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Things All People in Recovery Need to Hear Now and Then

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Everyone needs words of encouragement. For your loved one, or for yourself, in recovery, here are some of the most helpful sentiments you can offer.

You’re Doing a Great Job

We all need to hear we’re doing a good job of things every now and then. Addicts and alcoholics in recovery sometimes feel as though they aren’t doing much. Being in treatment for thirty days or longer might seem like vacation to some. However, participating in the emotional and spiritual demands of addiction treatment is no small feat. Each day, in spite of exhausting and debilitating physical and mental circumstances, people in treatment are showing up. They are showing up to confront their innermost selves and deal with deep issues they may not have seen in many years. Beyond the treatment experience, every single day addicts and alcoholics in treatment are defying the odds which are stacked against them: they are staying sober. Even if that’s the best thing they did on an average day, they did an amazing job.

You Are Not Weak for Being an Addict in Recovery

Reaching out for help is something we are born with. As developing infants and growing toddlers we pick up cues from adults around us and learn to express what we need. Somehow, that innate ability gets lost in adulthood and addiction. We stop asking for help and become ashamed of ever needing help, especially when we need help stopping the abusive use of substances. Addiction does not make us weak and asking for help in overcoming addiction does not make us weak. Quite the contrary, asking for help to overcome a fatal disease is one of the most courageous things we can do.

You Deserve to Get Better

When we hit our bottom of drinking and using we don’t feel we deserve much. Many experience feelings of shame, guilt, and self-loathing. After all, it is likely that we caused a bit of damage in our active addiction. Finances, relationships, responsibilities- once addiction completely takes over the brain, everything else becomes secondary. Perhaps it is part of our mind’s way to convince us to keep using; nonetheless we might avoid getting sober because we feel we don’t deserve it. Everyone deserves a chance to live a happy, healthy, and fulfilling life.

I’m so Glad You’re Alive

Addiction claims tens of thousands of lives each year. Though the shame and stigma of addiction is pervasive, the hope of recovery is as well. Our loved ones are making the decision to live on the other side of the statistics- the side that survives addiction. We remind them that they are here for a reason and we are so happy that they are.

Making the decision to get sober can be scary. Enlightened Recovery is here to help you make the transition to recovery. Your life’s worth living. We believe in you. Are you ready to believe in you too? We offer programs of treatment to men and women seeking recovery from addiction to drugs and alcohol. For more information call 833-801-5483.

Freedom is a Series of Choices

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“We will know a new freedom and happiness”, promises the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. In a list of other promises, the authors tell us that by doing “the work”, however quickly or slowly, we will see results manifest before we can even recognize them. It is critical, though, that we choose to diligently do the work that comes with recovery.

 

Choosing means Not Choosing

Inherently, our choices are dualistic. When we choose something we are almost always not choosing something else. We don’t always realize this, often because we get wrapped up in the benefit of what we are choosing. Before making a choice, evaluate your not-choice. For example, if you get asked to take on another commitment at a twelve step meeting when you already have a few, you might be not-choosing balance, energy, and serenity. Commitments are important but not at the sake of your well being. Especially in the early recovery time period (30 days to 6 months), making balanced choices is important. We need sleep, rest, time to engage in our spiritual disciplines, and self-care.

We also need to choose our thoughts, behaviors, and actions very carefully. When we choose to feel resentment and anger, then choose to hold on to it, we actively choose to cause ourselves pain. We actively choose to suppress feeling freedom, liberation, and serenity. In contrast, sometimes we choose to be overly happy to ignore an uncomfortable feeling. We then choose against processing important emotions and gaining wisdom about a situation.

 

Self-Consciousness is Self-Obsession

Some of that wisdom we gain from making careful choices with our thinking illuminates the difference between self-consciousness and self-obsession. Alcoholism and addiction are diseases of the “self”. The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous states that “selfishness and self-centeredness” were the roots of our greater symptom- substance abuse. Self-consciousness isn’t limited to insecurity, shyness, or doubt. We get self-conscious when social groups form in our treatment centers and we feel excluded. We get self-conscious when a parent doesn’t praise us the way we need or embarasses us. When we ruminate about these instances, we spend an awful lot of time thinking about ourselves. Assumedly, we make believe that every other person’s actions revolve around us somehow. This simply isn’t the case. It is often said that we might be less concerned about what people thought about us if we knew how little they did. 

Enlightened Recovery believes there is a path to freedom within the spiritual philosophy of the 12 steps. We infuse our holistic and evidence-based program of treatment with 12 step theory and practical application. Our program is open to men and women seeking recovery from their addiction to drugs and alcohol, in addition to co-occurring disorders. For more information call 833-801-5483.

12 Step Necessities

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Without any basic knowledge of what the twelve step world is like, it can be pretty overwhelming when entering it for the first time. Enlightened Recovery believes in utilizing twelve step philosophy to help our clients get the most out of their treatment experience. Diving into the twelve step community is about more than just the twelve steps themselves or going to twelve step meetings. Here is a quick guide to some of the necessities for living a twelve step lifestyle in recovery.

History of 12 Step Recovery

Bill Wilson was a chronic alcoholic with no cure in sight. One day, his old drinking friend visited him and said that finding religion helped him get sober. Soon thereafter Bill had a spiritual experience while he was in the hospital and never drank again. On a business trip, however, Bill found himself alone and very uncomfortable. Feeling tempted, he realized he needed to speak to someone who understood- another alcoholic. Through his experience chatting with a local alcoholic named Dr. Bob, he founded AA. Two alcoholics talking about shared spiritual experience. From there they developed what we know as the twelve steps today.

12 Step Meetings

Twelve step groups primarily operate through meetings. Held in churches, community centers, clubhouses, on the phone, or even online, twelve step meetings are happening all day every day. Twelve step meetings have a range of topics. From Alcoholics Anonymous to Gamblers Anonymous, anyone can find a twelve step fellowship to find recovery in. Meetings are a way to meet people experiencing similar problems and hear stories from those who are recovering.

12 Step Sponsors

A sponsor’s primary purpose is to carry the message of the spiritual experience found through the twelve steps to newcomers. Newcomers are people with thirty days or less in the program of their choice. Having completed the twelve steps themselves, sponsors act as a guide for taking new people through the steps. A sponsor can be called on for advice, guidance, and to check in.

The Twelve Steps

Most twelve step groups base their twelve steps off of the original founded by Alcoholics Anonymous. The steps are a guide to having a spiritual experience, which the AA founders thought to be necessary in order to give the brain the psychic change required to stop drinking. Included in the steps are conceptualizing a higher power, inventorying our lives, making amends, prayer, and meditation.

Recovery starts with You. Start your recovery with Us. Enlightened solutions offers a holistic program of treatment for men and women seeking recovery from addiction. For more information, call 833-801-5483.

Journaling as a Tool for Recovery

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Writing for twenty minutes a day, for just three days, can change your life. Does it sound unbelievable? James Pennebaker, a psychology professor at the University of Texas conducted research specifically investigating the positive effect journaling could have on emotion. He found that across the subjects of his studies, there was a positive and effective aftermath. Half of his subjects were asked to write about experiences in their lives which held distinguished emotional meaning. The other half of his subjects were asked to write about everyday occurrences and observations.

For those who spent the 20 minutes of writing a day focusing on heavy emotional experiences, Pennebaker discovered definite improvements, including, but not limited to:

  • Less depression
  • Less anxiety
  • Lower blood pressure
  • Improved relationships, memory, physical health, mental health

Undeniably, in each of Pennebaker’s studies, the practice of expressing emotional experiences through journaling proves to be deeply therapeutic. Writing helped in coping with stress, grief, fear, and depression. Additionally, overtime, people who regularly journaled change their language. More importantly, they change their thinking. Insight, understanding, and perspective begin to develop, demonstrated through phrases such as “I realize”, and “I understand now”.

Journaling as a Tool for Recovery

How does journaling lead to a greater sense of wellbeing and understanding in the world? Your average “dear diary”, as exemplified in Pennebaker’s studies, doesn’t exactly cut it. The human brain processes billions of intricate and detailed thoughts throughout the day. Emotion is one of the curious things about human beings, which we have a language to express. However, most modern culture suggests, in one way or another, against expressing emotion. From trauma to tragedy, accomplishment to happiness, there is general instruction not to feel too much- or at least let anyone know about it.

Mistakenly, emotions are thought to be passing experiences. While it is true that “this too shall pass”, the energy of each emotion we experience does not just go away. When we lose that baseball tournament at 7 years old and our father says “suck it up”, we don’t just “suck it up” and forget about it. We experience a colorful array of emotions that, until dealt with, stay with us a lifetime. Guilt, shame, disappointment, fear, loneliness- so much can be felt and it is completely unique to who we are as individuals.

Many of us drank and used drugs as way to simultaneously “let loose” to express ourselves, and shut down our persisting emotions. We wanted to feel everything by feeling nothing at all. When we get sober and start living a life of recovery free from drugs and alcohol, we are suddenly presented with all those feelings. Though we thought we had done away with them for good, we had only anesthetized them temporarily. Begging to be reconciled, every single emotional experience begins to surface. The fact of the matter is it has to go somewhere. If we are lucky enough to be in treatment, we have multiple therapy sessions a day to divulge. Still, at the end of the day, there may be more to process. Just 20 minutes of writing at the end of the day can help unload and make sense of all those emotions.

Journaling as a tool for recovery is an important and useful tool because it helps support emotional regulation. After years of consistent substance abuse, we have trained our brains to run at the first hint of uncomfortable feelings. Journaling is a way to make peace with the art of emotion, and possibly learn a thing or two from feeling them.

Enlightened Recovery has seen the incredible transformations which take place from the simple act of asking for help. If you are ready to change your life and ask for help overcoming your battle with drug addiction or alcoholism, call us today. 833-801-5483.

Why We Get Attracted to Fear

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Recklessness is a word that could be used to describe addiction. Under the influence of powerful drugs and/or alcohol, drug addicts and alcoholics make reckless decisions. Even if one isn’t addicted to substances, when they are under the influence they live on the edge. For example, people choose to drive drunk. Some substances cause euphoria in such a way that it makes people feel invincible. Under the influence of such drugs, people attempt all kinds of reckless acts. Even without the influence, addicts and alcoholics, or substance users alike, have a common characteristic of living dangerously. Listen to the stories of recovering addicts and alcoholics and be amazed by the death defying circumstances many have survived.

There are some who can’t seem to get away from such a lifestyle. As if the danger were part of the addiction itself, despite their previous brushes with death, they cannot get away. Using in and of itself is a game of russian roulette. Relapses weaken the body. Vulnerable to the potency of drugs after some time spent clean and sober, overdose is always a possibility. Yet, time after time, just like their drug, addicts return to the high of danger. They are attracted to the fear.

Why We Get Attracted to Fear

It turns out that the attraction to the “fear” associated with substance abuse is not so different from the attraction of substance abuse itself. More specifically, what makes substance abuse addicting also makes fear addicting. When we experience fear our bodies release different chemicals and hormones to compensate. Adrenaline is quite literally the body’s fight or flight response, the natural way of handling fear. Lesser well known for being produced in response to fear is dopamine. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter in the brain which is supposed to communicate pleasure. In the brain cycle of addiction, dopamine plays a very large role. The brain becomes addicted to, obsessed with, and dependent on excessive dopamine production.

For fear, much like with drugs and alcohol, some people don’t have a tolerance threshold. That is why some people can withstand haunted houses, scary movies, and thrill seeking while others jump at bumps in the night. Since dopamine is released, some actually enjoy the fear. In fact, the scarier the better.

Can fear be an addiction?

It is unlikely that the brain will develop an addiction to scary movies or corn mazes during Halloween. However, the brain can get addicted to receiving pleasure from dopamine production. Whatever it is that stimulates the brain in this way will become an obsession over time. Danger seeking behavior can be problematic in addiction recovery, acting almost like an addiction-swap.

The Everyday of Treatment

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In addition to individual therapy, group therapy, and experiential therapy sessions such as art therapy or yoga therapy, are daily tasks that are meant to enhance recovery. Life skills are necessary to develop in order to ensure long term and successful sobriety. Developing routine and habit are helpful in the treatment process for recovery from addiction.

The Everyday of Treatment

Addiction causes the wiring in the brain to go a little haywire. Most everyday tasks go unnoticed and neglected. Addiction causes the brain to hyperfocus on pleasure and pleasurable experiences As a result, it becomes highly uninterested in performing mundane tasks that everyday life demands. Consequently, it builds unhealthy and unproductive habits. Reprogramming those habits not only corrects the specific situation of the habit itself, but helps the brain heal. Creating new habits through repeated action causes neurons in the brain to fire at the same time, causing a recognition. Overtime, practicing new habits becomes rewarding-in a healthy way.  

Making Your Bed

Each morning at Enlightened Recovery, you are expected to make your bed. There has been great debate as to how important it is or isn’t to make your bed in the morning. While some science has indicated that bed making does not equate to success at all other research has shown it’s critically important. Making the bed indicates discipline and ritual.

Cleaning Your House

Feng Shui is the zen practice of creating flow in the home. A clean home is a clean mind. We pay honor and respect to the higher power working in our life by participating in facility cleaning days.

Cooking Food

Some treatment centers have meals catered or privately prepared. While it is helpful to take the stress cooking out of the equation in early days, it is important to teach cooking as well. Once a patient leaves treatment, they are on their own including making sure that there is something to eat.

12 Step Meetings

Going to meetings is  a perfect way to meet other people like yourself who are struggling and getting through recovery. Here the message of how important it is stay sober.

Have FUN!

Treatment at Enlightened Recovery provides holistic healing for mind, body, and spirit. Our programs of care for men and women seeking recovery for alcoholism and addiction are spiritually based. There is a solution for the problem of drugs and alcohol. Find it with us. 833-801-5483.

Enlightening Empowerment: Owning your Choices and Taking Responsibility for the Consequences

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“You are free to choose…” is the most simple way of describing man’s spiritual gift in his ability to express free will; however, “…you are not free from the consequence of your choice.”

Imagine all the world, mankind, and creation, as existing within one pond. With every choice we make, we cast an energetic pebble upon the pond’s waters. As a result, the pond ripples, sending waves out across the surface until it hits a border and comes back again. Over and over this cycle repeats until the energy of the wave dies out. Magnifying that example to the expansiveness of our existence, there is not telling where or when the energy of our choices might cease to have an effect. Some call this “new age” and “spiritual thinking” while others might refer to it as metaphysical law or quantum mechanics.

From a purely ontological perspective, if we choose to drop a heavy rock on our foot, we are not freed from a broken toe. Big or small, our choices have meaning for ourselves and others. Attempting to choose inconsequentially likely enabled many patterns of our addictive and alcoholic behaviors. Ignorant to how our drinking and using was affecting others, we continued to choose suffering, choose intoxication, regardless of the consequence. Recovery gives us the gifts of consideration, selflessness, and service. Approaching each choice with mindfulness, we learn to take responsibility for the consequences of our choices.

Simply accepting “blame” is different from the empowering practice of truly owning the choices we make. For example, we choose to accept a task assigned to us by another. Regretting it immediately, we moan and complain, becoming resentful of this horrible tragedy we’re suffering. How quickly we cast the ownership of our choices! Empowerment would mean owning the choice to accept this task. Enlightened empowerment would not only own the action, but own the process as well. Yes, we made the choice to take on this task. We are going to complete it fully as a result.

Recovery is not forced upon us. Though overtime we lose our deep attachment to the suffering of craving, we always have the choice to drink. Empowerment in recovery comes from fully embracing the every day, multiple times a day, decision not to drink or use drugs. Enlightened empowerment comes from trudging that road to happy destiny with grace. We choose to stay sober each day and we face the consequence of fulfilling the needs of the recovery lifestyle. We own it because we love it and we love ourselves.

Enlightened Recovery believes in the empowering effect of recovery from drug and alcohol addiction through treatment. Founded in twelve step philosophy and coupled with holistic healing practices, Enlightened offers a multidisciplinary approach. We have hope for the hopeless and a solution for the answerless.

Losing Yourself in Someone Else: Codependency

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Codependency can be a development that takes place through hidden increments. At the foundation of codependent tendencies is a set of basic human fears:

I am not worthy

I am not whole

I am not loveable

Should our significant other discover these unconscionable truths, they may leave us. Forgetful that these fears are the fallacy of the human conditions, we adopt them as personalized convictions. Our relationships transform from mutual to one-sided, shifting from healthy to unbalanced.

Codependency is Losing Yourself in Someone Else

Healthy relationships have an open communication channel for limiting what each individual is capable and not capable of doing. Saying “no” is setting a loving boundary with just two letters. Relationships are unbalanced when saying “no” becomes a point of anxiety because saying “yes” has become obligation for one or both partners. Love and service are beautiful parts of any partnership. They are not the same as indentured enslavement. Codependency is when we lose our ability to say “no” out of fear. We might notice that when our partner needs help, we run to their aid. When we are unable to attend to them, we suffer from guilt and anxiety. Unless we are validated by our partner’s need for us in their lives, we feel lost. Our sense of being is defined by how we are needed.

Detached from our inherent strength to set boundaries is the beginning of a decline in our authentic voice. Codependency in a relationship creates fear that our opinions, thoughts, and feelings might scare the other person away. As a result, we cease expressing ourselves as we are. Instead, we speak as we think our partner would prefer us to be heard. We might mimic them entirely. We feel that our being is not as good as theirs, that we are less than them. Ultimately, we are in fear of abandonment and rejection. Allowing fear to dictate how we act as a whole being extinguishes our ability to come from love.

We not only lose sight of our personal power and our voice, we disconnect from our needs entirely. Prioritizing the identity and responsibility of our partner, we forget to focus on our own needs. Friends, family, 12-Step meetings, hobbies, and interests fall to the wayside as our world closes in around our partner.

Enlightened Recovery humbly offers a holistic design for the recovery process to heal the spirit, mind, and body. Our program is rooted in twelve step philosophy as a solution to the problem of drug and alcohol addiction. Call us today for more information on our programs of treatment for men and women seeking recovery 833-801-5483.

Music Therapy and EDM: A Link for Treatment

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Last year, the EDM (electronic dance music) industry reached a peak in industrial growth. The most recent numbers came from the 2014-2015 year which saw a drop in growth (12%). From 2013-2014, the electronic dance music industry grew an impressive 37%. In that time the number of EDM ‘festivals’ seemed to quadruple with local, small scale events happening regularly. Live music events account for the majority of the current value at nearly $7 billion.

Electronic Dance Music comes under a lot of scrutiny for its close affiliation with drugs. Psychedelics and psychoactives are renown for ‘enhancing’ the music experience. Drugs like psilocybin (magic mushrooms) and acid (LSD) are common. Most widely known is ecstasy or MDMA. MDMA is a psychoactive that primarily interacts with serotonin. Along with feelings of euphoria and the sensation of being connected or in love with the whole world come dangerous side effects. MDMA is not always pure. It can be cut with heroin, meth, crack, and other drugs. Overheating, dehydration, high blood pressure, and hypertension are the primary causes for overdose and death at EDM festivals each year. “Green amor” is a new drug being sold at EDM shows combining MDMA and crystal meth.

Death counts are startling at these shows. As recently as May, 5 people died at one EDM show in the Philippines, due to overdose and heart attack on MDMA and other drugs. July of 2014, the start of that year’s festival season, had an already reported 15 deaths.

Despite slowing growth, EDM has transformed into a global community. Now, neuroscience researchers are looking into what it is about EDM that makes the music itself addicting and how that could possibly help addicts in recovery.

Music Therapy for Addiction Treatment

Music therapy is an alternative modality used by treatment centers. Creative output plus the healing energy of sound equate to a unique application of expressive arts. Australian researchers are looking to study the neuroscience of the brain ‘on’ EDM.

Formulaically, EDM includes a build up and a ‘drop’. The researchers assign both of these parts with craving and pleasure, respectively. For most EDM fans, the music is highlighted by the drop in bass and melody. Researchers believe there is a connection between how the brain experiences craving and pleasure in the music as well as in mental disorders with cravings, such as addiction. Music is used as a therapeutic tool in emotional regulation for people with and without mental illnesses. Individualized music therapy programs could help reduce acute symptoms of craving, the researchers believe.

Enlightened solutions incorporates music therapy as part of a holistic treatment program. Seeking to heal mind, body, and spirit, enlightened solutions offers a bunch of hippie shit. To learn more and get your chakras assessed, call 833-801-5483.