Building Recovery – Location

Building Recovery – Location

by | Jan 29, 2020 | A2R, Building Recovery, Planning

If you are thinking of attempting to get away from your addiction my advice is not to rush into it. Give yourself the best chance you can by preparing for it. I believe that it’s useful to use a metaphor such as ‘building a home’ as a way of understanding some of the challenges and their solutions. This is the third in a short series on preparation using that metaphor. We have already looked at design and cost. Now we are going to take a look at an equally important aspect of your preparation. Location.

 

In this metaphor location means who you are involved with socially, what neighbourhood do you want to live in? This part of the metaphor is one of the closest to the real thing as you may have to physically move in order to recover. To help you to think through the challenges involved here read through this article which will look at the assumptions we make as well as the grieving we must do.

Don’t assume that you can recover where you are

I often say that the ‘medical way’ of looking at recovering from addiction is not the most useful. It can lead to an idea that we can recover just by stopping using the drug of choice or the behaviour that is addictive and leave everything else the same. I want you to know that in most cases this idea has to go! If I said to you that in order to recover you had to change your social life completely what would you say?

When you recovery from addiction you must take into account many aspects of your life. There is the chemical aspect and the behavioural aspect. Of course these are seen as the most important. But there is also the Family aspect, the work aspect, the financial aspect and, last but not least, the social aspect. Who you spend your time with when you have a choice about it will have a huge impact on the quality of your recovery. As well as how hard it is to achieve.

Location, location, location!

 

One of the biggest questions you will ask yourself when you are thinking about building or buying your new home is “where do I want to live”? I want you to start thinking about this as part of your preparation. In using our metaphor of building your recovery, consider moving away from your current location. By which I mean the people you are spending time with. Ask yourself, what have they got me doing? What have they got me thinking? What follows are a few thoughts to help you to consider this question in more depth.

The disapproval of others

 

 

One of the things that will affect the way you think this through will be the influence others have on you. If you are ‘easily led’ or too keen to meet others expectations, you will tend towards staying where you are. This is because of the way that we tend to surround ourselves with people who agree with us. Social media has taken this to extremes these days by using algorithms that increasingly focus us on who we already are. This has a tendency to make us more closed minded and narrow. It’s an extreme version of what we do socially.

Make no mistake, when you move home you will upset some people who had other plans for you. Even if all you are doing for them is making them look more normal by drinking as much as they do, they will argue for you to ‘stay where you are’. If you have been using drugs or drinking for a long time it can be your whole social world. Take the time to think through the difficulties here and how you might cope with them. 

 

Acceptance of limitations

You may have a tendency to overestimate your ability to cope with things. An inflated ego goes hand in hand with low self worth. Don’t be fooled by that cocky overconfident voice that tells you that ‘you’ll be fine’. Staying in the same ‘location’ can mean that you are surrounded by people who have a vested interest in keeping you addicted. 

 

Ask yourself this “how easy is it for me to say no to my friends”? In other articles you will learn about your ‘triggers’. How many of them are produced by your friends can be shocking. Being honest about your limitations can be the best preparatory step you take.

Letting go of quick fixes

As part of my work I have worked with many sportsmen, including wrestlers and trainers. They are the ones most likely to understand what I mean when I say that becoming mentally ‘fit’ is very similar to becoming physically fit. It as about the same level of difficulty, it takes about the same amount of time and is about as challenging to maintain. Take a look at your tendency to ‘minimise’ things now. This is not a quick fix. This is not going to be as easy as you may have found other challenges. Buying a new home is a twenty five year commitment. The more you have that in perspective the better chance you have.

Expect to grieve the old location

 

If you move (and I want you to know that most of you need to) you will begin a grieving process. This is normal and inevitable. It forms one of the major difficulties in recovery. Although it is often played down or missed out altogether in some approaches. Why might you find it so difficult? Mainly because you may be ignorant of it. If you do not expect to go through it you will misunderstand it and will probably feel there is something wrong with your recovery.

I want to take you through the different phases of bereavement as well as some of the typical things you can expect as part of this process. This will help as I always say…..

Expectation changes experience!

One of the things that will affect the way you think this through will be the influence others have on you. If you are ‘easily led’ or too keen to meet others expectations, you will tend towards staying where you are. This is because of the way that we tend to surround ourselves with people who agree with us. Social media has taken this to extremes these days by using algorithms that increasingly focus us on who we already are. This has a tendency to make us more closed minded and narrow and is an extreme version of what we do socially.

Make no mistake, when you move home you will upset some people who had other plans for you. Even if all you are doing for them is making them look more normal by drinking as much as they do, they will argue for you to ‘stay where you are’. If you have been using drugs or drinking for a long time it can be your whole social world. Take the time to think through the difficulties here and how you might cope with them. 

Denial 

Denial is part of the early stages of bereavement and in terms of your recovery is often felt prior to giving up. In the same way that, if their loved one is involved in a long illness, a family often begin their grieving prior to losing them. So make sure that you are no longer in denial by the time you decide to quit. Preparation can include quite a lot of the grieving process prior to stopping.

Bargaining 

Bargaining is a complex form of denial that either minimises the loss or creates a ‘deal’ that influences the loss. Usually by some form of commitment. In the loss of a loved one, it often takes the form of charity work. Essentially the deal is something like “If I can raise enough money for research into this illness, it won’t have really happened”. In the context of recovery it sometimes takes the form of ‘service’ in a fellowship such as AA. Or it can be the throwing of yourself into ‘being the Dad you should have been’ etc. When it comes prior to stopping it is often a form of minimising such as “this is no big deal”.

Depression and Anger 

I’m going to put these two stages together for the sake of this article as there are so many cross over points. Although they are different, in standard bereavement they are interchangeable and may come and go to an extent.

Without understanding that this is a normal and expected phase depression and anger can get in the way of your growth in recovery. No matter how bad it was, it probably wasn’t all bad. There are parts of your experience that you will naturally miss. There are things that your ‘addicted self’ could do that your ‘recovered self’ cannot, such as ‘exit-ing’ for the afternoon when you’re a bit bored. Depression and anger can also be part of regret. Remember that any form of addiction means that you are not where you should be in life. Your career, your family, your relationship. Even your bank balance are all affected. When you look at others who can seemingly do what you cannot. These are all common reasons to get angry or to become depressed, or both.

 Acceptance

Of course acceptance is the final stage of bereavement, when you come to terms with reality and make peace with God or life or fate. And this is another reason why it is a part of recovery you need to be involved with. Again, this may be something you reach prior to stopping! Generally, this is achieved as part of your abstinent time but be aware that the depth of your preparation can cause you to go through the whole bereavement process prior to stopping.

Generally acceptance can be compared with a full recovery since it is a necessary component of a complete recovery. Although acceptance itself would not achieve your full recovery as I have seen people accept that they must not drink any more but not be much closer to truly recovering. Try the following exercise to get some idea of whether you need to move your location. 

The relationship exercise

Again, just a simple exercise to get you thinking about the way your relationships construct you. And how they affect you. You will need a pen and paper only.

Write down the names of everyone you spend time with. About ten people is the average. Now think about scoring them from 1 to 10. The important thing here is that you are scoring them on how you feel about yourself after you have been with them. Not how you feel about them. 

So, anyone above five is someone who you should consider spending more time with. Anyone below five you should consider spending less time with. This counts for family as well as friends and work colleagues. How does this affect your decision to move away from this area? If most are scoring less than five you almost certainly need to be thinking about moving away. Which means getting new friends or even a new job. If most are scoring over five then you are good to stay where you are. Just maybe make one or two adjustments.

So now we have covered the big three of preparation, Location Design and cost. The next series will be about your foundation building on which the rest of your house will stand. Till next time, don’t build too fast, or too slow.

 

Building Recovery – Cost

Building Recovery – Cost

by | Jan 8, 2020 | A2R

Now we are going to get into more detail about the idea of ‘cost’. Another one of the ‘big three’ things to consider when building your recovery along with ‘design’ and ‘location’. Most of us get the general idea that things cost and that we have to pay, but what exactly is the cost of your recovery? If we do not know the cost then we cannot know if we are willing to pay it. So it’s not surprising that this is one of the biggest blocks to recovery. Let’s take a closer look at how much this new home is going to cost.

Always remember when doing any of these exercises that the more you imagine your recovery home as a real home, the better it will work for you as a genuine aid. So ask the same questions you would ask when considering a new home. These are exactly the same questions you need to ask about your recovery. So think of cost as things you will have to give and things you will have to give up. Probably the first thing you would think of when considering moving would be cost. What can you afford? What would you be willing to pay? It’s exactly the same with your recovery.

Don’t assume that you will be willing to pay

The first thing you need to do is tackle the assumption that you will pay anything. Those of you who have tried to recover in the past will know that this is a dangerous assumption to make. A typical idea here is that  your addicted life has been all bad. That there was nothing good about it. Not true. Don’t fall into the trap of the ‘medical model’ that removes any choices and says that you were powerless over everything. 

Considering yourself as the manager of your own life is an empowering shift in your thinking. You were making choices and remember, it worked for a while. If what you were doing was still working you would still be doing it! But it stopped working and so you need to seriously consider the cost of your recovery. Here is a shortlist of things that you will need to pay.

The disapproval of others 

Not everyone is going to like how you change and what you do. Loss of their approval includes the idea of doing things that are hard that only you can see. If you have been big on ‘approval’ this can be a huge cost. Make up your mind to stick to your design.

Acceptance of limitations

You can’t spend money twice! If you are going to pay for your recovery then the money has gone. If you decide that spending more time with the kids is part of your recovered lifestyle then that time is spent and cannot be spent elsewhere. Make up your mind to value the money you are spending.

Letting go of quick fixes

Buying your new home is a long term goal. It involves working and paying for something that does not appear immediately. Before some of us can buy our new place we have to save up for a deposit. This means working hard for something we do not even have yet! If you have been a typical addict you will only have been willing to pay for something you get right now! Make up your mind to let go of quick fixes.

Cost is an investment

So the first thing I want you to do is to get your attitude right towards this idea of cost. If you are not used to thinking about paying then you will probably be feeling bad about the idea of how hard this will be. Well, that’s not a bad thing to come to terms with but I want you to think of the cost more as an investment. You are going to get something amazing out of this! I want to now take a look at some of the challenges you face when deciding to pay for your recovery.

You are responsible for the payment

Really this is a boundary question. Most addicted lifestyles include the idea that someone else is going to look after us or pay for what we need. One of the biggest parts of your preparation is understanding that you are responsible for the payment! When you sign for your house you are saying that you will pay. If the payment is not made it is you they will be looking for. Anyone who has been in this position will know that this is a 24/7 difficulty. Don’t sign for something you are not willing to pay for!

Paying is uncomfortable

Over the years of working in this field one of the things that quickly became very obvious is the way that people become very wary of discomfort. As you became more and more dependent on your drug or behaviour you will have developed this aversion to certain discomforts. This behaviour develops into a belief that you are not supposed to feel any discomfort! This is inevitably accompanied by greater and greater dependence on the things that offer quick fixes.

I have seen several people run out of treatment centres at the thought that things may get uncomfortable in the future. This is before they have even come down off the drugs or been detoxed! So strong is the belief that discomfort is to be avoided at all costs. But discomfort is normal and inevitable. All adults face discomfort every day. Remember, if you expect discomfort it’s a lot easier to deal with. Expectations change experiences.

If you are willing to face discomfort as part of your commitment to your recovery you will discover two things that all adults know. That paying for good things is uncomfortable, and that discomfort does not kill you!

The world does not owe you your new home

One of the most damaging beliefs in early recovery is the idea that you have done the world a huge favour by becoming ‘clean’. This one idea can get in the way of your recovery for years. If you are going to build your recovery then you are doing it for yourself. The rest of the world is not going to live in it. Just you. So it is for you to pay the cost. No one is going to pay it for you.

So make sure it is what you want and that you are willing to pay. If you are paying for a new home when actually you do not want it you will resent every penny and, what’s worse, you will expect everybody to be grateful. When others around you stop appreciating all that you are doing for them by paying for this home you will tear it down out of frustration and anger. So the question of cost becomes “do you want this for yourself, or does someone else want it for you”.

You can’t keep the old home

According to the old saying you can’t have your cake and eat it. This is just as true when it comes to your recovery. You can’t live in two homes at the same time. The idea of living a ‘double life’ is part of the idea of deceit and secrecy that forms a big part of the addicted lifestyle. Part of the cost of building your recovery is the realisation that the cost is high. Meaning that it’s going to take all you have. Meaning that you can’t afford to keep the old home going. 

In the old home you may have been managing others approval. Making sure that, in appearance at least, they would be happy with what you were doing and saying. Letting go of others approval can be one of the biggest costs.

This connects with the idea of reality over appearances. Not everyone has as big a problem with this as I did, but it’s worth considering how much you have invested in the appearance of something. In the old home how much time did you spend, how much effort did you put into convincing people of something that was not true? Something that was not real? Make your mind up to now build something real, something substantial. 

The best materials cost more

This leads us to the idea of building materials. We are not ready to build yet, we are just thinking about it. But it’s time to think about the quality of the materials we are going to use. Some of you may remember the film ‘The Towering Inferno’ which dealt with the idea of buildings that were too high for firefighters effectively fight the fires. You may remember that the whole concept of the film was based on the son of the architect skimping on the quality of the materials used in the construction. This is what caused the fire. 

We are now looking at one of the most important aspects of deceit. Saying we will use the best materials but in the end not being willing to pay for them. So what are these materials?

When you build your recovery you are building your character. Your addicted self will have been built largely using appearances. Convincing people that you were this or that kind of person became a substitute for real character. As long as they believed it, it didn’t matter that it was not true. Saying you were fine when you were not. Agreeing with something when in reality you resented it. Believing it was more important that you convinced people of something than whether it was true or not.

Your recovery is built with principles. These principles are real, not appearances. It’s no good saying we are going to be honest. Creating the appearance of honesty when we are not willing to pay the price of honesty doesn’t build anything. Other important materials are humility, discipline and perseverance. You need to build with the best materials you can afford.

Later in the course you will learn more about these principles and how to build with them. For now take some time to think about cost and building something that will stand the test of time.

Building Recovery – Your design

Building Recovery – Your design

by | Dec 27, 2019 | A2R

Of the three most impotrtant factors when thinking about building your recovery – Design, cost and location. We could say that design is the one I see most often misunderstood, or left out altogether. Remember, if you do not design your recovery, someone else will!

Why is this important? Because if you live in a building someone else has designed you will resent it. And eventually you will pull the whole thing down yourself! I have seen it happen more times than I want to think about. So let’s learn more about what it means to design your own recovery.

The Big Three – Cost – Location – Design

In the first of three posts I am now going to get into more detail about the concept of ‘design’. Which is one of the ‘big three’ things to consider when building your recovery along with ‘cost’ and ‘location’. What do I mean by design and how can you create a good design for yourself? And how can you make sure that it remains your design as you develop your recovered self? Let’s start with how to create the basic design.

Always remember when doing any of these exercises that the more you imagine this as a real home, the better it will work for you as a genuine aid. Remember that the same questions you would ask when considering a new home are exactly the same questions you need to ask about your recovery. So think of cost in two ways. As things you will have to give and things you will have to give up. No longer acting the way you did is a cost and not having neighbours you liked would be a loss.

Location Location Location

Think of Location as who you will be living next to. In other words which relationships do you need to let go of and which relationships do you need to develop more?

There is a short exercise I use for this, the concept is simple. Write down the names of everyone you see regularly. Now score them out of 10 by how you feel about yourself after you have been with them. Remember, it’s not how you feel about them. It’s how you feel about yourself. Everyone who scores less than five is a person you need to move away from or consider limiting the amount of time you spend with them. Everyone who scores more than five is someone you should consider spending more time with. 

It must be your design

Your recovery building
It doesn’t matter how different it looks, it must be your design!

The idea of moving into a new home but not getting what you want is really frustrating. Imagine wanting a big garden but being persuaded by a friend or family member to buy a place with no garden for whatever reason. Every time you arrive home the garden would remind you that this was not your choice! That gets old pretty quick.

So how do we think about design? We start by looking at the way things were. How did you spend your time? Who did you spend your time with? This is the old design and being real about what it looked like is the first step. Next we need to imagine it as your old building. The one your ‘addicted self’ lived in. If this was a building design how many rooms would it have? And which would be the biggest room? Rooms will be labelled as work, family and personal time. Ask yourself honestly how much time you spent in the different rooms. The more accurately you do this, the better your chances of getting what you want.

Making a plan

Now it’s time to make the floor plan. Draw it simply and think of the size of the building as the amount of time you have. So the rooms represent both how many different things you do, but also describe the proportion of time you spend doing them. How do you want the new place to be different? Now you’re going to need a second floor plan. This should give you a clear view of how you have lived and how you want to change.  

Floor plans comparing the old home with the new one

These drawings should be very basic, just like the ones above. Floor plans showing the rooms that you lived in as well as the names of the rooms. Be honest and use what you have learned from the FREDS list about who you really have been. 

Making the Transition

Moving from one ‘home’ to another is part of what I call the ‘work of recovery’. Notice how much smaller the ‘work’ room is in the new house above. We now need a plan of how to build the new home in the way we wanted it.

Fill your calendar
Fill in every waking hour and colour code for each room.

To do this I want you to consider using a tool such as Google Calendar or something similar. Think about how you use your time. Most of you are already using something like this and, if you are like me you will probably be inserting things like meetings and phone calls etc. But you are always doing something! So now decide on your ‘waking’ hours and put something in for every hour. Even if you decide to do nothing that’s fine. try colour coding for the different rooms for greater clarity.

Now, does the percentage of time match the way you have set up your rooms. Or does it still look like the old house? Consider changing things till you achieve the balance that is right for you.

Remember, this is an aim, so go at the right pace for yourself. Don’t build too fast or too slowly.

Inside out The growth process explained Part one

Inside out The growth process explained Part one

by | Aug 28, 2019 | A2R

Common sense is not always the best guide

Today I want to talk to you about the growth process and how it can sometimes go against our common sense. There’s a very good reason why we tend to start any change process from the outside-in. it doesn’t take a genius to work it out. We are more likely to try and change on the outside because that’s the part that other people can see. That’s the part of us that is visible to others. There are several therapeutic approaches that work this way. Generally we might call these behavioral approaches. I want to offer you a different way but let me first explain why I believe that inside-out is better than outside-in. Let’s start with a recovery principle. 

No one has to do anything or say anything in order for you to recover.

That is one of the main principles of authentic recovery. if your recovery is contingent on what someone else does or says you are on the wrong track. So the best method is going to be based on you, not on others and the best place to start working on you is on the inside. If you stop thinking about behaviour as producing change and start to see it as evidence of inner change you’ll get the idea.

Making simple, powerful distinctions

No less an authority than Wittgenstein said that we need to make these “artificial tears in the universe”. In other words that clear and simple distinctions improve our thinking. These ‘artificial’ distinctions often help us to make sense of our world and give us a way forwards. So when we make a distinction between your inner world and your outer world we have a very effective place to start. 

You are always working with what’s between your ears

Because we live in the ‘big wide world’ out there, we naturally assume that’s the world we are relating to. It’s not. As we experience things we construct a ‘little world’ in our heads. This ‘little world’ is our idea of how things are. It includes all the people we know and the way we think things work, etc. We could think of it as our ‘map of reality’. It is this ‘little world’ that we’re actually relating to. So in a very real sense we’re already working from the ‘inside out’, even when we don’t think so. 

So much of what we do is about changing our state, making ourselves ‘feel better’. Our brains are constantly picking up on these habits and patterns of thought. Once the brain establishes a pattern of thinking it helps us by ‘following’ that pattern for us. The neuro-scientists describe it this way, they say that 

‘neurons that fire together wire together’. 

The top three reasons we usually start from the outside

Let’s review what we have so far. Here are the top three related reasons why it feels like common sense to go from the ‘outside-in’.

  1. It’s what people see – It seems to get faster results.
  2. It’s how we manipulate others – If it’s important to us that others believe this change (and it usually is) then our behaviour is the fastest way of doing this.
  3. The inside is not visible – Which is really reason number one turned inside out. Okay fine, you got me. But it still makes sense to include it as it appeals to our common sense not to spend a lot of resources on the things others will never see.

Behaviour as evidence of change – not the producer of change.

So far we’ve looked at the common sense reasons why we go from the outside-in when trying to produce change. Now we’re going to look at the theoretical reason for going from ‘inside out’. There is a ‘behavioural’ approach which says that if we do things differently we will then become different, think differently, and have a different attitude. More recent research shows that when we force ourselves or demand of ourselves to behave differently it actually produces inner conflict, which inhibits growth and change. This is basically because these traditional approaches don’t take into account the complexity of a human being. 

Negotiate – never demand

I work mainly with addicts and helping them recover from addiction. So what I’m describing here is something I work with every day. When the addict reaches crisis point they often simply demand of themselves to stop. So they stop drinking, stop taking heroin. They stop gambling etc etc. The problem comes because we are complex and there is a part of them that does not want to stop. 

There is a part of them that believes that the protection they receive from their addictive behaviour is what they need. So in demanding of themselves to change their behaviour they set up a massive inner conflict. Because they’re working from the outside-in they don’t pay attention to this conflict or really understand it. Often they just feel like they’re going crazy! I hear things like this everyday….

“I promised myself I wouldn’t do it anymore an hour later there I am doing it again”.

The problem is that they are not realising that the ‘I’ that promises they won’t do it again is not the ‘I’ that does it again! Being a human being is a complex thing and when we use the simplistic sense of ‘I’ all the time we miss the point. I ask addicted people to understand that when they say “I’m never doing that again” that there is a part of them that says “good luck with that”.

So let’s start by understanding that level of complexity. What it means to be a human being. Then you will see how your brain has learned to protect you in certain ways. You need to retrain your brain in order to produce better behaviour. In this way we produce inner harmony rather than inner conflict. We learn to work ‘with’ ourselves rather than against ourselves.

Behaviour is a product of beliefs, attitudes, and training

Think about how you feel right now. Aside from illness and damage from accidents, your feelings are largely a product of the future you think you are headed for (beliefs), the sense of value you have about yourself (attitude), and the way your life has gone so far (training). To simply demand that you ‘be different’ from now on is the worst thing you can do. Any approach that does not take into account your beliefs attitude and training just sets you up to fail.

Get genuinely interested in yourself instead of just demanding things of yourself. This often means developing a better relationship with yourself. Changes of the size you are wanting simply will never happen if you do not value yourself. If you don’t think of yourself as something worth being interested in, if you don’t think of yourself as having a future worth working for. If you have been trained that you are not of value then anything you do for yourself will be shallow and ineffective.

Learn to access the adult inside you

So, how do we start? You are reading this because you need to change. Even if you are only interested in change because your partner or your boss says you will be finished if you don’t. So take that desire to change as a starting point. 


Realise that there is a part of you that wants something better and believes that you deserve something better. Accept that your past does not have to dictate your future. Accept that things that were frightening and threatening years ago will probably not be now. But your brain may still be protecting you from them. Once you learn to access this part of you, you will be working with the most grown up resources you have. Believe me this will be enough to bring about the shift in perspective you need.

When we ‘protected’ ourselves through addictive behaviour our brain learned that’s what we wanted. Our job now is to retrain our brain with a different Idea of what’s important. It may take time for your brain to learn this and this is where practice and commitment follow understanding.instead of fighting this part of you or dismissing it or denying that it exists, I want to suggest that you get to know it better and work with it because it’s part of you.

 I want to talk more about this process,  which is the most effective and authentic recovery process. But rather than make these things too long I’ll save that for next time. Thanks for taking the time to read this.

The number one commitment : Learn from everything!

The number one commitment : Learn from everything!

by | Apr 23, 2019 | A2R, Advanced Recovery, Building Recovery, Communication, Foundation, Ground Floor, Method, Theory

So you want to recover from addiction? You want to lose that dependency? What is your number one commitment? Say no to drugs? Come home at a reasonable time? be more honest? I say that your number one commitment in recovery is to learn from everything!

This post follows on from the idea that we can get caught in a trap of success and failure. I now want to talk more about what the solution looks like. Learn from everything!

Traditional treatment methods


New York State Inebriate Asylum

Residential Treatment Centres go back to the 1860’s when the first asylums were founded based on the size of the problem in America at the time.

The Keeley Cure

From around 1880 the ‘Keely cure’ as it was know was not only popular enough at the time to become huge (over 200 Centres were founded across America and Europe) but, with it’s emphasis on time (31 days) and fresh air and exercise, this approach largely formed the basis of Treatment Centres ever since.

How do treatment Centres work?

Before launching into a critique of treatment Centres, let me first say that, for the right person at the right time, they can and do work. Later in this piece you can read some of my experiences of working for, in and with some centres and what was achieved. My main difficulty with them is that in my experience only around 20% of those wanting help achieved recovery. This would mean that rehab is not the most appropriate treatment for 80% of people who go there!

There are lots of treatment Centres offering treatment for alcoholism and addiction generally. The approaches are varied in length and approach but the idea that they are based on is the same (I am discounting methods that include medical approaches offering a ‘cure’ such as Ibogaine, and only include talking therapy approaches here).

The approach is generally based on two things, both of which are questionable. namely, stress reduction and theory. I will explain both briefly.

Stress Reduction

Staying too safe

Essentially, this is the idea that people who become addicted are not coping with the stress of their situation and need to be removed from it in order to really concentrate all their efforts on their recovery.

The problem with this is that most addiction is based on avoiding problems and difficulties. So when someone arrives at rehab they not only have a tendency to put their feet up (since there is no stress any more) but what is worse they now have a sense that they are doing much better than they really are (they often report that they “don’t even feel like using”). And since they are officially ‘in treatment’, they assume this must be the ‘treatment working’. How wrong so many of them are!

Theory

Theories of recovery

The theoretical approach is again varied and based on different therapeutic approaches etc. The confidence in it helping is based on the idea that the patient can use good information to help themselves. Well as the saying goes ‘it’s dynamite on paper’. But when you realise that the basis of most approaches to addiction is the the addict is ‘powerless’ over their addiction, it makes less sense.

Now I’m not saying theory isn’t a good thing. Coherence and theory are part of every approach. My approach uses theory but it’s theory that is immediately applied in ‘real life’. The problem I have with residential treatment is that it’s all theory! It has to be because the patient has been removed from real life! You will realise the difference between theory and practice when you get home and try to practice it. By then it’s often too late. But there’s always the option of going back to rehab? If you have the money.

The problem with these traditional approaches

Using the ideas mentioned above traditional treatment sets up and promotes an internal conflict that most people lose or are forever struggling with. The two extremes of denial or fighting are both very difficult and unnecessary as there is a much better and stress free method. That of developing a better relationship with yourself.

Think about it. How much are you going to do for someone you don’t like? If addiction is an inappropriate relationship then relationships are where your recovery can develop. And the first relationship you should start with is the one with yourself.

I don’t want to say too much about this. For more detail see my post on this subject “the trap of success and failure”.

My experience of this trap

I wanted to say some things about my own personal experience of being caught in this trap and how I learned to avoid it and help others to do the same. Let me assure you, you can do the same.

When I was struggling with dependence on drugs and alcohol I was a young man with ideas that plague many of us. Like I would only be acceptable if I was a success. The word ‘success’ means different things to different people but for me it was sporting success.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to blame others for all of this. The money that sporting success brings would allow me to live a life separated from most people which, at that time was very desirable to me. I didn’t like people and I wanted to be separate. I didn’t realise that I was being slowly attracted into a dead world.

The problem with trying to change

Like a lot of people I didn’t like myself and knew that I needed to change. There are no end of books selling this idea that you can change and you have the power to do so. And there are no end of people making a lot of money from people who are failing to do so.

The basic psychological approach is to develop various methods that will promote change in the individual. Largely they promote the trap I write about in the link above. But I was no different and I knew no better than anyone else. So I tried, and tried, and tried! The more I tried the worse I felt when I failed. The more I failed, the harder I tried the next time. On and on it went, as I got worse and worse.

Art to the rescue!

I love films. Especially films that speak to me of human struggle that I can identify with. One evening I was watching a film about a person who was suffering from ‘multiple personality disorder’. I can’t remember much about the film but there was a ‘break through’ moment for the main character when she returned from her ‘session’ with the psychiatrist and, entering her bedroom, saw her ‘younger self’. Just a child, and very sad looking, for a moment she did not know what to do with this ‘younger self’. Finally she sat down beside her and put her arm around the youngster.

Her break through turned out to be my break through. A healing relationship with myself began when I found an old photo of myself. In the photo I was about ten years old. I reassured my young ‘self’, saying that he ‘had no chance’. And that it wasn’t his fault. I saw for the first time that he had only done his best.

For the first time in my life I was basing my progress on something other than conflict and the demand for change. For the first time in my life I had avoided the two extremes of denial and conflict. Without realising it, I had begun to grow through the power of a healing relationship with myself.

My developing recovery

As my recovery developed over the years, I did what I could in local AA groups. For twenty years I helped to run a group and supported new people in that group. At that point I trained as a counsellor.

I was asked to supervise some of the workers at a treatment Centre and was inspired to work with them. Before long I was running them, developing treatment programs and training counselors. Just like my experience in AA I saw what worked and what didn’t. Which attitudes worked well and which didn’t.

What I learned from running Rehabs

I worked in the field for over ten years. Again I won’t dwell on this period but let me tell you some of the main things I learned from all this.

  The most difficult phone calls I used to take were from friends partners and relatives of the clients. Often these callers had spent their life savings on sending their loved ones to treatment. In some cases several times.

The main theme of these calls was usually “how are they doing”. But my main memory of them was learning about the way that, with the best of intentions, they were often making things more difficult.

I also saw that, although their loved one was obviously the one that needed the ‘help’ that they were suffering and struggling just as much in their life struggle. But the difference was that they were getting no help!

Later, or in some cases sooner, following treatment, they would be reunited with their partner or child. But because they had not been party to any development or growth often what the client had learned about the ‘theory’ of recovery got overpowered by the emerging of old patterns of relating to each other. Resulting in another ‘failure’.

Avoid extremes!

In places like the AA fellowship I was told that it didn’t matter what others said or what they understood. You could ‘get well’ in spite of all of this. I also learned that it was a ‘family illness’ and that no man is an island. All true! But didn’t they seem to contradict each other?

As extremes they may seem to. But they work together once you understand that the difficulties and the solutions belong in the area of relationships! You have been attracted into a dead world! Your recovery starts when you decide to come back into the world of the living!

Ask yourself how you could improve your relationships today. Just a little bit. How could you be a little more honest with people? Who could you be a little more authentic with? What relationships are asking too much of you? Which ones do you need to do more in? Could you be a little more vulnerable in your important relationships?

Growth means learning from everything!

So, what does this mean for you and your recovery? Some people recover and never return to their habit. Other recoveries include lapses. Don’t be like the rehabs and throw away the most valuable learning you have. If things go wrong. As they do for everyone, Ask yourself what you can learn from the experience. I have a technique which can help you with this. It’s called the recovery box.

Stop worrying about success and failure and how good your recovery looks like to other people. Stop stressing about how long it’s taking and make a commitment to learning from everything! Whatever happened you can’t change it now. So learn from it. Squeeze every last drop of learning out of it.

When you commit to this approach you will become unstoppable and your recovery becomes inevitable. Thanks for taking the time to read this.