Those in recovery cultivate an attitude of gratitude. We can all benefit from having an attitude of grace about what we have been given. Addicts in recovery have a willingness to pay it forward. They support each other in the recovery community. Society would certainly benefit from that model of behavior. The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous doesn’t just pertain to alcoholics . . . How we [feel] powerless over a lot of what happens in our lives. How to take an inventory of ourselves. How to admit the exact nature of our wrongs. Being honest with ourselves and others. Being of service to others. Being a messenger of hope . . . pertains to all of us. These are messages and lessons that need to be carried beyond the recovery community to become a part of our whole culture.
Brenda Schell’s remarks underscore why I had to write this book. The skills and techniques that facilitate recovery from an addiction can also provide self-improvement opportunities for anyone, addicted or not. That’s what these pages are about.
SHEDDING LIGHT ON OUR DARKER NATURE
Those of us in recovery count our blessings and are grateful. We learn how to want what we have and this helps anchor us in the present time, which is crucial because, as research shows us, a wandering, restless mind is an unhappy mind.
Because you are reading this book, you either sense or have identified a need, an area of improvement you want to focus on. But remember, there is no quick fix, either in this book or in life. I’ve looked for all of the quick fixes and none of them worked as advertised. So, sorry, the quick fix is a myth.
This book isn’t a fad diet, either; it’s not some kind of self-help fantasy. But the lessons you will learn here can make life more tolerable. The principles in this book can help you have the fullest possible human experience.
A word of caution: Don’t set yourself up for failure by attempting to do all ten lessons simultaneously and incorporate them into your life all at once. Try working on them one at a time. Try to picture the ten lessons as life skills found on a circle. They can be arranged randomly on the circle or in the order I present them. They naturally overlap; life is too messy to ever be compartmentalized. Together, the ten lessons are a process you enter anywhere on the circle, based on mere chance, your own nature and preferences, or your current circumstances. As you get into the process, the order of the lessons that works best for you will become clear.
Think of them as a new lifestyle; changes you will slowly implement for the rest of your time on this planet. This thought can be scary, but just keep reminding yourself, There are no quick fixes; quick fixes don’t exist.
Consider this book an opportunity to investigate how your life is going. Ask yourself the following questions:
Am I generally content with the way things are?
Are my emotions mostly on an even keel?
Are my personal relationships strong and supportive?
Is there enough joy in my life?
Your answers may lead to the realization that what you need is recovery—a recovery that is unique, personal, and crucial for you. Recovery is about finding something we’ve lost, and what we have lost is our true self. Alienation from self is a byproduct of this culture of ours and its fixations, and we are all trying to find ourselves—whether we realize it or not. Addicts in recovery have discovered a process for achieving just that.
These pages give you the practical tools mastered and lived every day by those countless people who have successfully stayed in recovery. It may take some time to get off the Ferris wheel of repeating your mistakes over and over, but if you’re going to be compulsive about something, you can’t do much better than relentlessly pursuing a healthy lifestyle.
So consider this book a gift from the recovery community to all of humanity. Most of society continues to accept us addicts only reluctantly, not yet knowing what we have to give back. But what you now hold in your hands could, hopefully, change all that.
WHAT
ADDICTS
KNOW
Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding about ourselves.
—CARL JUNG
Addicts in long-term recovery learn the importance of finding out who they really are beneath all of the lies and self-deception. That discovery of self is necessary if they are to develop sufficient awareness to eventually find contentment. Imagine the benefits to all of humanity if more people uncovered their authentic selves and, as a result, pursued a healthier, more honest standard for well-being.
MEET PATTY POWERS, addictions recovery coach. Patty plays the role of mirror for her clients. By living with each of them for up to a month at a time in their own homes, she reflects back at them every day, and even moment to moment, how devious and manipulative the incessant inner dialogue of voices that distract them, delude them, sabotage them, and warp their personalities can be.
She has observed how the first transformation stage in addiction recovery comes from a self-awareness that develops, usually slowly, by practicing honesty and humility with self and others. Another necessary ingredient is self-acceptance of your “authentic” self, whatever that turns out to be. Addicts so rationalize their actions that they can’t hear the truth or actually feel and express feelings unless something or someone penetrates and short-circuits their inner chatty dialogue of noise, fear, and denial.
One of Patty’s clients, a woman with a very successful career whom we will call Nancy, hired Patty for a month to help her break a dependency on prescription drugs. She developed a problem with painkillers and antidepressants in the wake of the attacks of 9/11, and shortly thereafter had to cope with the painful aftermath of a difficult divorce.
Patty noticed early on that Nancy would begin feeling drowsy any time she began to feel stress. Not only was Nancy unaware of this pattern, she vehemently denied there was any connection between her fatigue and her unexpressed feelings. Nancy showed very little self-awareness, and that was sabotaging her attempts to maintain sobriety.
One of the advantages of having a full-time sobriety coach such as Patty, as opposed to being in a thirty-day rehab facility, is the constant personalized mirror for self-reflection that the sobriety coach holds up, coupled with the new life skills that clients learn and practice within the familiar world of their own living spaces. In recovery herself for several decades from heroin, Patty lives in New York City but has stayed with clients throughout the United States and in Britain and Canada. She has coached alcoholics and just about every other kind of drug addict known to medical science.
Whenever her client Nancy appeared fatigued despite having engaged in little or no physical exertion during the day, Patty would say to her, “Check in with yourself. What are you feeling right now?”
When Nancy seemed to be withdrawing, Patty would ask, “Where did you just go? What were you thinking about?”
Any time Patty caught Nancy future tripping—feeling unexpressed fear—she would instruct her, “Let’s get you back in your body. Close your eyes and breathe deeply. Feel your feet, your legs, your entire body.”
After several weeks of this often-annoying routine, Nancy finally began getting in the habit of bringing herself back to the present moment whenever the inner dialogue of her addict mind got out of control and tried to undermine her sobriety. Through this process she was rediscovering her authentic self.
Patty’s constant vigilance, combined with her barrages of penetrating questions and the grounding exercises, gradually began to dispel all of Nancy’s rationalizing stories until one day a significant breakthrough occurred. Nancy returned to her former home to pick up some belongings from her married days, and the visit