Addiction Treatment Blog by Addiction Experts » Author - Guest
The Serenity Prayer
I would like to talk about one of the most insightful messages of the 21th century…The Serenity Prayer. The original version was written by a German theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr, as part of his sermons in the early 1930′s, and was written as such: God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things that should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other. During the 1940′s, twelve-step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and Narcotics Anonymous (NA) began adopting the prayer. They removed the word “grace”, polished up the remainder, and republished it in this format: God, grant me the Serenity to Accept the things I cannot change, The Courage to Change the things I can, And the Wisdom to know the Difference. Regardless … Read entire article »
Filed under: Spirituality
A Way Out – Early Recovery: What to Expect
Addicts are quite uncomfortable in their struggle to re-establish some form of physiological and psychological balance without the drug. In short, they may be a lot more obnoxious and intolerable during early recovery than when they were drinking or using drugs. Don’t feel guilty if you find yourself thinking that you liked the recovering addict much better when he or she was using. Such feelings don’t mean you’re a bad person – they are normal. The drug was the most powerful relationship in the addict’s life. It was the lover you could never compete with. With that relationship gone, all other relationships must now be redefined. Don’t be surprised if you experience increased fears that your partner or spouse won’t like you now that he or she is sober. These feelings are … Read entire article »
Filed under: Recovery
Enabling, Co-dependency and Denial
Enablers are the worst enemies of the very people they love the most. Enablers are those of us who take the responsibility to protect other people from pain. If someone near us feels down or unhappy, we believe it is out job to make them feel better. Despite our good intentions, our enabling has a negative side. In protecting others from pain, we also shield them from a marvelous teacher and motivator – experience. We prevent them from taking responsibility and from living with the consequences of their decisions. When enablers, even motivated by love, gallop onto the scene, they deprive their loved ones of the motivation they might need to make some changes. Recovery requires change, and change often begins with a conversion experience. Conversion experiences can be rooted in pain. If … Read entire article »
Filed under: Conditions and Disorders
Building Trust
Restoring trust is very difficult in the process of recovery. Most family members feel betrayed and violated by the practicing addict or alcoholic. Building trust is a process and comes very slowly. It takes only a moment to break or destroy trust but much time and work to rebuild it. The following are some tools to learn the process of trust for the addict and the family in recovery: Using the word “trust” as an acronym: T.R.U.S.T., each of these letters signifies a word or phrase. T = Truth In the process of recovery the family member needs to learn to stay out of denial. The way to do this is to check in with YOURSELF, not the addict, and learn to identify and own what you are feeling as opposed to what they … Read entire article »
Filed under: Recovery
Intervention: Reaching Out To The Ones You Love
Intervention is a powerful experience for both addicts and their families. It’s simultaneously the most difficult and most rewarding experience for a family to experience. Many families struggle with addiction for years and years before finding themselves at a point where they’re willing to change the nature of their relationships to the addict in their family. Most families have trouble recognizing the nature of the compulsive behavior, whether it manifests itself in drinking, drugging, gambling, mood disorders, eating disorders, or sexual compulsivity. Addicts themselves are masters at covering up their addictions, through lying, manipulating, cheating, stealing, and basically covering their behavior the best ways they know how. A suffering addict has trouble recognizing the consequences of their actions on the people who love and care about them. Often, they are seen … Read entire article »
Filed under: Treatment
Experience and Strength with Eating Disorder Recovery in Female Athletes
Eating disorders and disordered eating are commonly experienced by female athletes, but sorely under recognized by coaches, teachers, parents, therapists and physicians. I use the term disordered eating to include sub-clinical eating disorders as well as eating disorders which meet full DSM-IV-TR criteria for anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, eating disorder not otherwise specified, and binge-eating disorder. There are several core features of the illness of eating disorders, which may be particularly exacerbated in the athletic arena for females. Denial is one core feature of eating disorders and other addictive processes. In my clinical experience, the level of institutional denial of eating disorders in athletes exceeds that of non-athlete females with eating disorders. The fire of denial can be fed by coaches who rely on the exceptional … Read entire article »
Filed under: Conditions and Disorders
Meditation for the Busy Mind
Do you wish you could mediate but your thoughts are too loud? You sit in the perfect lotus position, breathing through your nose, eyes closed, and obsessively thinking, “Am I doing this right?” “Will I ever reach Nirvana?” Striving for stillness, you ultimately end up frustrated. Don’t fret you attention deficient Buddhas in boot camp, the following is a style of meditation just for you. Similar to an Intuitive Healing session, meditation for the busy mind incorporates three of your five senses to distract the brain. The mind typically operates in a state of constant stimuli, and this style of meditation confuses the brain into tranquility. Now you’ve set the stage for a deep relaxing meditation. Your first course of action is to choose a piece of soothing music. The music may be enhanced … Read entire article »
Filed under: Life
Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, and Transgenders in Treatment: “You’ve Come A Long Way Or Have We?”
Last year, the organization I chair, NALGAP (The Association of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Addiction Professionals and Their Allies www.nalgap.org) awarded San Francisco psychiatrist Bob Cabaj with our Founder’s Award for over 25 years of work in the field of addiction, advocating for LGBT clients. Bob stood in front of 600 addiction professionals at the NAADAC Conference stating that when NALGAP began 27 years prior they were provocateurs, making the addiction field uncomfortable and stirring it out of it’s complacency. He then challenged the members of the audience to examine their attitudes and their silence in several important areas: the spread of HIV/AIDS and other STD’s in minority communities; the increase of unsafe sexual behaviors among young gay and bisexual people associated with use of alcohol and drugs; the risks of rigid definitions … Read entire article »
Filed under: Treatment
The Importance of Sober Living
The importance of sober living after completion of primary treatment is imperative to the success of continuous sobriety. It would be in the best interest of the client if treatment centers suggest sober living as an option upon completion of primary treatment as part of their continuation of care. I personally went through multiple treatment facilities and was not able to maintain any significant length of sobriety once returning home to my old environment. That is not to say that treatment wasn’t successful, as I feel it gave me an invaluable education into the understanding of addiction. But to understand something does not mean you know how to do something. For example, I can read a book on how to … Read entire article »
Filed under: Recovery
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