Recovery Coaching » Addiction

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs

admin — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 19:25:01 +0000

Tree of Addictions

admin — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 18:44:24 +0000

Creating the Soil of Addictions

Emotional Abuse

Active

Yelling / Screaming
Name calling / Put-downs
Profanity

Passive

No expression of affection
No caring or nurturing
No listening

Physical Abuse

Active

Hitting / Slapping
Pushing / Shoving
Spanking in anger

Passive

Being left alone
Inadequate food, shelter, clothing
No teaching of self-care

Sexual Abuse

Active

Sexual humour /
Teasing about body
Sensual touching or arousal
Genital or oral sex

Passive

Sex information not taught
Lack of masculine & feminine affirmation by father figure
Healthy intimacy not modelled

Spiritual Abuse

Active

Punitive messages about God
Self-righteousness / pride
Modelling unhealthy lifestyles

Passive

Failure to model healthy spirituality
Lack of spiritual discipline
Not sharing about a loving and forgiving personal God

Tree of Addictions is a post from: Recovery Coaching

A Healthy Self Image & Self Esteem

admin — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 03:44:19 +0000

Our self esteem, self image, is made up of what we think and feel about ourselves. Great music.

A Healthy Self Image & Self Esteem is a post from: [...]

A Healthy Self Image & Self Esteem is a post from: Recovery Coaching

Denial: The Twilight Zone

admin — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 06:29:36 +0000

Why do addicted people keep doing what they are doing? You may think that they know the consequences well enough. Many have seen their relationships break up, their children gone, their job prospects vanish, and have attended more funerals in a few years than most people attend in a lifetime.

Why don’t they know that their addiction is causing the problems? How can they continue with the addiction and manage to ignore the consequences. Many addicts look at the trail of wreckage in their wake and believe that their drug or alcohol use is the solution. So how can it be the problem?

This way of dealing with two opposing ideas, that their drug or alcohol use is the solution and the problem, is in part, what denial is all about. Denial works best if it isn’t spoken out. Those close to the addict know its best not to mention the addiction. Then the illusion can be maintained, the enigma does not need to be unravelled. Keep the truth under the surface.

We all have denial to some degree or another. It is a defence mechanism that helps us deal with all the impossible stuff going on in the world around us. How can you cope with famines, and children dying, and wars and a bad economy? Better to let ‘denial’ come in and allow us to operate at a functional level. If we analysed what was going on, we would need to deal with too many contradictions.

This is the addicts’ plight. If the denial kicks in and he pretends that there is no problem, then the addiction could kill him. Denial then ceases to be a defence mechanism. If he admits to denial he then needs to deal with the addiction. But he can’t give up because the drug or alcohol is the solution. Catch 22!

The denial concept then needs some refinement. If the addict comes to the point of admitting that the drug or alcohol is the problem, then they will have to take ownership and give up the offending behaviour. But often, they cannot do it. So they may try to control the offending habit. It is at this point, with help, that some manage to get on the cycle of change. But mostly, the addiction is about loss of control, and the addict loses sight of the goal again but may continue to believe that he is in control. In this smoke and mirrors world, many can go on for years in this state. It is denial that keeps them in this twilight zone.

Denial is a form of control that affects the addicts family. Relationships are established on co-dependent grounds. The family also adopt the denial as a coping mechanism. As long as there is no problem to deal with, the addict can justify his behaviour or project it on to others. It will work for them as long as it stays underground.

Give Drug Users A Break

admin — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 07:08:06 +0000

Mark Easton’s article regarding the “World Drugs Report 2009″ quotes the report’s author, Antonio Maria Costa.

His argument sets up what some might argue is a bogus choice between total legalisation or tough criminal sanctions. But he makes it with conviction:

“Why unleash a drug epidemic in the developing world for the sake of libertarian arguments made by a pro-drug lobby that has the luxury of access to drug treatment?”

So far, so familiar. But what do you make of this?

“I appeal to the heroic partisans of the human rights cause worldwide, to help UNODC promote the right to health of drug addicts: they must be assisted and reintegrated into society,” Mr Costa demands:

“Addiction is a health condition and those affected by it should not be imprisoned… in order to reduce the security threat posed by international mafias.”

Calling for a “shift of focus” in law enforcement from drug users to drug traffickers, Mr Costa says:

“…arresting individuals and seizing drugs for their personal use is like pulling weeds – it needs to be done again the next day. The problem can only be solved by addressing the problem of slums and dereliction in our cities.”

read more from this BBC report on “Give Drug Users A Break”

Give Drug Users A Break is a post from: Recovery Coaching

Housewives Hooked on Cocaine

admin — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 10:39:05 +0000

It’s a depressing scenario, but it’s becoming a frightening reality in many middle-class households as women turn to cocaine to cope with the exhausting daily grind of juggling their professional and family lives.

An alarming report has revealed that the number of women abusing cocaine is almost at the same level as men for the first time, with 750,000 Britons having used the Class A drug in the past year. And one in 15 women under 25 admits to using it. Read more from this Daily Mail article Housewives hooked on cocaine

Housewives Hooked on Cocaine is a post from: Recovery Coaching

Addiction: Is it Physical or Psychological?

admin — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:02:58 +0000

Who Understands Addiction?

Understanding addiction has never been an exact science, especially to those who are in the front line trying to help people in their recovery. It can be argued that addiction is a chronic relapsing illness. Many in the world, who don’t understand this definition as applied to addiction, (and often the drug users themselves), think that perhaps addiction is just a matter of choice and making right decisions.

More Light and Less Heat Needed

Over recent years our understanding of addiction is gradually having some light shone upon it. The revelation is gradually unfolding a bit at a time. It’s as if we weren’t ready for it all in one go. Those who work with recovering addicts are often mystified at the high relapse rate especially when a person has completed, say, a 12 month programme and got a network of support around them. They just figure it’s par for the course. If you want to work with addicts – get used to going to funerals!

What is the Question?

On the other side of this equation are the academics and scientists working on behaviour, and studying brain cells, to understand more about what is going on. Have these people ever met a drug addict outside of a clinical environment? Possibly not. Maybe that’s the wrong question though, perhaps it should be, “Are they making a contribution to our understanding of the problem?” – I think we could answer that in the affirmative.

Whether we look at the problem close up and personal, or through a microscope, we need to constantly improve our understanding of addiction so that we can increase the odds in favour of those in recovery.

After Cold Turkey!

When the body starts developing a tolerance to the drug, and more is required in order to feel normal, the drugs addict has reached a stage of physical dependency. There will also be physical symptoms linked to withdrawal which are too painful (for most addicts) to think about. These may be ‘flu like symptoms, sickness, cramps, headaches and hallucinations.

Withdrawal is uncomfortable and miserable, but it is the result of the body healing itself. It is part of breaking away from the physical addiction. Withdrawal can be achieved gradually in a controlled way at a detox centre, or by reducing the drug (or drug substitute) intake gradually over a period of time to help our bodies break the physical addiction. The other option of withdrawal without the help of substitutes (cold turkey) requires much prayer and will power, but can provide a very effective learning curve for the recovering person.

The Three Month Syndrome!

Even after a detox it is important to maintain sobriety for at least three months to even be able to contemplate dealing with any underlying issues that need to be resolved. When working with recovering addicts, we recognised this ‘three month syndrome’ when residents would hit a wall in the recovery process.
Often after dealing with the initial depression, anger, anxiety and even boredom, the recovering person would derail their recovery. No amount of persuasion would convince that person to stay. We knew that ‘the call’ was too strong. The cravings and the compulsion to return to his old ways defeated common sense.

A Dog Returns to It’s Vomit

Why would someone who had stayed clean for three months want to return to his old ways when the outcome could be (and sometimes was) fatal? Addicts can quit many times and still relapse. There must be something else going on. When I asked this question of a recovered addict, he answered with a question, “Why does a dog return to it’s own vomit? Because it’s a dog! So why does an addict return to addiction? Because he’s an addict! There is much wisdom in this statement.

An addict starts out using drugs because it makes him feel good. Eventually, as dependence kicks in, he needs the drugs to feel normal. But withdrawal takes a relatively short time, four to seven days should see the back of the symptoms. So why is it difficult to stay on course even after 3 months?

Drug Abuse or Drug Dependence?

Current thinking is that there is a difference between ‘drug abuse’ and ‘drug dependence (addiction)’. Drug abuse in when someone , say, gets drunk every week enough to disable him, or uses some hard drugs often enough to knock him out and not have a recollection of what he did. A drug abuser can even get physical withdrawal symptoms if they stop using (abusing). But if the circumstances changed, they lost their job, or moved to another town, or the supplied dried up, the abuser would simply stop abusing and may quit altogether. An addict can’t do this. Dependency means a preoccupation with his drug of choice. A love affair to steal for, and even die for. He gets to the place where the drug is abusing him, yet he still carries on the relationship.

A Created Disorder

David R Hughes, a recovered addict, in his internet article of 1997 argues that addiction is a neurologically based disease. Drug addiction, is not primarily a mental or free will issue that an addict could change if they wanted to. One definition of addiction is “the loss of control over the use of a substance.” The reason addicts have lost control is because they have suffered permanent physical neurological changes based in their brains and nervous systems.

Addiction is a self-contracted neurological disease. It is a ‘created’ disorder. Nonetheless, it is also a physical problem on a neurological level, and it is very real. To effectively “re-wire” his disordered nervous system, the addict must come to rely fiercely and absolutely upon the directions provided from an external support system (a rehab for instance). By mentally changing what he relies upon, his neurological/nervous system undergoes a profound change. That is why rehabilitation over 12 – 24 months can work.

Keep Talking and Re-wire the Brain

It is to understand that the detox does not last for a week, but for probably 3 months while the re-wiring is taking place. Then various models of therapy can prove effective, like the new therapies or a therapeutic community model.

Recent evidence suggests that drug-induced changes in the physical brain over time may be the underlying reason for addictive behavior, and this is consistent with the general idea that addiction is a physical disease. But it is probably better to state that it is a medical disease. Prof Carlton Erikson puts it well in his Addiction Today article “So, if addictions are a medical disease, why do we treat them behaviourally? What is the similarity between behavioural or talk therapies and pharmacotherapies in the way they work? Simple. Behavioural therapies probably change brain chemistry! ”

So all you carers out there, keep up to date, but keep caring. And to you scientists, try to empathise, but keep looking through the microscope. Comments would be welcome.

Addiction: Is it Physical or Psychological? is a post from: Recovery Coaching

The Eleven Forms of Self Defeating Thoughts

admin — Mon, 11 May 2009 14:18:02 +0000

Aaron T Beck identified eleven common forms of common cognitive errors. He suggested that these errors in our thinking are more pronounced when emotions are running high. He encouraged clients to memorise the following types of thoughts so they could identify these tendencies in themselves. We may all do well to take note.

1. All or Nothing Thinking

You see things in black-and white categories. If a situation falls short of perfect, you see it as a total failure. You are either a saint or a sinner. An addict going through recovery may lapse and take a drink, but instead of getting back on track, he thinks that he may as well go for bust because he has blown it.

2. Overgeneralisation

Making sweeping statements such as “I can never control my temper” based on a minor incident, is an example of overgeneralization. A single negative event, such as a relationship break up, or being turned down for a job is seen as a never-ending pattern of being a loser. The favourite words for those who overgeneralise are, ‘always’ and ‘never’.

3. Discounting the Positive

You reject positive experiences by insisting they ‘don’t count.’ If you do a good job, you may tell yourself that it wasn’t that good because anybody could have done it. Discounting the positive takes the joy out of life because you won’t take credit for a job well done, and it makes you feel unfulfilled and unrewarded.

4. Jumping to Conclusions

You jump to conclusions when you have one small part of the picture and you make a judgment about the whole thing. I haven’t received a phone call from that job interview today because they think I am useless and wouldn’t want me to work for them anyway.

5. Mind Reading

Can you read someone else’s mind? If you say things like, “I know that she doesn’t like me because she avoided me yesterday”. Not much evidence to support that premise, that’s why we call it mind reading.

6. Fortune Telling

Fortune telling is when you know the future is not going to turn out well for you by predicting that things will turn out badly. If you are going through a bad time, you may deduce that things will always be this way.

7. Magnification/Minimising

This is when you magnify the importance of a negative event, or lack of evidence for a positive event. You magnify your problems and minimise the importance of your blessings. This is also called the ‘binocular trick.’

8. Emotional Reasoning

Emotional reasoning is when you believe something to be true because it feels like it is true. You assume that your negative emotions reflect the way things really are: ‘I feel that I am not good enough to do my job, I feel hopeless. If I feel hopeless, I must be hopeless.

9. Making ‘Should’ Statements

This is when you tell yourself that you should do (or should have done) something better, when it would be more accurate to say that I would like to have done better, you are making ‘should’statements.

Other guilty offenders are, ‘I must’ ‘ I ought’ and ‘I have to’. ‘Should statements directed against you lead to guilt and frustration.

Should statements that are directed against other people lead to anger and frustration: ‘He shouldn’t be so stubborn and argumentative’

10. Labelling

When you use a label like, “I must be a bad father” because you have made a mistake, and then take on board all that this implies, you are labelling.

Labelling leads to anger, frustration and anxiety and a lack of self esteem. When you apply it to someone else especially in a close relationship like a marriage it can often lead to a break down in communication. This is because you are making a judgment on someone’s character, when more correctly, their thinking or behaviour is at fault.

11. Inappropriate Blaming

Personalization occurs when you hold yourself personally responsible for an event that isn’t entirely under your control. When you use hindsight to determine what you ‘should have done’ even though you could not be expected to have known the best outcome at the time, you are using inappropriate blaming.
You might say, “I should not have gone away on holiday, then I would have been there when my father had the accident”

You could apply it to someone else by saying something like, “My marriage is falling apart because my wife is so unreasonable”

The blame game is not a good place to be.

Most of us are familiar with many of the above examples. When we fall into the trap of distorted thinking, we need to test the thoughts against objective reality. We could ask ourselves, “What is the evidence for this?” There is generally an alternative way of thinking about any situation.

The Eleven Forms of Self Defeating Thoughts is a post from: Recovery Coaching

10 Faces of Denial

admin — Sun, 03 May 2009 07:16:49 +0000

Denial, they say, is “not just a river in Egypt”. Denial is a strange beast. It is on the cycle of change (or, rather, just off it), as ‘pre-contemplation’. That time when you are not thinking about change because you don’t need to. You are a ‘happy user’. Other people are starting to suggest that you have a problem. Then denial raises it’s ugly head and starts to show its various faces.

1. Avoidance.

Avoidance is saying “I don’t think about it. I don’t talk about it.” Whenever the small inner voice starts it’s prompting, it is submerged, drowned under more drink, more sex or with any other distraction.
Avoidance is not going there, saying, “What I don’t know can’t hurt me”.

2. What Problem?

When suggesting that an addict might have a problem, brings out a show of more needles than you would see on a cornered porcupine, you know you’ve pressed a button. The response is a puffed up “What problem? I don’t have a problem.”
He may feel that his righteous indignation has won the day. He has managed to fend off another attack on his character, but the still small voice inside starts to niggle his conscience again.

3. Minimising.

When you cannot convince yourself that you are not in denial, then it’s best to minimise the problem. You may say, “It’s not that bad, it’s such a small thing. It was a problem last month but now I’ve got control of it. If I put my mind to it, I can stop whenever I want to.”

4. Rationalising.

If I can explain the causes of it, I won’t need to sort out the problem. When I get down to the root cause, it will be alright. It’s due to the stress I’m under at work, and that’s putting pressure on the marriage. It’s how my personality is, It’s the way I deal with stress – I can live with it.”

5. Blaming (Projection).

It’s not my fault. If you had been what I have been through, then you would drink. How can I take responsibility for my drinking when it’s not my fault.

6. Comparing.

There are plenty of people with a far more serious problem than me. For example, there’s so and so who’s marriage has just broken up. Compared to him, I don’t have a problem. I don’t need to get help.

7. Manipulating.

If other people want to help me, that’s their business. I’ll just let them do it. If it fails, it’s not my responsibility. I can blame them. They are the one’s who will feel bad. If anybody else wants me to change when I am not ready, my subsequent lapse will be their fault.

8. Feeling Better.

This happens during the first or second week of treatment. Ten days without the symptoms of the problem. Like a revelation it comes. “I’m cured. I don’t need this treatment. I’ve never felt better in my life. All the drugs are behind me.”

9. Compensation

I cannot be acting or behaving the way you say because I always act the opposite.

10. Justification.

I did it because it was the right thing to do at the time. I didn’t think it would lead to anything.
Extended denial can affect a person physically, mentally and spiritually. It can lead to a state of hopelessness.

Hopelessness is itself, another aspect of denial. It denys that we have the ability to change. It means that there is no point in carrying on. It is not even worth anybody trying to help us it would be a waste of their time.

Knowing that you have a problem, does not automatically make bad news into good news. It takes a while for it to sink in. Acceptance does not come easy. It is considered that Denial is, paradoxically, part of the process of recovery. For some, the road to recovery means getting to a place of brokenness, and Denial is often the first step.

10 Faces of Denial is a post from: Recovery Coaching

JFK, Russell Brand and the myth of sex addiction

admin — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 04:13:53 +0000

Are we playing the blame game with sex addiction? This report would suggest so.

The rich, famous and married often seek “treatment” to combat their strong sexual urges. But, argues Jed Mercurio, it’s not a disease, it’s just an excuse. Read more of JFK, Russell Brand and the myth of sex addiction

JFK, Russell Brand and the myth of sex addiction is a post from: Recovery Coaching

Recovery Coaching » Addiction

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs

Related Blogs

Tree of Addictions

A Healthy Self Image & Self Esteem

Denial: The Twilight Zone

Related Blogs

Give Drug Users A Break

Housewives Hooked on Cocaine

Addiction: Is it Physical or Psychological?

The Eleven Forms of Self Defeating Thoughts

10 Faces of Denial

JFK, Russell Brand and the myth of sex addiction