Chelsea Kline
STL Addiction Intern

Yesterday in group we discussed how we can substitute substance use with a positive activity during free time in our lives. When you get rid of one activity (substance use) you need to replace it with something else. 

It's helpful to think of positive activities that you used to like to do and maybe haven't done since you started filling more of your time with drugs/alcohol. You might remember how much you loved painting when you were younger or that you like to play basketball with friends. Your new positive activities can be any kind of hobby (sewing, reading, playing an instrument, etc.), exercise (walking, yoga, rowing), or reconnecting with old or new safe friends. You may reconnect with an old activity/friend, or you may take this opportunity to reinvent yourself during your new, sober life and try some new activities or join a new group. 

Instead of being sad or angry about being deprived of your old behavior (substance use), rejoice in the fact that you now have more free time to do activities that will give you a more positive and healthy lifestyle. If you continue the positive behavior, your thoughts and feelings will follow in that positive way and you will feel more content about your new activities and lifestyle. 

Today in group we reviewed some successes and struggles from the past week dealing with recovery. Many of the struggles come from hours and hours of negative repeating thoughts, usually about something we have little or no control over. When you become mindful of your thoughts and notice the negative or self-blaming start to arise, repeatedly looking at or saying a list of affirmations or a list of your legitimate rights can help you reframe the situation and see it in a more rational way and allows you to stop beating yourself up about a situation that is out of your control. 

During group tonight one part of the discussion really stood out to me. We got to talking about the anger that is felt by the depressing thought that addicts/alcoholics, no matter how many days, months, or years sober, will never really be "cured." In other words, an addict will always be in remission or recovery. 

Addiction is a disease and an addict has different brain and chemical reactions when thinking of or seeing the substance, making it harder for the addict to stay away from it than someone who is not addicted. Once in treatment, it is a never ending journey to deal with one's recovery. Many times this brings up feelings of unfairness that other people don't have to manage recovery or deal with high risk situations when it comes to the substance(s). The daunting and overwhelming thought that recovery is unending can be scary for some people or cause feelings of anger. This righteous anger is a normal and understandable feeling, but staying angry won't help one's recovery progress. 

Francine then drew her graph, which I tried to (poorly) imitate above, and discussed the flow of a successful recovery and how it becomes a positive part of one's life rather than a burden he/she has to think about 24/7. In the beginning of recovery from an addiction, the individual needs frequent and intense treatment. Recovery becomes priority and the individual is not very engaged in "normal" life. There needs to be a constant mindfulness of what one is thinking, feeling, and doing, especially in high risk situations when it comes to the addiction. 

However, Francine points out that in successful recovery, after a period of time the individual needs less and less treatment. This is because after so much intense and frequent treatment, the person should be able to remember and use the tools given to them in counseling and be able to more easily incorporate these recovery activities such as meditation or self-soothing behaviors into their normal lives and hopefully make habits of them. As the recovery activities are used and thought processes have changed for the better, the individual has to receive less treatment and normal life becomes more prevalent and fulfilling. 

Francine reminded us that although recovery/treatment is a part of an addict's life forever and never completely goes away (new things will always pop up in life and challenge sobriety so it is best to maintain some sort of treatment, even if it is only a few times a year), the longer one can stay on track, the less prevalent and burdening recovery is. 

Accepting the fact that recovery will always be a part of your life's journey can be scary, especially for someone who is newly sober, but if you look at it from a different perspective, you can see the positive life changes that can be made through recovery. Someone in successful recovery can proudly say that they now have remission for the rest of their life's journey instead of an addiction for the rest of their life, or worse, no longer having life because of an addiction. If you can change your attitude about a never ending recovery, you can start to see the positives that come out of it and the new, healthier, and fulfilling lifestyle you have achieved because of it. 

Written by: Chelsea Kline

Many times we find our thoughts dictating our feelings and behaviors. When these thoughts are negative it can lead to more negative feelings and behaviors and continue in a cycle.