Factors That Play a Role in Relapse

In my five years of sobriety, I have noticed many factors that play a role in relapse. Two of things contributing to relapse are a cease in service work and a shift in personal priorities. Service work and working with others is one the most important contributors to staying sober. In the movie My Name is Bill W, Which is a movie about Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Silkworth the co-founders of Alcoholics Anonymous. Bill Wilson's wife has a conversation with Dr. Silkworth. Lois Wilson was complaining about BIll spending all his time, working with other Alcoholics that were not managing to stay sober. Dr Silkworth asked her if "he was staying sober?" Lois said "yes", it was then, she realized that working with others was helping bill stay sober.
For alcoholics, Staying sober for 24 hours is a miracle, so to accomplish this, sobriety must be the top priority in their life. I have personally seen dozens of alcoholics who forget their primary purpose. They once again make work, school,relationships, etc. their top priority and end up drinking again. So alcoholics must never forget their primary purpose in life, to stay sober.

I Was a Teenage Drug Addict

I grew up and spent my teen years in Los Angeles, where drugs were easy to find, and alcohol was around all the time. My parents were big drinkers, so they never noticed any booze missing. In middle school, I got into drugs and alcohol a lot. My friends and I stole alcohol, and bought drugs with stolen money. We were rebellious teenagers with a thirst for terrorizing the city. I know what its like to be a teenage drug addict and alcoholic. I relate to a lot of the kids here at the teen-drug-rehab, and I can understand where they're coming from. I was there once myself. I think its important for the kids here to know that the staff has been through similar circumstances. In my experience, the kids learn to trust and respect the staff and others when they know that they are being understood and heard. Years later, I reconnected with a bunch of my old friends from middle school, and even elementary school. We are all in AA now. Its amazing to see so many faces that I grew up with in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. None of us are alone, and we can all lean on each other.

Showing Up

Hello, just wanted to get going on my mini blog about work, recovery and talk about how i am truly blessed to be alive and sober today. I have a little more than a year and a half of sobriety, my sobriety date is June, 4 2006. 6/4/6....I thought that was kind of cool but I didn't plan it to come out that way. Basically my life is about showing up these days even if I don't want to, especially to the things that I don't want to show up to. Like meetings sometime, meeting people for coffee or any other thing that would be just "too hard" for me to do. Working in recovery I really get the chance to see myself in so many of the people here and it really is comforting to know that we are not alone in this world. There are a lot of people around that have been through what your going through and have experience in a lot of different areas of life or could help you to find someone who has. I myself have gotten sober through Alcoholics Anonymous and it's really an amazing thing. Nobody would of thought that I would get to be 21 years old and instead of sitting on a couch drinking and smoking my life away, I'm working, paying debt that I created and trying to skateboard as much as possible for it is the thing that truly makes me centered and happy. I hope everybody can find that one positive thing in there life that can do that for them as well because I believe is very important for you to have. Ive never really blogged anything before and I'm not really sure what the format is or if there even is one but all I know is I can just put tidbits of info on here as I trudge along this path and hopefully someone can relate.

Pat

The disease of addiction

The disease of addiction

When I entered drug rehab I was under the impression that addiction meant addiction to drugs or alcohol, I never could have imagined the way that the disease manifests in our lives.

In studying about the disease concept you learn that the disease of addiction is not about a particular substance, it centers in our thinking. Substances that addicts can fix on can include anything from drugs and alcohol to shopping, exercise, relationships or food, basically anything that an addict uses in order to not feel feelings and not focus on oneself.

Alcoholics Anonymous founded what they described as a “spiritual malady” or a “two fold disease: allergy of the body and obsession of the mind”. This was later coined the disease concept. A disease can be defined as a disordered or incorrectly functioning organ, part, structure, or system of the body resulting from the effect of genetic or developmental errors, infection, poisons, nutritional deficiency or imbalance, toxicity, or unfavorable environmental factors; illness; sickness; ailment. This parallels the conditions of the disease of alcoholism and how it is a BIO-PSYCHO-SOCIAL disease. This means that alcoholism can be caused by heredity/ genetics (BIO), psych make-up (PSYCHO) and the environment is which one is raised (SOCIAL). The disease is treatable, but if not treated it results in jails, institutions and death.