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Eating Disorders in Recovery & our response to them

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

eating disorders kill

 

Anorexia? WTF Happened?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fuck addiction. Fuck anorexia.

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

 

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The SADs got you down?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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The Upside of Shame

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Regrets. I’ve had a few, but then again, too few to mention. (My Way, Frank Sinatra)

Wouldn’t you love to be able to hit rewind and delete entire episodes out of your past rather than have to deal with the fallout clean and sober?

When I used to try to kick dope, the physical withdrawal was nothing compared to the  movies playing non-stop in my head of every single thing I ever did or said that made me feel like shit. It always touched on the things that hurt or betrayed the people I loved (whether they knew it or not) like birthday money from my folks I’d blown on coke, the time my dad drove from Toronto to Buffalo to meet a flight I’d forgotten about, relationships I’d discarded, friends I’d lost, the time I left my dog in my apartment while I spent a weekend on the Virgin Islands. It was all there in living color, the shit I did, accompanied by a gnawing soul-sickness.

The behaviors we engage in that fuel the beast don’t completely disappear when we get clean. The “disease” gets a lot of mileage from shame. Whenever we act out in our selfish or thoughtless behaviors in recovery and feel bad, thoughts of using pop up – always an unconscious antidote to our negative feelings. The way out of this cycle is in repairing damage we have caused and learning how to do things differently. Recovery gives us the opportunity to change.

On a positive note, guilt and remorse are natural healthy feelings because they let us know we are not psychopaths.

It’s through these feelings that we build our moral backbone in recovery. This moral compass lets us know how far we have strayed from our own deepest beliefs and values. They teach us right from wrong, teach us how to be loving – toward ourselves and others, toward animals and nature. We don’t learn this by having debates, or philosophizing over coffee with our friends, or because family, religion or the courts shoved a moral code at us. We discover morality through our feelings. And they never lie. They let us know when we do something that betrays our very nature.

Shame is the real killer for addicts because shame is personal. It’s how we feel about ourselves in the privacy of our own mind. How are we supposed to take care of ourselves, love ourselves, if we believe we are worthless? “We are as sick as our secrets” is true because shame is so personal. Guilt says, “What you did was horrible.” Shame says, “ You are horrible.” Secrets nurture shame – so get rid of them.

Imagine – even at the peak of our addiction we could not escape regret, guilt, or shame when we acted out against our most heartfelt beliefs. That says a lot about the human spirit. Even when we believed we truly didn’t give a fuck our heart was storing up the memory to haunt us later. The human spirit is pretty amazing. Even the madness of addiction can’t reach in and completely rewire our conscience.

 FEELINGS

 

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

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

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

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

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

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National Survivors of Suicide Day

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National Survivor’s of Suicide Day November 17 2012

Today I spent time thinking about those I’ve lost to suicide and their families.

I got news this past week that another friend from my early recovery overdosed and died. This makes six friends since March. Five had been in recovery at one point for anywhere from one to twenty years before they decided that they could drink or smoke weed without getting caught up in old ways.  The news is never easy. Over the years I ‘ve been clean, there’s been a lot of death. Overdoses and suicide top the list followed closely by AIDS and Hepatitis C. I’ve spent a lot of time searching for meaning, contemplating life and death, and coming to terms with it in a way that makes sense to me personally. At one point I started to numb out. I would hear of a new death and mentally delete their number from my cell phone – gone! They were gone. Over! The end! I noticed my lack of emotional response and figured, really, how much death can one take? Nowadays, I’m back to feeling that funk land hard in my stomach and the sad sound as my head whispers “Fuck!”

My best friend committed suicide in the mid-80s. I wrote about her in an earlier blog on my other site http://www.pattypowersnyc.blogspot.com/2011/09/finding-one-day-at-time.html. That death hit me at a time when my own life was spiraling out of control. I felt I understood what she was feeling at the time -that feeling of not wanting to play anymore, of being tired, of not believing things would ever change. Little did I know that within three years I’d find recovery and my life would change radically.

I’ll confess that, for years, I held a little idea at the back of my most private thoughts: I would do this life-on-life’s-terms recovery thing as long as I could but if I ever got tired and want off the ride instead of getting high, suicide would be my way off.

At seven years clean I was hit by a depression I’d never experienced before – coming out of the blue and unattached to any plausible explanation. There was nothing going on in my life I could pin it to. I felt like I was inside a bubble preventing me from feeling a connection to anything or anyone.  I spent days laying on the sofa telling myself “This too shall pass.” The next day I’d awaken to realize nothing had changed. I had no desire to get high and wondered how long I could live this way.  When would enough be enough and I’d check out? I was also writing a novel where the main character would attempt suicide so a variety of methods were at my fingertips. Needless to say, it wasn’t a good time to spend days alone with my mind. Was this feeling ever going to pass?  The day I woke up feeling alive again was one of joy and relief. Shortly after this, a friend’s son hung himself.

While laying in my self-absorbed darkness fantasizing about suicide, it never occurred to me to consider how my death would affect others. Witnessing first hand how his suicide impacted the lives of his family and friends eradicated suicide as my exit strategy.

There was a hint that the latest death may have been intentional because of his history with depression.  Addiction and depression are closely linked. Perhaps this has played a role in all the earlier suicides. Much has been discovered and documented linking addiction and depression since my early years in recovery. Back then many recovering addicts shunned the idea of taking any sort of pill. Instead they believed in toughing it out, working a stronger program, finding a god. Many struggled with undiagnosed mental health issues for years, living in pain, until they finally sought help. It wasn’t that recovering addicts wanted to martyr themselves. Antidepressants were a new concept and many of us twelve-steppers were naïve and ill-informed.

I think a lot about my friends who’ve died, wondering how many of those overdoses were suicide.  How many kept their depression a guarded secret in recovery? How could we have helped?

That is the biggest question survivors of suicide torment themselves with – “What could I have done?” It’s heartbreaking to see and hear the grief lingering years later, wrapped around them like a blanket for the remainder of their lives. If a loved one has committed suicide please find support groups and professional counseling. The impact of suicide can be trauma.

For anyone who is considering suicide I will pass on something someone said to me during a particularly difficult time:

Patty, life is like a long phonograph and right now the needle is skipping but there is still a long beautiful song left to play. I know the pain is so big you can’t breath and it feels like it will never go away but this is really just one moment in time of a very long story and when you get past it, you will always look back and remember this period as a hard one but you won’t even be able to connect with the pain that right now feels like its going to kill you.  It will just be a memory that things were rough. While you’re in it, it feels so much more meaningful – but it’s really a just rough patch in a skipping record. Not worth killing yourself over. Because then it’s over forever.

Hang on and ask for help!

suicide2

 

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Friends dissing Recovery

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Expectations lead to disappointment.

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

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

 

 

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

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This has been a crazy summer for me. Not “crazy” in a wild and fun way either (sorry to say) but crazy in an unmanageable “life on life’s terms” way. This is my first summer in New York City without air conditioning and the hottest recorded summer since the 1800s. They decided to re-wire my building (an old brownstone in the Village) and hired one electrician to do all the work. I struggled through one major heatwave after another, sitting inside my apartment feeling like a dog locked inside a car with the windows rolled up.  I found myself crying at my desk for no reason. I’ve discovered that severe conditions can bring on feelings of despair and depression – go figure! I had to turn down several clients because I was in no shape to help anyone and writing was impossible. Instead, I went to visit my folks in Canada for a couple weeks and expected to come back to air conditioning. Well –
what do you know – Con Edison went on strike so there is no one to do the inspection. There will be no air conditioning this year. The upside is that I knew enough to leave town to rejuvenate my spirit and have since put myself on graveyard hours so that I can bike in the cooler evening breeze for fresh air, write at night, and see as many matinees as I possible. I’m making my situation as manageable as I can because my mental health matters to me. I am powerless over the circumstances but not powerless over my ability to make choices to improve my situation. I needed topics for this blog to simplify my workload so I asked for help.I got a lot of suggestions. Phil wrote me this, which I felt was appropriate to use first:12_10 i didnt get clean for this shit_2

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

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

 

12_10 i didnt get clean for this shit3Clean and sober, unmanageability in our lives can look like this: jobs lost, apartment evictions, regularly living without a phone or electricity, calls from collection agencies, owing everyone we know money, significant others leaving after many tears, fights, and drama. From neglecting our health there can be   trips to hospitals. If we don’t change our behaviors we can end up in jail and there could even be times we end up in psych wards.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Recovery is harm reduction for day to day living.

 

 

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

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caution_relapse

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

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

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

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

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

We feel a general crankiness toward everything.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

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For the Ladies: Hormones are a Bitch!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 wt__emotional_rollercoaster_by_raincookie-d3e8e63

 

 

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Will the truth set me free?

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truth will set you freeThe disease of addiction thrives on lies and self-deception. The only way to get and stay clean is by learning how to be honest. Yep, us addicts have to learn how to do this.

When I was getting high I told myself, “This is the last one” thousands of times over the years. Sometimes I’d even throw away my paraphernalia to prove that I meant it. By morning (or even earlier) I’d be wading through rain-filled dumpsters searching for my old trash bags or laying out money on new syringes and cursing myself for being stupid enough to believe my own bullshit. This game was old. All I got from it was more self-hatred to use over.  I’d become silent on the subject of stopping years ago – friends will only listen to bullshit for so long – so this dialogue was my own inner torture chamber. At some point my head said “This is the last time” and I quit falling for it. Repeatedly disappointing myself was more painful than accepting I’d never stop using no matter how horrible I felt.

In 1988 something miraculous happened that changed my life. While trying to get into rehab, a friend called and basically told me to come over for free drugs. This was in the middle of my withdrawal so the timing couldn’t have been more perfect. I have no idea how I was able to be honest with myself but I knew if I gave myself “one last time” it meant I was still playing the “getting clean” mind-game. The only way things would be different was if I did something different. I told my friend “Thanks but no thanks.”

The saying “You are only as sick as your secrets” doesn’t just mean that we need to reveal all our sneaky devious deeds in a relapse-prevention way. It means, in order to get clean and stay clean, we have to practice honesty with others so we can learn how to become honest with ourselves– and let’s face it – we have suffered the most from our lies.  Trusting our own thinking is our greatest downfall and it is foolish to assume a major transformation in our ability to perceive reality and the truth happens simply by putting down the drugs. It comes from the work we do after.

This is why it is absolutely necessary to have at least one person we are willing to expose ourselves to fully – not just the questionable decisions we make, or the sneaky shit we are able to get away with but the very stories we tell ourselves in way of rationalizing or justifying these behaviors. It’s worth the risk to find that one person – whether it is a therapist or a sponsor or a friend. The only way we can begin to have an honest relationship with ourselves is to learn it by practicing honesty with another person. This can begin before putting the drugs down.

Here is how I approached this:

Before I got clean, when I’d feel uncomfortable or too exposed, judged, or if my behaviors caused too much drama, I’d move onto a new crowd or a new city. Sometimes this happened without me ever questioning how I lost touch with old friends. It was just the way I was carving out my path. Seemed perfectly natural. I embarked on my adventure into recovery using this model to give me courage. I was willing to be completely honest because I knew if it became unbearable, I could dump my new friends and find others. This gave me the courage to give it my best shot. The funny thing is that I am still very close to the original core group of recovery friends I made 23 years ago. In fact, honesty gave these relationships a level of intimacy I had never known prior.

Recently I was helping my oldest friend in the world get clean. Over the years, she would ask for help. She wanted directions on how to do it but reserved space to include her own ideas she still believed were valid and trustworthy. She was unable to see or accept that for years she had been trying to get clean this way and it never worked. Occasionally she could hear this argument and say, “This time I will try doing it your way.” She began to lower her methadone intake by 10 mg every couple weeks. I knew she was having trouble sleeping but it took several weeks before she admitted she was using wine to sleep at night (followed by a list of logical-sounding reasons why she couldn’t do her job if she was exhausted). I warned her that when she had her first days off of methadone she would be craving her nightcap. She promised she would stop when she began counting clean days.

By day 6 she said “I should have listened to you about the wine. The cravings are coming back and I am feeling worse today than I did on day one.” It took several email exchanges before she told me the truth. She had continued drinking wine before bed throughout those first 6 days clean and now she was thinking of nothing other than having a drink and taking the leftover methadone she had sitting on her dresser. “What leftover methadone? You shouldn’t have had wine or methadone in your house when you started counting day one.” It took 6 days of lying about her clean time until she was able to tell me the truth – and it was only because she was deep in the obsession of using again.

For two months she had suffered levels of withdrawal coming off methadone and if she picked up again, it would have all been in vain. On day 6 she told me the truth – or at least that is how it appeared. She overdosed and died on the 7th day. Even her confession about the wine and methadone was only a partial truth. She never revealed that she had Oxycontin in the house. Maybe that is what she meant by the “methadone on my dresser” that she kept thinking about all day. She tried to tell on herself but was incapable of going all the way. I will never know what other secrets she had held onto. I firmly believe that if she had been capable of telling me the truth, she would have. She wanted so badly to be in recovery again and my heart is broken that she will never have another opportunity to do things differently.

The disease wants us to protect our secrets. Even clean it will tell us that we deserve the right to some privacy so we will withhold information and not recognize this as secret-keeping behavior.  If you want to get clean or you want to stay clean for the long haul, share your secrets with someone – even if you aren’t ready to change the behaviors connected to them. Honesty is the first step. It will save your life.

 

 

 

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