Tag Archives: recovery

Early Recovery: How to Manage Stress

August 14, 2015All Things RecoveryAA, addiction, alcoholics anonymous, Alcoholism, anxiety, depression, Drugs, exercise, Feelings, fellowship, fresh air, gratitude, HALT, health, heroin, meditate, Meditation, meetings, Narcotics Anonymous, Newcomers, opiates, oxycontin, Powerless, recovery, Relapse, relapse prevention, self-care, sober, Sobriety, Stress, substance abuse, support, tips, withdrawalpattypowers

People in recovery like to overthink things. It’s probably a holdover from active addiction. I realize not everyone in recovery is a member of a 12-step fellowship but there are definitely perks for those in them. The collective wisdom passed down from one recovering addict to another is of immeasurable value. All over the world, recovering addicts share similar eye-opening revelations they’ve experienced and these shared insights turn into the often-repeated sayings we hear in meetings.

“We can’t think our way into new feelings but we can act our way into new thinking.” (Or some variation of this). We hear this solution – that action changes feelings – yet we continue to overthink, ruminate, and obsess in a vain attempt to control how we feel. Overthinking is never a solution. Usually all it does is increase stress and keep us trapped in our discomfort and confusion. We long for change yet we fear it – unless, of course, we are in control of it. There’s no comfort in familiar misery but in early recovery the concept of “letting go” is confusing and difficult to grasp. We usually let go when the pain is great enough. Until then, we hang onto our old belief in self-reliance that’s hardwired by fear. Without solutions we stay trapped in our heads with emotional discomfort.

For anyone new to recovery the greatest suffering happens when we are left alone with our mind for stretches of time. Once the substance or compulsive behavior is gone, our brain experiences a dopamine deficit and this creates anxiety until it finds homeostasis. Our mind’s racing and it feels like we’re going crazy. Even the air stings our raw nerve endings. What’s a newcomer to do?

You can reduce the intensity of withdrawal and early recovery anxiety by taking actions but this requires a conscious daily commitment on your part. Trust me, the addict-mind will try to hold you hostage in prolonged isolation. It’s easy to lose hours sitting at the kitchen table thinking your way into a level of anxiety that’s paralyzing. This makes it hard to get the day started or find motivation to create new habits of self-care.

Here are actions to take:

Call people and make plans so you aren’t spending too much time alone. (Maybe this means going to a meeting or getting together with other people in recovery).

Get outside – take a long walk, look at whatever nature is around you. Fresh air lowers stress.

Do something physical – go to the gym, take an exercise class, yoga, a bike ride, jogging, jump rope, swim or play a sport. Get your body moving for at least 30-60 minutes. (Make an effort – baby steps if you haven’t been active in years).

Eat healthy food and don’t skip meals. Newly clean and sober people have a tendency to go for sugar, bread, and caffeine – mood-changing foods. What they don’t realize is that the mood this diet may lead to is depression and lethargy. Be mindful to get in enough healthy food to balance this out.

If you do all of the above on a regular basis, your body will respond positively. You will sleep better and have more energy. You will also experience less mood-swings.

Cravings always come from feelings. Stress is where they begin. You have the power to control this – the choice is yours. Action not thinking is the way out.

Whenever you start to feel anxious – if you talk to someone who triggers you, if you have to go somewhere or deal with a situation that’s stressful – have quick stress-deactivator tools on hand. Here is what to do: before entering a situation that’s triggering take ten slow deep breaths. Inhale through your nostrils until you feel completely full of air and then blow this air slowly out of your open mouth until you feel like an empty balloon. This will relax you. Anytime you feel any level of stress, breathe like this. Whenever you feel your stomach or chest tighten, excuse yourself from the person or situation and get some fresh air or go to the restroom for some deep breathing. This only takes a few minutes. YOU HAVE THE POWER TO STOP STRESS FROM BUILDING UP BY ADDRESSING IT AS IT HAPPENS.

Allow yourself several minutes throughout the day to deactivate stress. This is damage control. This way day to day stress won’t pile up until thoughts of using pop into your head as a solution. This will leave you more room for joy.

Voluntary Emptiness

May 21, 2015All Things Recovery12 step, AA, addiction, alcoholics anonymous, Alcoholism, disease, Drugs, Feelings, fellowship, HALT, meetings, Narcotics Anonymous, Newcomers, Powerless, recovery, Relapse, Sobriety, substance abuse, support, triggerpattypowers

There’s a saying that’s so familiar yet one most addicts and alcoholics in recovery continually forget. “Pain is optional”.

How many times do we have to hit the same wall before we start doing things differently? The answer varies from one recovering addict to the next. In early recovery, we blindly make choices that lead us toward pain. Often it ‘s because we haven’t yet acquired a deeper personal insight into how the disease of addiction manifests. Pain still masquerades as a familiar friend, a constant gnawing, a sense that all is not well or that the other shoe is about to drop. It’s fighting for territory against the threat that recovery might actually take hold. That’s why in early recovery we stick super close to our support group. We hang onto, “This too shall pass” (which it does) and we start to taste freedom. We gain tools for living and for coping with our emotions. This is recovery. Life gets better and we start to feel good.

Then something interesting seems to happen to everyone once we put together some clean time: we make choices that lead us back to emotional pain. Sometimes we can look back and pinpoint our choice and see that is happened when difficult feelings surfaced around fearful situations or insecurities. Other times, we can’t explain what the hell we were thinking. There are even times when we knew there’d be a price for acting out and we simply didn’t care and headed toward our desires with complete abandon. We may have even claimed that we were willing to pay the price for it.

The first time I consciously chose to act out was around the six or seven year clean mark. I wasn’t completely satisfied with where my life was at. Though I could easily say it was better than it had ever been, it wasn’t aligning to where I wanted it to be. A lifestyle of healthy activities and self-care had become the fabric of my routine and no longer felt like individual achievements that excited me. I was bored. That was the crime – boredom. I remember telling my therapist that I just wanted to feel euphoria. It was springtime and I was restless. For me, that meant I wanted to make love, romance, or a sexual adventure happen. I even said to her that I knew there’d be a price and I was willing to pay it. Several weeks later I was back in her office crying that I felt empty. I may have even said “godless”. It was a familiar existential yearning and despair that reminded me of how I felt coming off a coke run. I didn’t like it. Her response stuck with me. She said that when I was telling her I was willing to pay the price, she knew that I had absolutely no recollection of what the price felt like. When I was feeling it though, it was all too familiar. A time travel of sorts to an emotional place I’d worked hard to get away from.

The disease of addiction is like that. Call it denial or call it amnesia, the disease is always going to resurface and lead us toward pain if we allow it. In recovery we have a choice most of the time. It’s found in the pause and patience we practice before acting.

Yesterday I was talking to a friend who’s been in recovery for over thirty years. For 16 of them she worked vigilantly to find peace, unaware that she was also being undermined by an undiagnosed bi-polar disorder. Later she experienced the long slow death of her mother and several years after that her life was upended by one of her kids becoming addicted to meth. She navigated these minefields by staying deeply engaged in her recovery process. Yesterday she was telling me how fantastic she felt and how happy she was with her life. For a steady period of time now it’s been blossoming. The fruits of her labors include a successful business, drug-free children, a reinvigorated sex life with her husband, and an upcoming dream vacation. Next she admitted to sending several emails to someone who’d caused her years of emotional turmoil and her disappointment that he hadn’t responded and how she was now thinking of inviting another former relationship back into her life. Of course as she casually mentioned both of these people, she wasn’t remembering the turmoil or emotional abuse that comes with them. Until she spoke her plans out loud to someone, she had been unable to see what these tentative actions could bring. We wondered why sometimes it’s so hard to allow ourselves to be happy. After philosophizing for several minutes we remembered the disease. Of yes, it may be decades later, but it’s still there trying to orchestrate pain back into our lives IF we allow it.

It can be argued that this experience isn’t exclusive to addicts and alcoholics but for us the consequences are greater. If we feel bad long enough our brains are wired to remind us that there is a solution – if only temporary – to our pain, The long game is for that solution to be found in drugs and alcohol. This is why we learn to pause, to share our secrets, and to recognize that we always have a choice. The road does get narrower. We learn that when we act out in certain ways, we volunteer for the inevitable soul-emptiness we experience when we surrender our serenity. The trick is to be able to remember this truth.

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.

From Life as a Movie to Real Life

February 6, 2015All Things Recovery12 step, AA, addiction, alcoholics anonymous, Alcoholism, disease, Drugs, Feelings, fellowship, heroin, meetings, Narcotics Anonymous, Newcomers, recovery, relapse prevention, relationships, Sobriety, support, tipspattypowers

Does anyone remember the Scorsese film “After Hours”? At the start of the film Griffin Dunne watches his last $20 bill float out a cab window and it is a catalyst for a night of chaos in downtown 1980s New York City. Every scene builds with chaos and insanity and a colorful cast of menacing weirdos. To the average audience it probably seemed like a high-stress falling down a rabbit hole Alice in Wonderland but to people who’ve lived with addiction it’s more like watching “chaos-lite”.

In case you ever forget what life was really like in active addiction, listen to the stories being recounted by people who are newly sober. The events taking place and the cast of characters usually falls somewhere between the epic Dante’s Inferno and Monty Python – and this is recounting twenty four hours or less. They’re recounting only one story from one of many hundred days spent living on the edge. The stories that come out of these experiences are riveting. They easily rival the big screen. They have it all – drama, action, comedy. In the telling (and the spirit-saving grace of irony) hilarity helps to make the pain bearable. For anyone who has lived it through this lens, it is like living life at a distance. To survive, we learn to detach.

I call this “my life as a movie” storytelling. Almost all emotional context is missing from these stories. Although they are personal, they sound like re-telling a movie recently viewed. It is common among addicts. The unreality life takes on under the influence. The more unbelievable things get, the better the story.

I have to admit that I was pretty entertained by the craziness of my life when I was getting high. Drugs exposed me to people and situations that kept me amused and curious. For a while, the unfolding story brought me as much pleasure as the high. Life felt epic. Managing crisis after crisis was a challenge and I was good at living by my wits.

The progression, like addiction, is that the pain usurps the pleasure and the entertainment value is lost. Instead of hilarious characters, you discover yourself surrounded by people you don’t care about and who definitely don’t care about you. It’s more evidence of being trapped by the lonely prison of addiction.

When you get clean and start attracting attention for your storytelling it can kick up bizarre feelings. On one hand, what you lived through and laugh at was really painful but you will start to miss it. Life clean may feel uncreative and uninspiring. The transition can be painful for people who found twisted pleasure and ridiculousness in pain. Getting clean may feel like going from Technicolor to black and white.

What is happening is that your current story is becoming more complex. Now there is an emotional life that accompanies you throughout each day. It may feel difficult at first and your head will romanticize the past as being more “care-free”. Find some humor in this – maybe you’re confusing “care-free” with “pain-free” which was not the case. Our distorted perceptions can amuse us while we land back into reality if we let them. Adjusting to new circumstances takes time. Find people in recovery to seek out new experiences.

I think it’s important for people who relish chaos and living by their wits to discover activities or hobbies they can become passionate about. You can have big experiences and be clean and sober. Trust me, there will be plenty to laugh at.

Maybe what you need is to challenge yourself physically or intellectually. Facing yourself and your fears clean is a challenge that should not be under-estimated. You can’t go from living a completely external existence to living a completely internal one. Stay engaged because you can’t afford to lose interest in your own life. Get involved in your fellowship, do service in your community, create friendships, find out what floats your boat and dive into the stream of things. The worst thing you can do if you are an adventure seeker is to dial your life down to a low frequency. Community is where you will find the laughter.

Not everyone found personal thrills from living on the edge during active addiction. They may not relate to this blog however the recovery advice stands alone. Passion, fulfillment and a sense of purpose will enrich everyone’s personal recovery.

Eventually traveling the road of recovery you’ll discover that the thrill of drama and chaos becomes less attractive. You’ll make choices that enhance inner peace without losing your personal edge. There will be no need to push the envelop all the time. This process happens naturally so don’t bother trying to rush it. Stay in the recovery game and change happens.

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.

Celebrating Nothing and Everything

December 31, 2014All Things RecoveryAA, addiction, alcoholics anonymous, Alcoholism, anxiety, celebration, clean, depression, Feelings, fellowship, gratitude, HALT, heroin, Meditation, Narcotics Anonymous, new years' eve, Powerless, recovery, Relapse, relapse prevention, sober, Sobriety, Stress, substance abuse, support, tips, triggerpattypowers

I titled this blog “Celebrating Nothing and Everything” because it’s time for us to put down the scorecard that rates and divides the content of our life into worthy events or dull days. All of our life should be celebrated. We all know how easy it is to get caught up in the daily grind or lost in financial stress or romantic drama or pretty much anything where our addict-mind starts to pull levers so that the glass looks half empty instead of half full. I’m here to say that we don’t have to wait until a, b, or c is accomplished before we can be happy or fulfilled or experience peace. Seriously, let’s give up the belief system of “I can be happy when…” It is no longer being supported inside my mind.

I want every day to matter. Don’t you?

A few years ago I experienced probably one of the craziest things to happen in my entire life. While on vacation, I came face-to-face with a panther. (You can be read about here: http://www.pattypowersnyc.blogspot.com/2011/10/death-defying-summer-vacation.html). This event was probably one of the most transformative spiritual experiences of my life. At first whenever I thought back on the panther experience, my body would kick into a simulated fight and flight trauma response. Now it kicks up the joyful feeling of excitement that I felt when I thought I was about to die (for real) and I looked at the sky and trees and panoramic view and realized how LUCKY I am to have had the chance to be here – on this planet. To exist here. To experience this life. As cornball as this sounds, I’ve never really lost that feeling – and I do believe we are all so lucky to be here. It is such a beautiful planet. No matter how we feel, what shape our life is in – we really can step outside and take a good look and slow things down, get out of the prison of our mind and find some beauty nearby. Beauty is a mood lifter and it is always available to us if we make the effort to seek it.

As 2014 comes to a close, I am feeling a lot of gratitude. This past year has been a peaceful one for me – and this has not always been the case. A lot of amazing stuff has happened on a professional and personal level but what really blows my mind is that there has been a real deep shift inside of me this year that I know is a direct result of all the accumulative work I’ve done on myself throughout my years in recovery – working a program, therapy, EMDR, etc. This doesn’t make me special or my recovery exceptional. I’m witnessing these same changes in others all the time. I’m just personally blown away to discover that I continue to change and find a deeper peace inside of myself. I truly feel safe. It’s easy to remember my life in the days leading up to my first day clean in 1988 and recall with fondness all the fun and drama and running and hiding (from myself) I have done over my years clean. Mostly, I’m grateful I’ve remained willing to grow – and I keep being surprised by how good I feel.

One thing I can say that was consistent with how I spent 2014 is that every single day I spent time outside and I appreciated whatever weather I was walking in. I was living mindfully in small ways. I was always celebrating nothing and celebrating everything. I hope this blog can inspire you to do the same in 2015.

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.

Early Recovery: You want me to exercise too?

October 15, 2014All Things Recovery12 step, AA, addiction, alcoholics anonymous, Alcoholism, clean, depression, disease, dopamine, Drugs, endorphins, exercise, Feelings, fellowship, fitness, fitness classes, gratitude, gyms, HALT, health, heroin, meetings, Narcotics Anonymous, Newcomers, obsession, recovery, Relapse, sober, Sobriety, Stress, substance abuse, support, tips, triggerpattypowers

When I was eleven I was on my school’s gymnastic team. A year later I traded in all my after-school activities for boys and drugs. From that point until I entered rehab at twenty-eight, the only exercise I got was from sex or from being chased by police dogs. I don’t know if this qualifies as a ”fitness phase” but in my late teens I’d regularly jog from 14th and Third to Avenue D to cop heroin. In those days cabs wouldn’t go into Alphabet City and jogging felt safer than walking.

When I got clean and sober my body started sending signals to my brain “Hey remember me? I’ve been sustaining this girl while you were hijacked by active addiction? Can you get her to give me a little attention please?” because out of nowhere I wanted to start exercising. I had a few friends who were “gym nuts” but my entry into fitness started slow. I couldn’t feign the enthusiasm for working out that they had. When they’d try to cheer me on I’d get annoyed. I deliberately started going when I knew they weren’t there.

My gym experience was miserable. I’d be bored after a few laps around the track. I could only dog-paddle around the pool for so long before I’d feel ridiculous. And forget about figuring out how to use the resistance machines. Even if someone took time to explain them to me, I couldn’t pay attention. My ADD stressed-out brain would get overwhelmed. I loved the idea of being strong and fit with a fabulous body but I definitely didn’t have any love for the gym. After a while it felt like I was paying a monthly membership so that I could hate myself in entirely new ways. But I kept showing up.

Here’s the thing. Everything I was going through was totally normal for the amount of drugs I’d been using and the length of time I’d been using them. It was going to take a while for my brain to rebalance itself. In the 80s there wasn’t the science and research to back what I was discovering first hand in my recovery process. All I knew was that for the first four months I was either too hot or too cold. I would feel happy and out of nowhere be filled with anxiety. Stress seemed to be irrational. It could be set off by an idea. I got my first good night’s sleep somewhere between 5 and 6 months clean and it took a year before I could read a page in a novel and be able to tell you what I’d read. I’d either be wired for sound or completely lackluster. It was normal to be laughing and crying in the space of five minutes. When someone with less clean time than me said they were running five miles a day I wanted to slit my throat.

Here’s what was happening in my brain. During prolonged drug use, dopamine receptors get jacked up, sometimes 1500 times higher than their natural levels. The brain stops releasing natural dopamine and endorphins in an attempt to rebalance itself. Dopamine is what drives out desires. It’s responsible for motivating us and rewarding us. This is how we experience intense pleasure, love, and connection. When you take away drugs and alcohol there’s a major drop in dopamine levels. We feel this deficit as lack of motivation and lack of reward. This means that even things that should feel great only feel slightly satisfying. It’s hard to maintain motivation when there is no immediate pay off. When the brain’s in dopamine-deficit mode it creates stress. This is what makes it hard to focus attention and why it’s difficult to sleep. The brain responds to low dopamine levels the way we respond to heartbreak. It yearns. So even if the obsession to get high has been lifted and drug cravings have vanished, it’s normal for a strange broken-hearted despair to linger over everything.

Healing takes time. Luckily the brain, body, and spirit (the you) want to survive and thrive. It wants to restore itself and our lifestyle changes speed up the payoff. At the beginning I couldn’t muster up motivation to workout because I wasn’t getting enough of a pleasure payout but I continued to show up at the gym and do what I could. Eventually I found what worked for me. When I started getting an endorphin high from aerobic classes I understood what motivated people to run five miles or run marathons.

I began to sleep better and my energy increased. Weird new positive feelings started surfacing. I felt proud of myself for staying committed to my health and my recovery, self-esteem started silencing some of the self-hate. It’s crazy how all it took was finding the right workout to boost my endorphins and the payoff was immediate.

If I get honest, what drove me to join a gym, aside from peer pressure, was vanity. I wanted a slamming body. I instead I got hooked on the feelings and this is what sustained my motivation. The body thing just sort of happened as a bi-product.

If you are new to recovery (or an oldtimer who has avoided exercising) I hope you find a form of cardio that excites you. Your brain will reward you for it, your immune system will strengthen and yes – your body will change.

Vulnerability

October 3, 2014All Things Recovery12 step, AA, addiction, alcoholics anonymous, Alcoholism, anxiety, CA, CMA, cocaine, Drugs, Feelings, fellowship, gratitude, health, meth, NA, Narcotics Anonymous, Newcomers, recovery, Relapse, relationships, sober, Sobriety, Stress, substance abuse, tips, vulnerabilitypattypowers

Recovery is the process of becoming fearless. This means shedding the layers of psychic armor we’ve built around ourselves to hide and protect us from the unknown. Without armor we feel vulnerable and this feeling of vulnerability is the thing most addicts fear the most. The irony is that this is where our greatest strength can be found.

Addicts come into recovery with decades of built up armor. Maybe it went up early in life, before drugs even entered the equation, as a defense against other dangers such as violence, sexual abuse, neglect, and emotional abuse. Then drugs came along adding even more layers. In active addiction there’s good reason to not to feel safe. In the world of active addiction vulnerability is a sign of weakness, a sucker waiting to be had.

In recovery vulnerability is strength. When we meet someone who is open and unguarded we experience feelings of safety and warmth. We feel their authenticity. What you see is what you get. These people have courage to embrace life without the need for armor. We are attracted to this.

Armor limits our capacity for real intimacy. It protected us from danger but it also distanced us from our own painful experiences and locked away the feelings that were too difficult to process. In recovery, whether we like it or not, our emotions begin to thaw. This is how we start to shed our armor. By sharing our stories, our feelings, our confusion, and acknowledge our need to connect to others we learn to expose our true selves. This process is natural and gradual. We find people we feel safe with – usually people whose own strength lay in their vulnerability, their compassion and empathy – and we begin to reveal ourselves to them. This is how we shed our armor. As we learn to trust we make authentic connections based in honesty. We grow in our capacity for intimacy.

In time we experience the freedom that comes from not having to hide behind image or attitude. We are multi-dimensional. We’re more than the clown or the gangster, a haircut and an outfit, the party girl, the wild one. When our armor comes off we no longer need to pretend to be any more or any less than who we are. We discover our greatest strength comes from being ourselves.

How to Stop Yourself from Drowning

September 18, 2014All Things Recovery12 step, AA, addiction, alcoholics anonymous, Alcoholism, anxiety, depression, disease, Feelings, fellowship, HALT, meetings, Narcotics Anonymous, Newcomers, panic attack, Powerless, recovery, relationships, sober, Sobriety, Stress, substance abuse, support, tips, triggerpattypowers

There will be times when it feels like your life is falling apart even in recovery. Sometimes it’s a direct result of consequences from choices you’ve made and sometimes it’s because of events completely beyond your control. Either way, when life becomes completely unmanageable it will feel like you are drowning – whether in fear, sorrow, financial crisis, relationship chaos, or grief. The sensation of drowning becomes a state of panic. The ripple effect is similar to trying to fight your way out of an undertow or riptide. The more you struggle the worse it gets.

Most addicts have this in common – when we are afraid we want relief. Usually the best plan we come up with is to invest all of our energy in getting the situation under control. “Control” being the operative word. The internal dialogue might go like this, “This shit is serious and if I don’t do everything in my power to make it right things are just going to get worse. I can’t count on anyone else. It’s my problem. I have to fix it.” And if the situation is is due to impulsive decisions they’ve come up with on their own there’s usually another layer of inner dialogue that goes like this, ”It’s all my fault. I fuck everything up. This is my mess and I have to deal with this on my own.” (Most likely the dialogue is laced with more anger and self-loathing than I have written here).

I don’t know if you can see a pattern emerging but what’s obvious to me is that this illusion of self-relaince gives the disease leverage to create an amnesia effect regarding recovery tools that have worked in the past. Most likely the crisis situation was brought on by impulsive decision-making rather than methodically creating a plan and sharing it with people they trust (a friend, a sponsor or a therapist). The source of their current chaos may have involved risky spending, behavior inside a relationship, a major move, or exiting of a job. Impulsive behavior such as making major decisions that could have consequences without consulting their support network for feedback sets of a domino effect of self-reliance. Instead of recognizing that they need to ask for help, they believe that they alone can fix it. Often this involves more poor choices that result in panic driven by a fear of drowning.

This cycle continues to create more damage because it is impossible to make clear rational decisions when fear is the driving force. This is when it is time to ask for help. It is better to ask for help sooner rather than later. With the help of others and of professionals it is possible to come up with a workable solution. Depending on the situation and how bad it’s gotten, a quick fix is unlikely. A steady ongoing commitment to clean it up may be required.

While self-reliance is a worthy goal in some areas, if it’s driven by fear it’s unlikely to create positive solutions. Fear kicks up character defect and shame, regret, and pride ignite negative self-talk and self-hatred. It’s unlikely for anyone to come up with workable or sane solutions under these conditions. The only way to get out of the riptide is to ask for help. It’s no different than admitting defeat in order to get clean. Asking for help is not a sign of weakness. Everyone makes poor choices at some time or another and we learn from our missteps. The disease of addiction gains power from isolation and emotional pain. What may start out as impulsive spending could spiral into a relapse. You have the power to stop yourself from drowning by sharing the truth with someone in your support network and asking for help. No matter how bad things appear, in recovery there are workable solutions to every problem. Getting high is not one of them.

Patty Powers

Recovery Coach // NYC