Hi. Thanks for taking the time to read this. We are on a journey of change from an unhealthy pattern of ‘exits’ from our life to a healthier pattern of facing and processing difficulties. How do we do this exactly? Today I want to give you a method of how we can manage to keep learning, even in the face of difficulties and slips! By the time you have read this you will have a better grasp on how to continually keep moving forward in your recovery, enjoy!

Let’s start with a question. When you look at your experiences of attempting to achieve recovery, or anything else for that matter, do you see two choices, success or failure, right? Of course we know what we want and we know what it looks like when we get it, but what we are going to look at today is how our method of getting it is affected by this rather ‘black and white’ view. I am going to show you how the outcome is hugely affected by the approach. To do this I am going to introduce you to a very simple device, I call it the ‘recovery box’!

I work with addicts of all sorts and I always encourage them to see things this way. If we attempt to get ‘clean’ and apply the logical parameters of ‘success and failure’ then we get the usual results, which is that we feel successful as long as we are resisting the temptation and then feel utter failure when we succumb to that temptation. Of course feeling like a failure is what gets people into recovery counselling in the first place, so it’s not all bad! The idea of failure has some uses, but when it is applied in such a dramatic way it works against us. Let’s look at an example of this type of thinking.

When someone is looking at ‘quantity over quality’ this is a sign to me that they are too stuck on success and failure. Often I will hear that they are ‘seven weeks sober’ or ‘I’ve just thrown away three months sobriety’. Why is quantity such a good indicator? Because the stark facts of length of clean time are being used to define success, and this is way too narrow. Actually, it almost guarantees failure! So how does the ‘recovery box’ help us?

Let me show you how simple this is and then I will go on to explain how powerful it can be in your approach to recovery. Okay, I want you now to imagine a box, make it personal, just how you want it. It can be a steel strapped security crate, or it can be a battered old cardboard box, whatever is easiest for you to see in your mind’s eye. Now take a felt tip pen or some other imaginary writing method and write on the box one word, ‘recovery’. Again this can be a scruffy hand written word, or a machine printed neat design. Make it yours. Now the idea is very simple, all I want you to do is take whatever happened today and put it in the box!

I know, it seems all too simple, but stick with me here and give it a try. Of course I mean everything! Yes even drinking or drug use, even porn time, even losing a record amount of money through online gambling, everything! It’s a commitment to your recovery and from this perspective exposes your lack of commitment in the past. Now we just need to add some simple instructions.

The recovery box is where you learn, it is where you grow. When you put something in the recovery box you ask yourself a very important question, “What do I need to learn from this”? Or “what is this trying to teach me”? Without this question you cannot grow into maturity and sobriety. When you leave something outside the box you are effectively saying “this is not part of my recovery, it does not teach me anything (except that I am a failure)”.

Let me offer some more insight into why this works so well. Imagine your recovery like a ‘growth machine’, it produces things like well being, contentment and peace! How does it do this? It needs raw material to fuel it and keep it running. Often people use the encouragement and support of others as the raw material, great but this is sometimes in short supply. If your addiction has placed you in a position of isolation or shame is telling you that you cannot speak about your issues then your machine will have no fuel to run on.

The everyday experiences in your life will be the fuel on which your recovery machine will run! It is in endless and continual supply and it is free! Trust me when I say that your daily experiences hold everything you need to keep your machine running well and producing authentic recovery!

This is probably new to you and you are probably sceptical. Of course there is more to this and we need to also be improving our understanding and practice as part of our commitment but this is a very important part of our practice. Let me leave you with one last thought as an inspiration to begin this practice. Imagine how many things have gone wrong in your life. Now imagine if you could find a way to have every one of those things help you recover! So the tougher things get, the faster you grow! Talk about turning the tables! This is exactly what the ‘recovery box’ does.

Thanks again for taking the time today.

“Finally I am coming to the conclusion that my highest ambition is to be what I already am. That I will never fulfill my obligation to surpass myself unless I first accept myself, and if I accept myself fully in the right way, I will already have surpassed myself.”
― Thomas Merton

Hi. Thanks for taking the time to read this. We are on a journey of change from an unhealthy pattern of exits from our life to a healthier pattern of facing and processing difficulties. How do we do this exactly? Today I want to give you a description and a definition of a process of recovery that I have called AAA! Or Awareness Acceptance and Action.
I work with people who find themselves unable to break a habit of spending hours on the internet playing games or watching unsuitable material. Or they find themselves high and/or drunk and wonder why or how it happened.
This process is one that will help you understand yourself better and help you to create more effective behaviour. That is our aim, to behave in more effective ways. You will notice that the process culminates in action or behaviour. So that is our aim. What we have at the moment is ineffective or unhealthy behaviour.
So here is my basic argument, the thing I want to use to inspire you to use this strategy. I believe that effective behaviour is created through acceptance of our true position and state. Through the process of ‘checking out’ (what am I really feeling/thinking at the moment?) we can then make a decision to accept ourselves as we are. This naturally leads to effective/healthy behaviour.
So if the key is acceptance then we have to start with awareness. We cannot accept what we are not aware of! This is a good time to remind ourselves of the primary function of alcohol, drugs and to be honest, just about every other ‘exit’ from our lives, whether it is gambling or obsessive cleaning. This primary function is to stop us feeling things! It is clear that if we have spent several years trying not to feel certain things it is going to take lots of commitment and discipline to turn and allow ourselves to feel everything. We need support in doing this but we also need a good reason for doing it. Well that good reason is here! As long as we keep our awareness low enough to protect ourselves from difficulty, we prevent acceptance of reality doing its job in producing effective behaviour! So the strategy of avoidance through exits which looked so attractive at first was never going to work. Let’s now look at what does!
AWARENESS – Starting with the first step, raising your awareness. This is easier than it sounds, actually you do not have to do anything! Like most of the ideas in recovery it is about stopping doing something. In this case it is about stopping the active process of denial and/or minimising what is unattractive to you. One of the ways I work with people around this idea is to help them disassociate more. Or put another way, to take things less personally. This way they learn to ‘sidestep’ their own internal injunctions. Whatever way you do this, the idea is to become more aware of what you are feeling, particularly the negative aspects such as resentment, fear, selfishness and dishonesty.
ACCEPTANCE – The next step is to take what you have become aware of and to accept it as fully as you can manage. So this is the opposite of what you have been doing. We are now running at the problem rather than running away from it! It helps in this process if you say it out loud. So if you can say out loud “just for today I am feeling ……………..” or “just for now I am thinking……………..” or if you are in a public environment just say it in your head. It is important to place this in a context of ‘right now’ or ‘today’ and not allow thoughts like “I am ………….” or “I am a ……………… person” which is not acceptance, this is ‘labelling’ which is very different and not always helpful. To place this thought or feeling in a context of ‘now’ it allows and includes the idea of change.
ACTION – This is the easiest part. In fact we are mainly just observing our new behaviour at this stage. It is this stage that should begin to convince you that you are on the right path with this, because it is so different! Remember it is the stages of awareness and acceptance that change the behaviour, not a conscious decision such as you may have made in the past. When we make decisions to change our behaviour without doing the preparatory work we actually make the unhealthy cycle stronger! Do not try to force better behaviour out of yourself, this is a form of fighting and this does not generally work well, producing a ‘conflicted self’.
Let’s look at the process from a different angle now. The angle of ‘realms’. It is this angle that might help you make sense of this process for yourself. Here is the process with the realms attached.
AWARENESS – MENTAL/EMOTIONAL
ACCEPTENCE – PSYCHOLOGICAL/SPIRITUAL
ACTION – PRACTICAL/BEHAVOURAL
So we are starting from the internal and moving outwards, when we try to force behaviour changes on ourselves “I am never drinking again” or something similar we are working from the outside in. Let’s look at the result of a typical episode in one of my clients lives (I cannot tell you how many times I have seen this in the last thirty years). An awareness of discomfort is present. This is followed by some form of denial or minimisation. This is followed by the action of drinking or using drugs (often with a sense of blaming someone else). What is missing here is the vital role that acceptance plays. By taking our difficulty into the deeper realms of our psychology and spirit we do something vital in all problem solving and conflict resolution, we own it! We stop saying, this is their fault or if they wouldn’t say that or do that I would be fine. You cannot produce effective behaviour without ownership. This is your issue not anyone else’s! As soon as we own it (accept it) we immediately begin to produce effective behaviour.
This is massive! It can mean the difference between drinking and not drinking! Between using drugs and not using. One last thing, you need support. You have been avoiding these truths, feelings, thoughts, for a reason! I would not try this on your own. At the very least find someone you can trust to share your difficulties with when they arise.
Well there it is, the basics of AAA! I hope this helps you understand why you have not been successful in the past and encourages you to believe that you can be successful in the future. Thanks again for taking the time to read this and please email me with any questions or comments.