Category: Recovery

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Mental Health Recovery Spirituality

Acts of Kindness

I came across a beautiful article written by Ed and Deb Shapiro, authors of “Be the Change” in which they call for a “Revolution in Kindness.” Their article expressed the need for compassion and kindness and asks us to change our actions. It really made me think about recovery and how we so often come into the rooms bereft of problem-solving skills, angry, and hurting, and lashing out.

Most of us come in as the antithesis of kind. The change we experience in recovery is profound as we learn to transform our programmed responses to people, places, and things. Truly, these new actions do require a sort of metamorphosis. As we begin the recovery process, we are choosing to cease fighting. We admit we’re wrong, we admit powerlessness, and slowly, we begin to learn how to function gently and with clarity.

It’s tough to admit we’re wrong, especially when we are attached to the context of the situation itself, and even more so when we’ve invested so much energy in our anger and its corresponding story. But wouldn’t it be liberating NOT to fight–to admit that you are (gasp) wrong?! Sounds crazy, I’m sure, but think about it: so much of our conflict is created because our egos command us to prove we’re right (even when we’re not!). We often fight to the point of ending friendships, both personal and professional, but in the end, our fight means nothing at all.

The 12 steps ask us to give up our ego and self-centered behaviors. By demanding honesty in our inventories and actions, we are propelled to adopt a more altruistic approach to the world. We make amends for our actions, righting the wrongs we’ve caused, and we learn to stop the harming behaviors that got us here. This also means approaching our difficulties with kindness instead of closed fists. When we change our actions, we ultimately have a chance to end the incessant violence permeating our lives: the bullying, school shootings, hateful speech, drug and alcohol abuse.  Ed and Deb Shapiro said, “Kindness is completely revolutionary: it will change each one of us, it will change others, and it will definitely change the world.” What a wonderful reminder, then, to take responsibility for our actions and point less fingers at those around us. The world can be a sticky place, so why not begin to unstick it with small acts of kindness and compassion? Try it: One kind act, one day at a time.

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Mental Health Recovery

New Year Intentions

(Image by Christopher Chan via Flickr)

Round two of Holiday Madness is complete, and hopefully, we are on the other side in one piece. Now on the last stretch of the holiday road, we can now let go and get ready to celebrate the coming of the New Year.  For starters, many are ending this decade sober and stronger than they once were, optimistic in their desire for positive personal change in the year to come.  Some may be teetering on the edge of relapse, or may have already ventured down that path.  Hopefully, they make it back to the willing arms of recovery–remember, it just takes the willingness and desire to ask for help!

That said, all of us, sober or otherwise, look upon the burgeoning new year as a summons to better ourselves. We habitually make promises and set intentions to behave differently than we did the year before; we typically do pretty well in keeping those promises in the first month or so, and then, well, complacency begins to set in. The new membership to the gym starts to gather dust or we fall short in our attempts to deepen our spiritual practice, listening less to the call of our hearts and more to the chatter in our heads; at some point, we may even forget why we made these promises and intentions in the first place.

After countless years of failed “resolutions,” and a persistent sense of disappointment,  I decided to begin a new tradition, which is to no longer make promises I can’t keep, but rather, set intentions that allow me to get back up again if I should fall short. Intentions like being more committed to my life, my family, my sobriety, my spirituality. Or intentions to be kinder to myself and spend less time berating myself for things that are banal and insignificant, i.e., not making it to yoga one day or getting frustrated while I’m driving. In the grand scheme of things, one failed yoga class or a frustrated honk of the horn won’t eradicate the initial intentions that were set. Rather, those moments of forgetting allow me to ignite a practice of forgiveness, which allows me to forgive some of those shortcomings as I work so diligently to transform them.  Frankly, the real intention is our effort to change. “Progress not perfection,” right?

As long as we go forth one step, one breath, one day at a time, eventually, all the effort will pay off, leaving us with less dust, and more fervent joy.

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Adolescence Feelings Recovery

Fear and Loathing in Sobriety

It’s not every day that we voluntarily pay money to walk in to a place of horror and experientially tread through our fears. However, this past Saturday, we hosted our annual Knott’s Scary Farm event, wherein we did just that. Truth be told, it’s a popular event! I’m not sure if it’s a teen thing or a personality thing, but some folks just love to be scared! The thing is, we’re all scared of something, right? For this event, it might simply be things jumping out at you, for others it could be coulrophobia, the fear of clowns, and for some, it’s monsters in general. The tagline at Knott’s Scary Farm is “All You Fear is Here,” and boy, do they keep their promise. They have a foggy Ghost Town, where you can barely see your hand in front of your face, and is home to growling monsters, including the notorious Sliders (monsters and clowns that literally slide on their knees and hands out of nowhere to scare you!); they have CarnEVIL, where clowns and vaudevillians haunt your walk; and then there’s Necropolis, the city of the undead, filled with vamps galore. There’s sure to be at least one thing at this metropolis of fear that will make your blood run cold.

So, how do you deal with your fears when you’re there? If running and screaming makes the monsters chase you, then what would happen if you turn and face them? Our minds feed into our fears, making them appear to be intangible and often times providing us with a sense of unmanageability. In sobriety, addressing our fears can be a challenge and one we invariably shut the door on–fear of the fear, if you will. We drank, used, starved, stuffed, cut, punched, et cetera, as a means of chasing our fears away, but the truth is, they never really went anywhere.  So, when these clowns (yes, I have an epic clown fear) came bursting into our personal space, I decided not to run, or scream, but to turn and face them. Some of the kids even began mimicking their movements and growls, and each time, the clowns or monsters inevitably took their “scare” elsewhere. In fact, some even had conversations with us. Granted, they were still frightening to look at, and having them come sliding out of nowhere was still an effective fright tool, but disempowering their ferocity made them significantly less scary and made the fear manageable. Yes, that’s right, manageable!

This type of situation presents us with a wonderful metaphor for confronting our fears, though. One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned during my sobriety is that if I shine light into the dark corners and look at the very thing that is frightening, I discover the shadows are just that: shadows. No, it doesn’t invalidate the genuine fears that exist, but it certainly shrinks their size and makes them a little easier to manage. In the case of Knott’s Scary Farm, fortunately, we don’t have to face bloody clowns and monsters on a daily basis, but if or when we do, being mindful of how we respond and monitoring our reactions will hopefully make us less of a target. It can also make for some interesting albeit peculiar conversations with the creatures of the night!

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Recovery

Complacency in Sobriety: When Service Really Counts

    Complacency in sobriety is a wily thing: we get a little time under our belts, start feeling comfortable in our skin, finally get the girl or the guy, land the job, and basically get all of the “stuff” we thought would mean that we’d “made it,” and then, boom, our tornado-like behavior has seemingly faded into the past. Before we know it, we’re suffering from selective amnesia. It’s true, we get busy. It’s the inevitable result of getting our lives back. Our schedules become harried, and before long, we are so far removed from anything recovery related, we find ourselves spiritually and sometimes physically isolated. The truth is, there are a slew of things you can integrate into your daily routine that will take care of all three sides of the triangle (Unity, Recovery, Service):

  • Be of service, whether in a meeting or carousing through your day-to-day lives–that can mean anything from picking up those nasty cigarette butts,volunteering at your local shelter, or reaching out to someone in the office. In other words, get out of yourself for a while and see what magic can happen.
  • Develop your spirituality: start meditating regularly and learn how to manage all that thinking that happens, or go to the religious organization of your choice and sink into the quiet often found in those spaces. It’s incredible what healing happens when we still the mind for a spell.
  • Surround yourself with the wise-minded: those walking a similar path, readily able and willing to sweep up their wreckage if/when necessary, remembering that often times, “friends are the family you choose yourself.”

    Getting sober is one thing, but staying sober is something else. We are essentially going against the grain of our addict thinking, and to combat that, contrary action is necessary. Nothing is impossible, but it does takes a lot of work–work worthy of our greatest efforts. I am reminded of how important it is to nurture ourselves and our sobriety the way we did our addictions. It would be highly beneficial if that obsession with getting high was transformed into a similar passion for staying sober, because life is innately better when we aren’t trying to dance with our addictions.

So, what are some things you do to stay sober and in the moment? How do you contribute to your recovery? We’d love to hear from you!
   

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Recovery

School: Reintegrating Now That You’re Sober

        So, what do happens now that school has started? You have new rules to follow, sobriety, a different outlook on life, and now you find yourself back in the thick of things. How will you be perceived at school? Will people hate you, judge you, still want to talk to you? Will your teachers “know” that you are in recovery? Will they even care if they do know? And what about your classmates? Will you be an outcast or will you make new friends? These may be some of the thoughts going through your mind in this season of change, particularly since school and peer pressure may have been the playing field for many of the poor choices, risky behaviors, and questionable friends surrounding you in your days of using. It makes sense reentering that environment might stir things up, but you’re a different person now.
       When I was in junior high school and part of the “stoner” crowd, there were two guys in particular that were popular and always the center of whatever was going on. One day, they weren’t there anymore and when they returned, a few months later, they were both sober, bright eyed, healthy, and well, significantly different from the last time any of us had seen them. They were notably active in their recovery without being preachy–in a nutshell, they were passionate about being sober, and confident they were on the right path. They weren’t shy about their problems or where they’d been; they didn’t avoid their friends, instead, they became catalysts for change. I was always impressed with how these young men took something often deemed stigmatizing and made it safe and acceptable to talk about. As a result, I’ve carried that ideology with me into my own sobriety.
       For some, this year will be about finishing high school, for others, it’ll be the great jump into college: Either way, doing it all sober means you get to be present–what a tremendous blessing that is! Try to remember, sobriety doesn’t mean you’re weird, rather, it offers you the ability to change and is ultimately transformative. So, get involved, be of service, participate in your recovery with the fervor you had when you were drinking and using. Find meetings geared toward young people–trust me they’re out there! And if you live in an area where young peoples AA is lacking, start a group!

     Feel free to comment and share your experience, strength, and hope with us. We look forward to it!

Categories
Body Image Eating Disorders Mental Health Recovery

Help With My Eating Disorder

I began to address my eating disorder when I was in adolescent treatment in Malibu. It has been a very difficult journey and sometimes it has been very hard not to lapse into old behaviors. In the last year, I have really dedicated myself to staying committed to recovery and have recently seen a big change- I’ve gained weight! In the past, this would have destroyed me, but since I have been working so hard to get healthy, I feel pretty good about it. Mostly. Honestly, this week I had a bit of an emotional meltdown when I went to try on a bathing suit I hadn’t worn for three years. It didn’t fit. Later that night I went to put on a favorite summer dress. It didn’t fit. My jeans didn’t fit. Like, overnight my clothes stopped fitting. It’s one thing to talk about the work, to write about the work, to intellectualize the work- and an entirely different thing to actually have it happen. In my brain, I am very pleased to have some success in this very difficult area of my life. In my eating disorder’s brain, I am losing my mind. It’s horrifying. I feel like I shouldn’t be so upset, but of course I am. This old way of thinking has dominated my life for years and years. Of course I will grieve.
My sponsor and my best friend both suggested that I get rid of my old clothes. They will never fit me again as long as I am healthy. I took their advice and began to bag up my eating disorder clothes and cried the whole time. It was intensely symbolic for me to say goodbye to them, and to my eating disorder– to acknowledge that I’m not going to be that underweight again. That I’m going to stay healthy. I felt like I could almost hear my eating disorder yelling “Noooooo!” as if it was a villain being shoved off of a cliff in a movie. Sometimes those ceremonial gestures are important, like I’m showing myself what is really happening.
This week has been kind of heavy for me, but now that it’s over I feel a certain levity. I know that there is still a lot of work to do so that I don’t lapse in behavior. I have to power through this challenging time. It was hard to say goodbye, and I know that this is part of my grieving process. It may sound weird to grieve something that hurt me so much, but it was my greatest comfort for many years, and it’s scary to let go of it. I know that I have a lot of love and support around me, and that I don’t have to go through this alone. And hey, I get to go shopping.

Adolescent Eating Disorder Treatment In Malibu

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