Alcohol Dependency – Understanding the Recovery Process

Recovery is a dynamic process. It comprises of stages that most of us will encounter on our journey through recovery. Each segment has its own development and solutions.  Certain stages may present problems that are particularly hard to resolve. Some people require problem solving skills, others may need communication skills; stress management skills. Most people require cognitive therapy to alter their pessimistic and irrational ideas into optimistic thinking.

Our individual path is determined by the severity of our addiction and by social, environmental and psychological factors.

Before we can build a foundation for long term recovery, we need to do three things:

1. Stop using mood altering drugs and alcohol (including sleeping tablets and tranquillizers).  Anti-depressants not included.
2. Begin to develop a ‘RECOVERY’ attitude
3. Accept the severity of our addiction and the problems it caused.

Abstinence and Attitude

Next to abstinence, one of the first steps in the recovery process is developing a new outlook – a new attitude. Stopping alcohol consumption is not enough. Anyone can stop but it’s staying stopped is critical in developing a quality of life. We must alter our attitudes and we must change ourselves. If nothing changes – nothing changes.

When we use alcohol to escape reality, we become self-centred and blame others for our lifestyle – our poor quality of life. We fail miserably to take responsibility for our actions.
In recovery, we replace our self-seeking lifestyle with one of acceptance of others and ourselves.  We focus on gratitude, personal responsibility and honesty. Our goal is to be mature and honest with ourselves and to integrate emotional and spiritual growth and healthy interactions and communication with others.

Recovery means dealing with the reality of how alcohol has affected our lives. It means changing our attitude, our approach, and our lifestyle: friends, social activities, living situations or employment.

Abstinence without a program of personal growth is not likely to result in long term recovery.

Identify High Risk Situations

It is imperative that you identify situations that endanger your recovery.  Emotions and thinking in early recovery are strained. We may not always make the most rational choices.  We can easily place in high risk situations. Don’t walk where it’s slippery…  It’s easy to get caught up on a “recovery” high, sometimes called the “honeymoon period” whereby we become over confident in our ability to handle situations and subsequently end up setting ourselves up for a bust in our recovery.

Avoiding Issues

Compulsive activities such as shopping, gambling, working long hours, jumping into relationships – keep us from paying attention to the real issues in our lives: ourselves and our self-defeating attitudes and behaviours. We may find that we are acting “crazy” at times obsessing over other people, places, things or situations rather than dealing with our own emotions and problems. We unconsciously focus on these diversions so that we don’t have to deal with our emotional pain.  We sometimes choose to withdraw or isolate from others to avoid issues we find uncomfortable.

We stop our counselling program and tell everyone we’re fine. This isolation and withdrawal from help is dangerous. We need to remember the saying, “My head is a dangerous neighbourhood to be in alone” or “If I’m inside my own head for too long, I’m behind enemy lines”.

Without contact with others (positive people – not negative people), we tend to lose our sense of reality. We may imagine things that are untrue and that could lead us back to our addiction.  We tell ourselves we are all right when we’re not.

Being a victim makes us vulnerable to predators.

Substitutes

Now that we’ve given up alcohol to change our mood we may start to look for substitutes.  We look to other activities to get our “highs” to escape from reality. We easily substitute compulsive behaviour for getting high when we feel bad. When we turn to compulsive behaviours we’re not changing our addictive behaviour only our method of coping.

Compulsive behaviours seem acceptable because they enable us to avoid looking at our own problems or our addictions and they make us feel good in the short term.  They also give us the illusions that we are doing okay because we’re not getting high on our previous addictions.

Compulsive behaviours can lead us back to our addiction of choice because they don’t give us as good a feeling as our preferred addiction. What is your drug of choice?
We often turn to compulsive behaviours for several reasons: We seek approval or we want to avoid looking at the real issues. There are a number of compulsive behaviours, most common are: eating; cigarettes; shopping (spending); sex; overworking (workaholic); exercising and gambling.

Success in Recovery

1. We should never underestimate the power of our addiction
2. It is essential to build a firm foundation to handle the ups and downs of early recovery
3. Our goal is making our lifestyle fit our recovery not making our recovery fit into our lifestyle
4. We need to resist “I can do it myself” thinking.  Asking for help can provide answers and comfort
5. We need to remember that life was not meant to be free of emotional pain or stress
6. We need to remind ourselves that obsessive compulsive behaviours occur quickly and easily. They are a method of avoiding reality
7. Addictions are Cunning, Baffling, Powerful and very, very Patient.  Be vigilant – be alert – be careful
8. Lessons in recovery sometimes take the form of experience – if we don’t learn the lesson the first time, it has a habit of re-occurring until we change whatever it is that is that is hampering our recovery
9. Whatever you do: don’t drink JUST FOR TODAY
10. Recovery is taking ONE DAY AT A TIME.  We don’t have to tackle our whole life’s problems at once
11. EASY DOES IT       HOW IMPORTANT IS IT?       LIVE AND LET LIVE
12. Remember that prescriptions drugs are a crutch that will lead you back to your drug of choice.  Anti-depressants are excluded as they are often required to balance your brain chemistry and they are not addictive.
13. Enemies of Recovery:   ANGER – RESENTMENT & SELF PITY
14. Remember the H.A.L.T reminder.  Don’t get too hungry; too angry;  too lonely or too tired.

Help to take care of your liver with LivaTone Plus, contains St Mary’s Thistle as well as important B group vitamins. Magnesium Ultra Potent to help reduce stress and can be taken before bed to assist with a deep and restful sleep. Magnesium also stabilizes the electrical activity of the nervous system. Tyrosine Mood Food is necessary for the manufacture of dopamine and noradrenaline, which are required for concentration, alertness, memory and a happy, stable mood. We find this a remarkable product to help  clients wean themselves off alcohol in conjunction with a tailored detox program.

The above statements have not been evaluated by the FDA and are not intended to diagnose, treat or cure any disease.