medication.

Animals have the ability to soften us, to make us laugh, and to help us learn how to play. They provide companionship, get us outside for long walks, and they’re able to lure strangers into conversations with us. A pet can teach us patience, kindness, and accountability. They bring out our best qualities. A relationship with an animal is a channel for love. For many addicts, this may be the first love they are comfortable experiencing.

Animal-assisted therapy is being used in a wide variety of settings to help people with acute and chronic illnesses including addiction. Numerous treatment centers now see value in allowing pets to accompany clients into rehab. Equine therapy has also proven beneficial as a treatment modality. This is based on the many physiological and psychological benefits documented in patients during interactions with animals. These include lowered blood pressure and heart rate, increased beta-endorphin levels, decreased stress levels, reduced feelings of anger, hostility, tension and anxiety, improved social functioning, and increased feelings of empowerment, trust, patience and self-esteem.

Owning a pet is a long-term commitment and not one a newcomer in the early stages of rebuilding a life should take on. Wait until you have income and housing stability first. But you don’t have to be a pet owner to enjoy the benefits of animal love. There are other options. Fostering dogs and cats is a short-term commitment. Walking dogs or playing with cats at no kill shelters is another option. Pet sitting for friends is a way to get a quick no-strings hit. Or you can hang around the local dog runs and befriend some of the regulars.

Furry friendships bring out our gentler side and this can be a game changer on a tough day.

Stress is not required

May 15, 2014All Things Recovery12 step, AA, addiction, Alcholism, alcoholics anonymous, angry, anxiety, clean, depression, disease, Drugs, exercise, family, Feelings, fellowship, fresh air, gratitude, HALT, health, heroin, lonely, meditate, Meditation, meetings, Narcotics Anonymous, Newcomers, obsession, panic attack, recovery, Relapse, relationships, sober, Sobriety, Stress, substance abuse, support, tips, triggerpattypowers

Before I got clean I would sit around thinking about all the extra money I’d have if I ever stopped getting high. I had a hole the size of a quarter in the sole of my boot and every day I would do the math of my drug expense and think “I probably cook up and inject the equivalent of a few pairs of expensive boots every week”. After I got clean, however, I realized there was very little in the world that could compel me to come up with money the way drugs did. I didn’t have the extra hundreds in my hand because suddenly I was doing things like paying rent and feeding myself – stuff that hadn’t mattered before.

The same thing goes for creative and career dreams that once had a specific place in my fantasy life while I was getting high. I imagined all the things I would do once all my time wasn’t spent on feeding my habit. And, like most people in recovery, the minute I got clean I felt like I had to make up for all the lost years – starting immediately.

So whether or not I followed through on my to-do list of steps to take to realize my dreams, every waking hour I carried inside of me the insane pressure to be doing more than I was. No matter what I accomplished in the course of a day, I always felt like there was more to do. My head rambled on a continuous to-do list no matter whether I was actively productive or laying in bed at the end of the day. It was akin to holding down a computer key. And no matter what I accomplished or how happy and satisfied I felt, a voice in my head always insisted on more. It always left me feeling like I was not doing enough. This managed to keep me in some state of anxiety. Ongoing low-level stress is that “on edge” feeling that has the power to turn sour and turn into sadness or depression. It’s that inner voice, ignored or not, that insists that all is not well despite evidence to the contrary. In recovery-speak we call it “beating ourselves up” or negative self-talk. And it is a place the disease uses to distort our perception that the glass is always half empty and that we are never enough. Without drugs, our disease manages to stay alive inside our habit of creating a life that is too busy for us to find balance. Balance is always key to well being because it reduces stress.

Try to imagine our brain looking like dry riverbeds in the California desert. Every time we experience stress it’s like a flash flood. Every time we got high or drunk, every traumatic event was experienced as a full-on flash flood. What we end up with is a very deep river bed. It takes a lot of stress to fill these up to the levels that drugs would fill them. So, drug free, these pathways keep waiting for the big rain. When we first get clean the immediate drop in the water table (so to speak) is why we feel completely insane with anxiety. This is that feeling of exposed raw nerves during withdrawal. As we stay clean, the stress is lowered, in part because our brain slowly adapts to a lesser level of metaphoric rain filling our riverbeds but it is also because our new behaviors begin to deepen other pathways. In recovery, our healthy behaviors actually re-route our neurological pathways. We repair much of the damage active addiction caused our brain and begin to balance out our equilibrium. Nonetheless, our ridiculously imposing to-do lists keep our brains dampened by a low level of stress which in turn keeps our disease engaged enough to trigger other negative feelings. If we feel bad enough long enough, using starts to seem like a reasonable solution to “take the edge off” our feelings.

This is why it is important to create a daily routine that balances the workload with self-care and relaxing activities. This is why people go to the gym before or after work, why it feels like a weight has been lifted after yoga class, why laughter at a dinner with friends feels so good. Without these things, life becomes a soul-sucking job and no matter how successful we are, if we put pressure on ourselves every minute to be productive, if we hold our own whipping stick, at the end of the day no matter how much we’ve accomplished the feeling of being spent outweighs the satisfaction of a job well done.

I am not suggesting that we need to shoot lower with our goals or modify our dreams to less than we desire. I believe we need to accept our human limitations and that we’re best able to live a life of lower stress if we plan our day to include healthy decompressing time. This needs to be as high on the priority scale as anything to do with work and life errands. I realize that parenting involves placing other people’s needs at the top of the list and that there is often very little or no time to breathe on weekdays. So how can parents create daily balance to take care of themselves? One way would be to use family car time to play games, tell jokes or sing songs. Consciously create pleasurable activities wherever you are. For parents who have to kill time while their kids are in afterschool activities, bring along a book (fiction not self help). Audio books are great for taking a breather from self-obsession. Breathing meditations or guided meditations downloaded onto an IPod can be done anywhere (even at your work desk or in the office restroom). Take a few minutes throughout the day to stretch your body, to step outside and take in any natural beauty you can find. All of these little actions will add up to a big payoff – even for people who don’t get time alone until everyone else is in bed.

It takes practice to create stress-reducing activities and – trust me – the addict mind and the stress riverbeds in your brain will put up a lot of resistance – but a conscious effort will result in change. In time, self-care behaviors will come as effortlessly as breathing. It takes time to re-route our brains away from the pathways that were created prior to recovery but it will happen. Peace of mind and the ability to take on the responsibilities of a full ambitious life can co-exist.

Why am I hating everyone I love?

April 30, 2014All Things Recovery12 step, AA, addiction, alcoholics anonymous, Alcoholism, angry, anxiety, change, depression, Drugs, family, Feelings, fellowship, HALT, heroin, lonely, loved ones, meetings, Narcotics Anonymous, Newcomers, obsession, Powerless, Relapse, relationships, sober, Sobriety, Stress, substance abuse, support, tips, triggerpattypowers

Almost everyone who gets clean and sober goes through a period where they experience a ton of negative feelings toward the people they love the most. I’m not talking about people they love who they’ve recently met in recovery. These feelings are specifically ignited inside of us by people who have known us the longest. I’m talking about our family members and long-term romantic partners. The ones where our love-roots go deepest. Why are they the ones who make us feel the craziest after we get clean?

Often these are the people we still share the least about ourselves with. When we were getting high, we withheld information to protect them because we knew our self destructive actions would have caused them incredible pain or we simply hid our lives rather than risk them getting in the way our our drug use. Once we get clean, they usually have no idea what we are processing or the amount of work that goes into our healing. We start to resent them for not taking interest in our recovery and we feel unsupported. We compare the depth of our new recovery relationships and feel cheated at home. We can’t believe they expect that now we’re off drugs, we’re “back to normal”. It’s very possible they avoid asking questions that may yield answers because they feel safe in their denial and do not want anyone (us) to mess with it. There are many reasons why the people who love us the most keep up an impenetrable shield.They simply may not be ready.

In recovery we share intimate parts of ourselves with our support group only to return to our loved ones and have it feel like no one is interested in truly knowing us. This is never more painful than during the early months of recovery. Not getting what we believe we need from our family has the ability to make us feel unsafe, unloved, misunderstood, insecure, resentful, hurt, and it turns us into character assassins (as we start deciding what is wrong with them). This is when we must lean into our recovery support group and to remember to keep breathing and to keep our mouth shut. Damage control not only saves them from attack and injury but also saves us from the remorse shame and regret we will surely feel if we inflict pain on people we know we truly love – even if we aren’t particularly feeling it at the moment.

In early recovery we are finally becoming honest with ourselves, doing the hard work of looking at our wreckage, at our shortcomings, and we’re becoming acquainted with our emotional life. It takes a while to land into our feelings and start to heal old wounds.Demanding other people to meet us half way is unfair. Remember, it was our suffering that motivated us to seek recovery in the first place. Pain was the impetus. God only knows what pain our loved ones have endured in their own lives or in relation to us while we were wrapped up in ourselves. They’re going to change when they’re ready – and maybe never. True acceptance of this fact might not happen for years but punishing them because they do not meet our new expectations is – well – it’s selfish (and not very spiritual). Especially when we don’t know for sure if what we’re thinking or feeling is accurate. This is why we practice unconditional love and patience with the people we love. We need to trust that how we feel right now is not permanent. Things are going to change. We’ll keep changing and this will have a positive impact on our relationships over time – whether we believe it or not.

Keep breathing, bite your tongue, leave the house to take walks when you need personal space. When you are at your wits’ end and don’t know what else to do treat them with kindness, forgiveness and compassion. Take your cell outside and rant and rave to friends who will let you unload. Get through the early months of recovery without causing more harm to yourself and others. Love is complicated. No matter what happens with these relationships, whether they turn out according to your greatest hopes or not – you will be okay. Trust the process.

Our buttons get pushed because we crave connection and love. We also probably harbor some fear of what they might have on us that we aren’t prepared to hear. Sometimes this fear is what’s causing us to want to write these relationships off. The good news is that by working on yourself and finding peace you will inspire others to do the same. Families can heal together. Time is where the magic happens.

Spring’s Emotional Overhaul Part 1

April 1, 2014All Things Recovery12 step, 12 step recovery, AA, addiction, alcoholics anonymous, Alcoholism, clean, damage control, depresseion, depression, disease, disease of addiction, Drugs, exercise, Feelings, fellowship, fresh air, gratitude, health, health and wellness, heroin, holistic, Intervention, lonely, Meditation, meetings, Narcotics Anonymous, Newcomers, obsession, Powerless, reality tv, recovery, Relapse, seasonal affective disorder, sober, Sobriety, substance abuse, support, triggerpattypowers

Congratulations – if you are reading this it means you made it through the winter without killing yourself. Believe me I’m not trying to be glib. While seasonal depression hits addicts and non-addicts alike, taking lifestyle and recovery actions to ward it off during winter months can be a matter of life and death for us. Here’s a spooky fact – I wrote the opening sentence this morning then left my computer. By the time I returned this evening I’d been told of two suicides, both women with substantial clean time. While I am not certain of their situations and it’s possible other mental health issues or clinical depression may have played a part, Seasonal Affective Disorder is no joke.

For most people living in winter weather zones, this year was a doozy. If you follow this blog you’ve seen how almost every week I am writing about actions to take to arm yourself against winter depression. Some of you may have followed my suggestions and others may have felt okay at the time and didn’t see any point in it. The fact is, adapting seasonal lifestyle changes pay off later. They are preventative actions no different than when people go to meetings regularly so they have a built in habit of reaching out for help when cravings to use hit them. Here is the SAD’s risk for people in recovery – when we slip off into the emotional darkness, winter depression can inspire fantasies of suicide but thats not all – after a while our head will come up with some crazy ideas that sound sane to us such as, “Getting high is not as bad as killing yourself.” Our disease will use depression as a way to isolate us from our support group, from 12 step meetings, and from joyful activities until the darkness feeds off itself. Our addict-mind will utilize the strength our disease gains from our isolation to suggest that getting high is almost a kind of harm reduction when weighed against the threat of suicidal thoughts. Remember – the disease is subtle and patient. You must always have strategies to weaken its grip on you. This is why ongoing recovery requires vigilance. Lifestyle changes and taking affirmative actions (even when you don’t want to) are as vital to long term recovery as connecting to whatever sober support system you attend.

In 1995 I experienced my heaviest case of winter blues. Throughout the long winter I didn’t feel depressed at all, which was pretty amazing considering I probably saw daylight for less than ninety minutes per day. However, as soon as the weather cracked, the birds started chirping, and the temperatures started hitting 50, it felt like I was trapped inside a bubble, like a force was preventing me from connecting to other people or feel the joy of spring everyone else was experiencing. By the fifth week of telling myself that “this too shall pass” I wondered if maybe I was becoming a danger to myself in a real sense. Should I write down suicide hotline numbers or admit myself to Bellevue? I also blamed myself for hitting this emotional low at 7 years clean and I felt a lot of shame over not being able to pull myself out of what I mistakenly thought was self-pity. Then one day I woke up and it was gone. Joy, optimism and energy returned. I believed there was a wealth of information out there to prevent this from happening again and I have adapted it to my winter health and wellness recovery routine. This doesn’t mean there aren’t some days I feel like crying or don’t want to go outside but I’ve experienced such a great payoff for the small price walking for an hour in the cold every day that I push myself out the door no matter how much I might not want to go.

If you slacked off on self-care all winter chances are you’re feeling pretty lousy. Free-floating depression, lack of motivation, a desire to hide out from people, and a lot of beating yourself up for not trying to take better care of yourself … Am I close? It’s time to put the hammer down and stop hating on yourself. That was then and this is NOW. This is a new moment.

Close your eyes and take a few slow deep breathes. Let your breath, your pulse, your heartbeat pull you into this moment – be here now. Whenever you catch your internal dialogue starting to engage in negative self-talk inhale deeply and blow all that crappy carbon monoxide and soul sickness out of your mouth forcefully. Don’t worry – this isn’t a “let’s ignore the reality of all our unresolved issues and pretend that we are happy” exercise. It is an exercise in taking the opposite action to what you feel inclined to do. Addicts tend to invest so much into their emotional suffering that if they put it on hold for ten minutes to do something positive they feel almost like they have betrayed their dark side. hahaha. Trust me – I am speaking from personal experience. Taking positive actions does not mean that your suffering was not real. It simply means that you can occupy all spaces at all times and all are equally authentic. So CHOOSE JOY. Dress appropriately for the weather and take a good forty-five minute walk. Stay mindful and pay close attention. Look for signs of spring. Are there buds on the trees, new flower stalks sprouting from the ground, does the bark have richer color? What about the birds? Can you hear them? Can you smell spring in the air?

Today in NYC it was still pretty chilly but I got on my bike and rode until tears and snot ran down my face from pollen allergies. Ha – fuck it – I’m happy to take any sign of spring even one invisible to the eye. Today my sign was pollen and I was filled with gratitude and there was excitement in my heart.

You can give yourself an emotional overhaul. Start by making a decision to let go of yesterday’s mood and breathe your way into some optimism. Get fresh air. Buy some really colorful fruit and vegetables. When you are in the store think COLORS and pick food that is yellow, red, orange, purple, light green, dark green and blue. Throw it all together in a salad bowl – combine fruit and vegetables. Colorful, tasty and alive – like you want to feel. Now eat it while you watch a comedy you know makes you laugh super hard.

In no time we’ll be complaining about the heat so make it your mission to stay mindful and pay close attention to every detail of spring as it unfolds. A lot of restless energy and emotions will be thawing out – including your libido – so prioritize connecting to your recovery support people and share whatever craziness is making you feel unhinged. There is comfort in discovering that all the addicts in recovery you talk to will be be relating to your feelings. You aren’t alone.

In the next blog (Part 2) I will talk about the seasonal roller coaster of emotions specific to this time of year and how to find acceptance and do damage control. Remember, as long as we have war games strategies against the disease of addiction, we will not lose the battle.

Is that all there is?

March 12, 2014All Things Recovery12 step, 12-step fellowships, A&E, AA, addiction, alcoholics anonymous, Alcoholism, angry, anxiety, cocaine anonymous, depression, disease, drug-free excitement, Drugs, existential despair, Feelings, fellowship, gratitude, HALT, lonely, Meditation, Narcotics Anonymous, Newcomers, Powerless, recovery, Relapse, relationships, sober, Sobriety, Stress, substance abuse, support, tipspattypowers

When I was a little girl I would listen to Miss Peggy Lee singing, “Is that all there is? Is that all there is?” Even at seven years old I felt this song deep in my bones. Listening to it now, it so profoundly describes a feeling so familiar to addicts and alcoholics. In the song the solution is booze and dancing but in recovery how do we get through those days when we feel bored, lonely, unsatisfied and empty – days when our disease holds us hostage to these disproportionately magnified feelings?

I looked in the mirror and a blonde woman with a suntan stared back. I didn’t recognize myself. Was I really wearing pink gym shorts and sneakers? I ripped off my tortoise shell sunglasses and started looking for track marks, scars, something to prove it was really me. New Age music came over the speakers and two men began discussing their mutual enlightenment.

“John, when I first heard you lead a meditation, I found myself carried away by the melodic rhythm of your voice and suddenly I envisioned myself conducting and entire symphony around you.”

“Oh that’s beautiful” replied John as he droned on about his twenty-five years in Twelve-Step communities. That’s when it hit me. My track marks were gone. My punk rock youth was over. And all I seemed to care about was healing my inner child and shopping at the Beverly Center. My God – what happened to my personality?

I wrote the above story when I had just over two years clean. I’d been on a pink cloud most of that time, super-happy with the life I’d put together from scratch in recovery. There’d been no warning signs that everything would change with one glance into a mirror. Shortly after this experience, I shut my down my life in Los Angeles and spent six months alone in a car traveling the country, reflecting and writing a novel. Rather than allow my existential identity crisis to push me toward a relapse, it motivated me to pursue my dreams.

Fast-forward to six years later. I’m in a therapy session saying, “I go to meetings, I work out, I’m of service, I eat healthy, I have good friends, I’m in therapy – but really- big fucking deal. Is this it? Is this all there is? I feel so bored and crazy. Where’s the euphoria?” I knew I was going to leave her office and stir up the pot. The feeling of restlessness and urgency was familiar – it was what drove me out to buy drugs back in the day. I knew I didn’t want to get high but I craving something to make me feel more alive and, like with drugs, felt powerless to stop myself once the idea got into my head. Within days I’d seduced a dangerously attractive unavailable young active alcoholic and I’d started smoking. I have to admit I felt pretty badass and was charged with the electricity of that euphoric high I’d been craving.

Within weeks I was back in my therapist’s chair only now I was crying. I felt lost from myself – anchorless. All I wanted was to go back to the way I felt before I abandoned myself with escapist behaviors. And I was pissed. Why does everything that makes me feel more “alive” always have the price of self-abandonment attached to it?

I mention these two stories because in both cases I was hit by the same feeling – that life on life’s terms was not enough. At the time I didn’t know how to value peace of mind and I didn’t know how to find comfort in the grey areas of day to day life on its own terms. I was still grieving and romanticizing aspects of the unpredictability of my former drug-using life. I wanted drug-like excitement without picking up a substance.

While the first existential identity crisis lead me on a six-month odyssey of America rediscovering and challenging myself, it wasn’t an impulsive act. That road trip required patience and planning. The second story illustrates a pretty typical addict response to feelings of restlessness. It’s usually knee-jerk compulsive self-destructive behavior disguised as fun.

In recovery there will be days when life on life’s terms will not be enough to satisfy you; days when boredom will make you pace like a wild animal desperate to break out of the cage. The disease gets a lot of mileage from the language of denial. I considered myself “unstoppable” rather than compulsive. If I’d been able to recognize that the intense pull toward acting-out was a compulsion I was powerless over, I could have applied some recovery principles to it. Instead I saw surrender as a compromise of “my free spirit”. Besides, even in recovery I’ve often been willing to suffer the consequences to get what I want when I want it. Thing is – although the consequences are always the same, when I set out on a mission for thrills. I forget the price is always some version of feeling lost from myself, of being lost and anchorless at sea.

The ability to sit with my feelings – especially the ones that can be avoided by thrill-seeking behaviors – didn’t happen over night. First I had to become willing – which happened when I was no longer willing to pay the price that came with avoiding them and then I needed courage to have blind faith that if I sat with my feelings they would not destroy me. I quickly discovered that the emotional discomfort didn’t last long. Feelings pass – even cravings for excitement pass.

The key to gracefully getting through the existentially angsty days is to let go of the need to make shit happen as a solution to feelings. Sit with the feelings no matter how much the disease is screaming for you to not sit still. Trust me – this can save you ridiculous amounts of negative consequences and inner turmoil. Meditation and breathing can help with this. If you suspect that you’re meant to shift gears or make major changes, you will know it because the need to force change won’t be there. I am NOT saying that life in recovery can’t be exciting. Maybe it will be more exciting if you can stop imposing your old ideas of excitement onto it and see where you end up.

Patty Powers

Recovery Coach // NYC