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May this gem of a page
be of
value beyond compare to you!
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Things
That Helped Me in Recovery
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Some
things took me years to find out, it was only when
I finally
learned of them that my recovery developed
really
in-depth meaning. They
are concepts that are a
little
complex, they're at the bottom of this page.
The Disease Concept,
or THIQ and addiction
The theory of Learned Helplessness
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However,
Some of the most important
things I've
learned
on my path were there in very early days and
very
commonplace, so simple that I nearly missed them.
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The 'cliches'
of 12 Step Groups are like that...
Things
like:
'Think,
Think, Think'
'How
Important Is It?'
'One
Day At A Time'
'Easy
Does It'
'Keep
It Simple'
'There
But For The Grace Of God Go I'
When
you think about it, these are such wonderful common sense.
They
mean don't rush into things, have a think about it first and put it into
perspective.
Don't worry too much about the future, just look after today
and let
tomorrow work itself out. Take note of what other people
do
and learn
from their mistakes.
If you
count your blessings on a regular basis, you don't feel bad about
things
very much at all.
If you
don't pick up the first drug or drink, it is impossible to get
stoned
or drunk. It doesn't get simpler than that!
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Then
there were things that were just a bit more difficult
that
I learned in early days that I gradually came to believe
because
they proved to be true as time went by.
Such
as H.A.L.T. (Don't get too Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired.)
add to
these don't get too thirsty, emotional or superior.
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If you
talk to someone on the phone, you don't even need to share a
problem
you might have with them, just the act of talking to someone else
gets
you out of your own head. Of course, sharing the problem
with
a trustworthy friend is invaluable.
As to
the question of suicide: Keep it as a question, because
it's
a pretty poor answer.
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The way
that I know if something is 'meant to be' is that if it 'falls into place'
fairly
easily, my Higher Power wants me to do it. If there are lots of obstacles,
and I
have to really 'push it' to make something happen, chances are it's not
meant
to be and I should leave it alone.
Oh, how
I hated this one....but it is so true. If you get into a relationship in
early recovery,
you are
highly likely to put your thoughts into the other person rather than where
they
need
to be - with yourself. The emotions involved in a relationship can be a
timebomb.
People
in early recovery are VERY vulnerable and don't have experience with handling
the emotions that other people seem to work out in their teens. We were
so used to smothering
our emotions
that we never learned how to cope with problems properly. We also would
absolutely
LOVE to have a person come along who can take care of us so that we don't
have
to do the hard work of looking after ourselves. If you get into a relationship
with another recovering person, it's very easy to think of THEIR recovery
rather than your own.
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There
are times in recovery from alcohol and other drugs that a person is particularly
vulnerable.
These seem to be around 5 weeks, 3 months, 6, 9. 12. 18 months. 2 years,
3 years,
5 years,
8 years. (Give or take days or weeks, this is individual) If you don't
pick up a drink or
drug
in those times when you feel 'restless, irritable and discontented' you
will be stronger
when
the next time comes around. It does get better!
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We are
people who always seem to put ourselves above or below other people. We
always
seem
to be 'too good for them' or 'no good' in our own eyes. It is through spending
time with
other
people in recovery who treat us as equals, achieving goals so that we feel
good about ourselves and finding friends that like us just the way we are
that we can overcome this.
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The 'Higher
Power' of 12th. Step groups can be anything you want it to be. If you don't
like
churches, your Higher Power need not be religious.
If you don't believe in a
God or
Goddess at all, your higher
power can be something like the group you belong
to, or
swap the word 'good' for 'God'.
It can be the memory of a loved grandparent,
it can
be a physical thing such as nature or a particular place
that you love. It can be
something
imaginary that only means something
to you. It can be simply the expectation
that
your community has
of you to do the right thing. It can be the energy created by all
of
the good things that people
in the world have ever done.
The important
thing is that your Higher Power NOT be yourself, and it's a really good
idea
if it's not any other person either.Remember that all your best thinking
only got
you into
a situation where it was essential to get help. It is very important to
believe that
there
is something more than just staying in that situation.
If you
were hurt, abused, neglected or abandoned as a child, the ONLY people who
can act
like nurturing parents to make up for it are; your
PARENTS -
effectively
changing the way they treat you, and acknowledging the damage
done,
orYOURSELF.
You can
parent the hurt little child inside you very well, assuring them
that they
will
always be loved, special, treated with respect, and that they
are SAFE.
This
is something that our partners or children or anyoneelse can never do as
well
as we do it for ourselves. They shouldn't be expected to.
You can't
MAKE your parents
do it either.
It took
my lifetime to get as sick as I was, I am expected to take
time
to get better. I don't have to be perfect, I just need to be OK.
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Some
things about the Steps.
Step
1. says 'admitted'...it's good to do that
out loud. It implies that you actually
need
to DO something about the problem, rather than continue to
ignore that
there's
a problem at all.
Step
2. does NOT say 'came to believe IN a Power
greater than
ourselves'....if
you are struggling with this concept you only need to
believe
that it COULD work, don't leave because of the God bit.
It also
mentions the words 'return us to sanity'...make no mistake
about
this, people who kept making the same old mistakes and
expecting
it "to be different this time" are NOT sane!
Step
3. Says 'We made a decision' It does NOT say
'We turned
everything
over and felt guilty if we thought we were acting
on our
own will and thought we'd never get it'. You don't need to
actually
turn anything over until the seventh step.
Step
4. Says 'searching and fearless' If you are
not prepared to go
to any
lengths and if you are still fearful, perhaps you need to put in
some
more time on the first three steps. Do it when YOU feel it's
right.
This is where you are able to find out the full extent of
your
problems.
Step
5. It is my experience that other people who
have been through what
we have
are pretty unshockable and they have good training in
not being
judgemental
and understand that confidentiality is very important.
Choose
a person who has done the Step themselves!
Step
6. I have needed to be 'entirely ready' over
and over and over again.
Things
get taken away for a while, but some have the annoying
habit
of coming back to be dealt with some more.
Step
7. This is the first time the Steps tells
you to pray. It
is best done in the
way that
you as an individual feel it should be done. Being humble does
NOT necessarily
mean down on your knees. (That's a religious construct,
not a
spiritual one.) 'Humble' is not equal to humiliated. I
found
that
I needed to do this step a lot of times as well, because I'd
keep
noticing that a 'shortcoming' was back. I still do it often.
Step
8. Says 'made a list'. Its best to do it on
paper, and add more
people
as you remember them. I am the first person on my own list. It also say's
'became
willing', I had to become willing for each person on the list, some
took
longer than others. I've not become willing YET for some people.
Step
9. 'Sorry' is rarely enough. You need to make
up for the harm done.
I do
this step every day by being a different person now and acting
differently
toward the people I hurt. It takes TIME to build their trust back up.
Step
10. This is a good way of remembering the
things that you found in your 4th.
Step
and keeping an eye out to see that they're not too prevalent.
I do
an in-depth, written 10th. step every year or so to have a good
look
at where I am at.
Step
11. It's pretty generally believed that prayer
is talking TO your Higher
Power
and that meditation is LISTENING. It also says 'praying
ONLY
for knowledge
of His will for us and the power to carry that out'.
There's
a lot of possible things I could pray for that are NOT included there!
Step
12. Says a lot more than 'carry this message'
The most important parts
of it
to me are 'having had a spiritual awakening AS THE RESULT
of these
steps' and 'to practice these principles in all our affairs'.
Don't
be too quick to get off on an ego trip of telling other people 'how to
do it'.
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Back.
The
Twelve Steps.......
......
1.We
admitted we were powerless over our addiction/alcohol/others, that our
lives
had
become unmanageable.
2.Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us
to
sanity.
3.Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God
as we
understood
Him.
4.Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5.Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature
of
our wrongs.
6.Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7.Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8.Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make
amends to
them
all.
9.Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do
so would
injure them or
others.
10.Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly
admitted
it.
11.Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact
with
God as
we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the
power
to carry that out.
12.Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried
to carry this
message
to addicts/alcoholics/others,
and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
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Some
things that helped me enormously are
a little
complex, they involve human biochemistry
and psychology.
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The disease
concept of addiction to
opiate-like
drugs and alcohol.
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The brain
has receptor sites for naturally occurring opioids called
endorphins
and enkephalins which are produced by the central nervous system. Opium,
heroin, morphine and a by-product of alcohol (tetrahydroisoquinoline or
THIQ) are also able to attach to these receptor sites.
When there
is a deficiency of these naturally occurring substances in the brain there
is a relation to the craving for alcohol and the other drugs - the brain
will happily swap these artificial substances for the real thing. If there
is a constant supply of an artificial opiate-like substance, eventually
the brain will produce less enkephalins and endorphins, as it does not
need to produce what it is being given from elsewhere. It then needs a
steady supply of these artificial opioids from outside, or it will crave
them.
It was fairly
obvious to me why people became addicted to heroin etc. (although I didn't
know the exact chemistry), but it baffled me that most people could drink
and be OK, when an alcoholic could not. The answer to this comes in this
deficiency of endorphins and enkephalins. Some people have this deficiency
as a result of genetics, and are born that way (many family's are riddled
with alcoholism and/or addiction), others have this deficiency occur as
a result of prolonged stress, or as a result of years of heavy drinking.
People born 'normal' can develop alcoholism in either of these two ways.
The brain
seems to take quite a while to begin producing THIQ as an alcohol by-product
that can largely take over the role of opioid production. With heroin etc.
the amount given the brain comes to 'saturation point' fairly quickly.
The brain also needs a steadily greater amount of opioids as tolerance
builds. It takes 6 to 10 years for a women and 8 to 12 years for a male
of heavy drinking before alcoholism is apparent. After the brain HAS begun
this THIQ production though, the vicious cycle of having to drink to avoid
cravings sets in. The brain DOES reach saturation point after some time
goes by, it is common then for there to be sharp decline in the amount
of alcohol it takes to get drunk.
The brain
does NOT go back to producing the 'normal' amount of naturally occurring
opiates when the alcoholic stops drinking. They were unable to produce
the normal amount before so cannot 'regain' an ability to do so.This
is why cravings for alcohol still occur many years after putting down the
last drink. The brain will always allow the artificial substances to re-assume
opioid production, so it is not safe to have another drink. Even one drink
will give an instant hit of extra opioids and the brain will begin to want
more.
This is also
the case with a person who was addicted to heroin, morphine etc. If they
originally had a deficiency of naturally occurring opioids, their brains
will quite happily use other drugs as a substitute, and will either crave
them more as time goes by or will go back to using their drug of choice
due to the cravings. If the other drug is alcohol, it will simply take
time for a great amount of THIQ to be produced, as in the build-up of alcoholism
described above. An alcoholic is not safe using opiates for the same reason.
Legal opiates such as analgesics have EXACTLY the same effect.
Source:
Blum, K. &
Trachtenburg, M. "Alcoholism: Scientific Basis of a Neuropsychogenetic
Disease"
The International
Journal of the Addictions. 23(8), 781-796. 1988.
*Reprint requests
may be sent to:
Division Chief:
Substance and Alcohol Misuse,
Department
of Pharmacology,
University
of Texas Health Sciences Center.
San Antonio.
Texas. 78284.
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The
Learned Helplessness theory.
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This was first
observed in dogs, in psychological laboratory tests by Martin Seligman.
The dogs were given mild electric shocks, they were upset to begin with
but as they continued to be given shocks, eventually they stopped trying
to escape them. When this happened, they were put into a box where they
could escape the shocks if they chose to. Although they could see safety
on the other half of a barrier, they chose to sit there, depressed and
simply accepting the shocks as 'bad luck'. Food was put onto the other
half of the barrier to induce them to move but they still sat accepting
the shocks. They eventually had to be put on leads and dragged over the
barrier. Many of the dogs had to be dragged away up to thirty times before
they learned to escape the shocks themselves.
This has also
been observed by Seligman to be the case with humans who are consistently
in situations beyond their control. They also become depressed and 'give
up' on trying to change their situation because they believe themselves
to be helpless and unable to do things differently. Even when they are
given ways to improve their situation or to get away from the stressful
situations, they will continue to stay in them because they think they
will fail at anything they try to do to change.
This theory
rang loud bells to me about MY behaviour over the years in a number of
different areas. Firstly, in relation to continuing to drink and drug when
it was pointed out to me that I could use a method that was successful
for others to stop.
I also did
this in my relationships. I chose violent relationships and accepted the
violence because I didn't see a way out. I went back to the same violent
men over and over again then when I finally DID break up with a man, I'd
get into the same type of relationship again next time. The big similarity
was that I would tell myself that I couldn't help it, it was just the way
things were, it was the way it had always been, and I believed that it
would never change. My only ever suicide attempt was because I could not
cope with being with the partner I was with, but had not been able to break
up with him either. Dying seemed to be the only way out. This, by the way,
brought home to me the seriousness of this problem and I got help. I broke
up with the man a month later and have not been in a violent relationship
since. I had been clean and sober for two years at that time, so was obviously
still a pretty sick girl even after that amount of time had gone by.
Seligman believes
that people who suffer from learned helplessness are also 'prime candidates'
for stress related illnesses, so there is also an obvious link between
this and people who have aquired diseases of addiction by being in situations
of prolonged stress as described above.
Source:
Phillipchalk,
R. & McConnell, J. Understanding Human Behavior.
8th Edition.
1994. Harcourt Brace College Publishers. Texas.
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These
are a few of the pieces of knowledge that have
helped
me the most, I hope that they may also be of help to
others.
I will keep putting things in here as I think of them,
so
it is worth checking back from time to time if any of this
has
been of help.
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