SEASONS FOR ADDICTIONS

SPLAN FOR SEASON OF ADDICTIONS

Dear MAx
My partner stopped using alcohol and drugs last February. Things seemed to have been going pretty good until right around the beginning of November. What I am noticing now is that he is moody, snapping at people, and acting ‘squirrelly’. I don’t think he is using again. He sees an addiction counselor on a regular basis so I don’t feel it is my job to hold him accountable since he trusts his counselor. I have been reading a lot of books on addiction, have been talking to other people about it, and even attended an Alanon meeting. What information am I missing?

Sam

Dear Sam,

Holidays are difficult for people in recovery. We live in a society that includes intoxicants in all its celebrations. The early stage of recovery is difficult because of the detox process happening in the body. Throw in the holiday season with learned behaviors of celebration and, there you are, Sam, a ‘squirrelly’ partner. Let me share this bit of information offered by Sue Hosington, Director of Mental Health of the Hazelden Foundation in Minnesota:

RECOVERING PEOPLE NEED TO MANAGE HOLIDAY EXPECTATIONS
The holidays can be a challenging time for all of us. It is so easy to get caught up in the spirit of the season, while feeling let down by unmet expectations. The holidays can be especially challenging for individuals recovering from chemical dependency. Maintaining sobriety can be difficult when memories, increased family contacts, and the emotional highs and lows of the season present us with unexpected issues.

Recovering people frequently have unrealistically high expectations of themselves, which simply adds to the stress of the time. Another source of potential relapse stems from feelings of anger, frustration, anxiety, and depression. Worry is a common expression of anxiety, and loneliness is a common expression of depression. These two emotions are especially heightened during the holidays.

It’s good to develop a holiday plan, one that will help confront memories, which threaten the quality of your holiday experience. Your plan will benefit from improved self-care, enhanced support from others, and healthy ways to celebrate. Some suggestions follow:

GOOD SELF-CARE is vital. Remember to slow down. Take some quiet time each day to reflect on an attitude of gratitude. Plan relaxation and meditation into your day, even for a few minutes, no matter how you are. Relax your standards, reduce overwhelming demands, and delegate responsibilities. And remember to laugh during your day.

EAT, HYDRATE, EXERCISE and REST. Go easy on the holiday sweets and follow a balanced diet. Monitor your intake of caffeine, nicotine, and sugar. Exercise regularly to help maintain your energy level amid a busier schedule. Don’t try to do too much. Get plenty of sleep. Fatigue is a stressor that can make us more vulnerable to relapse. Try and maintain some kind of schedule. Plan ahead—don’t wait until the last minute to purchase gifts or prepare to entertain.

ENHANCE YOUR SUPPORT SYSTEM. Our culture presents the holidays as a time of joy, but this is not always so. Holidays can trigger many painful memories. They are a good time to reach out more frequently to your counselor, sponsor, and Twelve-Step group. Spend time with recovering people and activities. Let other help you realize your personal limits. Learn to say “no” in a way that is comfortable for you.

FIND NEW WAYS TO CELEBRATE. Create some new symbols and rituals that will help redefine a joyful and rewarding holiday season. You might host your own holiday gathering for special recovering friends and/or attend celebrations of your Alcohol Anonymous group to celebrate and not with people who are substance users. Don’t expose yourself to unnecessary temptations, such as gatherings where alcohol is the center of entertainment. If there are people who have a negative influence on you, make a choice to not be with them—or to limit time spent with them.

I hope that this information is not only useful for you, but for all people experiencing recovery in their life.
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Have a question about addiction, recovery, or life transitions such as retirement, career change, grief and loss issues, empty nesting, etc, ‘ASK MAx’. Send your questions to Lifestyle Changes, PO Box 1962, Eugene, OR 97440; or, e-mail your questions to maxfabry@lifestylechangescounseling.com. Learn more about MAx Fabry at http://www.lifestylechangescounseling.com.

LIFE AFTER ADDICTION: CALL HOME

Dear MAx,

I am 42 years old. Approximately thirty years ago I decided to designate myself as the “outcast” of my wonderful family. Being the outcast gave me permission to pursue my alcohol and drug use, thus, bringing me where I am today—a cocaine addict desperately deciding to live a healthier life. In addition to my mother being alive, I have two brothers and two sisters who all now have families of their own. These are all people I have used to get what I wanted in order to support my addiction. They have always been there to rescue me. As a matter of fact, they literally almost loved me to death providing treatment whenever I tried to get back into the fold. I recently had a spiritual event opening my eyes to the fact that I want to desperately live and be part of my family in a role other then outcast. How do I even begin to make honest contact with these people who, in reality, I barely know, but at a spiritual level really need?

Robert

Dear Robert,

I think the major key words in your letter are “honest contact”. Based on my years as an addiction counselor, I would like to take same liberties here with your short story, maybe filling in the blanks for our readers.

Families who want their addict to “be well” look to treatment programs to “fix” their loved ones, and would usually like the “fix” completed after 28 days of treatment.  I have met addicts that have been in multi programs all over the country -paid each time by their family in hopes that “this time it will take”. There are a lot of problems with this kind loving gesture.

First, as you have recently learned, an addict has got to want to live in order to start healing. I remember one addict sharing with me that after twenty years of using, one day he found himself sitting in his lonely apartment, a shotgun perched ready to take his life. He shared that as he looked down that barrel knowing what was about to happen, he decided he “wanted to live for the first time in his life”. He said that after all the years of slowly killing himself with heroine, life finally meant something TO HIM. He hasn’t used since that day over twenty-five years ago.

Secondly, families that have never experienced addiction usually lack the knowledge they need to really understand the complexity of the problem. Most families that I talk with believe that once their loved one completes treatment, he, or she, would just need to “work their program” in order to be well. Since most treatment programs are based on the twelve step programs, the predominant thoughts taken away with treatment is that working a twelve step program is going to prevent relapse. WRONG! The twelve step programs have been available free to offer support for people seeking relief from their addiction.  However, as the counseling community learns more and more about addiction, more has been revealed that addicts need ongoing professional addiction counseling to help address core issues, possible mental illnesses, and physiological problems related to their addictions. 

Finally, recovery is not only stopping the drug of choice, it is changing the behaviors that have accumulated over years and/or decades of using.  Robert, when you “designated (yourself) as the family outcast”, you stepped out of your birth family culture, into a culture of addiction. Wikipedia provides a simple definition of “culture”: A group of people who have a commonality or shared values in attitudes, customs, beliefs, ethics, and value systems; alcohol and drug cultures meet this definition. Before fully committing to a healthier lifestyle, reintegration of a healthier culture is needed.

Having explained the components of healing through recovery, I would suggest that you evaluate where you are, Robert, in connection with speaking your truth from your heart, not from a step that you need to complete. If you are ready to “make amends” because you know it is from your heart, and, needed for your continued spiritual growth, then the answer of how to connect to your family is to pick up the phone and call. Be sure you have healthy intent, strong boundaries, and patience getting to know each other again.

Be well on your journey.

“ASK MAx” is published weekly in the Springfield Times, Springfield, OR http://www.springfieldtimes.net/. Subscriptions for the paper is only $28/year mailed to your home!

Have a question about addiction, recovery, or life transitions such as retirement, career change, grief and loss issues, empty nesting, etc, ‘Ask MAx’. Send your questions to Lifestyle Changes, PO Box 1962, Eugene, OR  97440; or, e-mail your questions to askmaxcolumn@yahoo.com. Learn more about MAx Fabry at www.lifestylechangescounseling.com.

RECOVERY RELATIONSHIP

Dear MAx,

I have been in recovery for ten years. I attend an AA meeting at least five times per week, love working the program, and have formed a tight knit loyal community. Even though my wife participates in Alanon we seem to be growing apart. We have been married fifteen years and have gone through the worse of times and now the best of times. Why would she want to leave now?

Jess

Dear Jess,

Congratulations on your ongoing recovery efforts. As you have learned, living a clean and sober life has many rewards. AND, it also has a downside called “real life”. In real life people experience the good, the bad, the sadness, and the joy, without finding ways to escape what is really going on.

I recently read a touching book called “Life Interrupted: It’s not all about me” by Chris M.Tatevosian. Even though Chris’ life infliction was MS, I could certainly see a lot of my addiction clients in what he was describing as his life experience with a debilitating disease.

Chris’ message was that his marriage fell apart because “my problem was that I acted like my problems (around MS) outweighed the importance of any problem or concern she had……I felt the world owed (me) everything.”

The recovery process is an interesting journey. One of the characteristics of an addictive behavior is self-centeredness. For the addict, the recovery process becomes all about them: need to go to my meeting, need to meet with my sponsor, need to support this event—it becomes all about “the program”.

The “tight knit community” is just that—tight knit. Often times participants of the program form their friendships within the program. Everything becomes the program. Some times this is fear based because participants feel if they don’t have the constant support, or attend meetings regularly, they will relapse. Other times, usually because of long term use starting at an early age, the participant doesn’t have the life skills to extend out of the program community.

With the total focus being recovery—yours and others—the importance of other problems within the family may be overlooked or minimized. I have heard of participants so focused on “the program” that they have skipped an important family event because they had “to attend my home group meeting.”

There are no clear statistics available on how many marriages actually end up in divorce once a spouse achieves a level of recovery. However, talking with other addiction professionals, we agree that the number could be high.

Three plausible reasons we came up with for the divorces are:

-Too much focus on recovery, not enough on rebuilding the marriage

-A realization that the marriage/relationship was built on one person’s need to take care of someone else 

-The spouse continues to grow outside of the program

So, Jess, if you are feeling like your marriage is beginning to end, there are things you might be able to do to save it.

First, definitely seek marriage counseling. Both of you need to agree that you want the marriage to work, and that you are both willing to make compromises to make it work. Also, be sure the marriage counselor you choose together also has a certification, or education, in addiction treatment.

Secondly, it is interesting how, when the addict starts to become healthy, the spouse looses interest. This is what the program calls “co-dependency”. Certainly Alanon is a helpful place to understand this emmeshed type of behavior. But, I would say that if your wife has been going for ten years, maybe she might want to consult with an individual counselor—again, someone with addiction treatment credentials.

Finally, if your spouse has been consistent with healthy growth behaviors—job advancements, community involvement, building friendships outside the program--then you might have simply outgrown each other. Seeking marriage counseling may help you understand that you have each just chosen a different path to continue walking. Neither is right or wrong; it just is.

Life is about balance. Life is about growing. Growing together, but never overshadowing the other. Is your recovery overshadowing your relationship? Are you making new friends, experiencing new things, expanding your world outside of “the program”? Be sure your life is in balance.

Be well on your journey.

Have a question about addiction, recovery, or life transitions such as retirement, career change, grief and loss issues, empty nesting, etc, ‘Ask MAx’. Send your questions to Lifestyle Changes, PO Box 1962, Eugene, OR  97440; or, e-mail your questions to askmaxcolumn@yahoo.com. Learn more about MAx Fabry at www.lifestylechangescounseling.com.