By Vince Alongi

My eight basic recovery tips for my physical health are:

1. Have a plan for your healing your body and work your plan.
2. Decide your heaviest eating time period. Be sure to have healthy foods
on hand for those craving periods.
3. Don’t ever go on a diet. Diets are deprivation. Life is to be lived
and enjoyed. Instead develop your own food program. Your food program
should include the things you love to eat. Choose to eat from a small plate.
Eat half as much as you used to eat.I use a 1/2 cup measure.

4. Remove food temptations from your home. If you are eating right, you will
never be uncomfortable after eating.

5. Plan daily times for exercise. You may need to schedule several
shorter periods rather than one long one. The new recommendation is for
60 minutes per day. I belong to a gym because it gives me motivation
when I see all the other people there. I was not a natural lover of
exercise. I am now because I have an exercise plan and I follow it.
But mainly I exercise because it makes me feel better.

6. Divide your exercise among aerobics(cardiovascular), strength, balance and flexibility.
Rotate among these types of exercises throughout your exercise week. The main
reason that people don’t complete exercise programs is because they are bored–plan
your exercise to be fun. Also learn to monitor your heart rate. Since I am 64 (in 2004), I checked with my doctor first before I joined the gym.
I believe anyone at any age should see what their doctor recommends for them.
Learn to measure your target heart-rate zone. This zone is the number of beats your heart
beats per minute. Learn to measure your heart rate recommended for your age.
7. Develop a list of 20-30 healthy things that you like to eat that are 100-200
calories each. Be sure to include several of these daily and always
have them on hand.

8.Break away from people who aren’t supportive of your choice to be
healthy. Criticism is not support. You need to be around people that
love and support you. From time to time, you may have someone around
you who is draining your energy. They “yes, but” you about everything.
I say about these people that I can’t emotionally afford them. How can
I help anyone if I allow one person to drain me? Our energy is like a
battery–drain the battery, no energy.

Friends in Recovery

ISBN 0-941405-12-5

Amazon link

From the introduction:

“The 12 Steps for Adult Children is a personal guide to understanding the spiritual power of the Twelve Steps. This material is primarily for adults whose childhoods were negatively affected by a less-than-nurturing environment. This environment often resulted when adults responsible for care were influenced by substance abuse, emotional problems, or compulsive behaviors. The Twelve Steps offer a way to grow beyond the harmful effects of a troubled home environment.”

“When used as intended, the steps are a profoundly powerful process for allowing God to heal damaged emotions. The 12 Steps for Adult Children is a spiritual tool that helps us regain balance and order, and leads us to improved health and increased happiness through a renewed relationship with our Higher Power.”

Starting the journey:

“This book provides a practical way to use the Twelve Steps as a recovery tool, and to fully integrate the steps as an ongoing part of our recovery journey. The book helps us to identify and deal with issues that are interfering with our lives. If we approach this work seriously, we will experience recovery that nurtures physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being.”

Working with a recovery partner:

“A recovery partner is similar to a mentor or sponsor. This person can be a role model for learning how to enjoy a better quality of life through the love of a Higher Power and the wisdom of the program.”

Benefits of a recovery partner:

“Many benefits result from working with a recovery partner. Some of them are:

• Partners provide a non-threatening system of mutual accountability. For example, a partner can agree to call the other for support and prayer in abstaining from a harmful habit.
• Partners focus on each other’s specific area of need each time they meet. Openly sharing thoughts and feelings helps to clarify needs in problem areas. This contribules to one’s freedom from the past. The focus is to live honestly in the present with realistic expectations.
• Partners encourage one another to progress from a state of physical, emotional, and spiritual sickness to wholeness of life. It is normal to feel discomfort when unhealthy familiar behaviors are being transformed. Healthy behavior is a result of doing our Higher Power’s will.
• Partners aid one another by being sensitive to personal and relationship needs. When partners openly share their faults with one another, honesty, trust, and healing occur. It is not appropriate to focus on a particular behavior and lose the value of the moment or the point of what is shared.”

When I got up and walked outside, everything was different—trees, cars, the street—I saw everything with new eyes. It took me much searching to find out what had happened to me. In a book by William James entitled The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902), I found that I had had a radical conversion.

Did I answer a calling? I don’t know what happened to me except I knew that God had given me that compassion and love that I felt that day. I know that someone with an experience is never at the mercy of someone with an argument.

From that day until today, I have tried to accept the guidance that God gives me and it has been the most amazing journey. I don’t believe that God does more for me now than He did before that day. The difference is that I now can see the daily miracles. “Once I was blind and now I see.”

Friends in Recovery

ISBN 0941405443

Amazon link

Addiction & Recovery for Dummies

Brian Shaw, Paul Ritvo, and Jane Irvine

ISBN 0764576259

Amazon link

Alcoholics Anonymous: Big Book 4th Edition

AA Services

ISBN 1893007170

Amazon link

The Bipolar Disorder Survival Guide

David Miklowitz

ISBN 1572305258

Amazon link

Codependent’s Guide to the Twelve Steps

Melody Beattie

ISBN 0671762273

Amazon link

Conscious Contact Volume 1: Where Spirituality And Recovery Meet

Gail M. DeWitt

ISBN 1598244949

Amazon link

Don’t Call It Love: Recovery From Sexual Addiction

Patrick Barnes

ISBN 0553351389

Amazon link

Mindful Recovery: A Spiritual Path to Healing from Addiction

Thomas Bien and Beverly Bein

ISBN 0471442615

Amazon link

Recovery from Cancer: The Remarkable Story of One Woman’s Struggle With Cancer and What She Did to Beat the Odds

Elaine Nussbaum

ISBN 0757001378

Amazon link

Recovery in Mental Illness: Broadening Our Understanding of Wellness

Ruth Ralph and Patrick Corrigan

ISBN 159147163X

Amazon link

Recovery of Your Inner Child: The Highly Acclaimed Method for Liberating Your Inner Self

Lucia Capacchione

ISBN 0-67170-1355

Amazon link

Recovery: A Guide for Adult Children of Alcoholics

Herbert Gravitz and Julie Bowden

ISBN 0671645285

Amazon link

Self-Esteem Tools for Recovery

Lindsey Hall and Leigh Cohn

ISBN 0936077085

Amazon link

The Child Abuse Recovery Workbook: Your Life is what Your Parents Made It – How to Make it Yours

Robert Hoc

ISBN 1595940545

Amazon link

The Dual Disorders Recovery Book

Anonymous

ISBN 0894868497

Amazon link

The Family Recovery Guide: A Map for Healthy Growth

Stephanie Brown, Virginia Lewis, and Andrew Liotta

ISBN 1572242183

Amazon link

The Grief Recovery Handbook : The Action Program for Moving Beyond Death Divorce, and Other Losses

John James and Russell Friedman

ISBN 0060952733

Amazon link

The Soul of Recovery: Uncovering the Spiritual Dimension in the Treatment of Addictions

Christopher Ringwald

ISBN 0195147685

Amazon link

The Twelve Steps And Dual Disorders: A Framework Of Recovery For Those Of Us With Addiction & An Emotional Or Psychiatric Illness

Pat Samples and Tim Hamilton

ISBN 1568380186

Amazon link

Trauma Recovery and Empowerment: A Clinician’s Guide for Working with Women in Groups

Maxine Harris

ISBN 0684843234

Amazon link

Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

AA Services

ISBN

Amazon link

Being the eldest in my family of origin meant that I was the first to test the arrangement and to try to move into the boss role. Needless to say, much conflict with my parents occurred. A general “who do you think you are” was the assessment of my leadership ability. Because my parents never resolved the power between themselves, I was elected “it”.

This was not a family with peace as the main objective of family life. During my early recovery, I studied much about codependency. I was fortunate to find the books by Melodie Beatty which helped to give up the old roles in power plays. In learning what later became the Changemaker roles, I found that I have a high amount of logic energy so problem-solving is easy for me.

I also learned during this period that I had to step back emotionally from my parents and any relationships that I was playing “top-dog” in. Eventually my parents joined me in learning better ways to relate. My five years living in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba during my early recovery made it easier for me to try new ways of relating.

Today, after 28 years of continual recovery from alcoholism, I occasionally find myself in a codependent relationship. How do I know it is codependent? When I am the main, and sometimes only giver, then the relationship is the old power play.

If the relationhip between another adult and me is about what I can do for the other, then I can’t emotionally afford that person. If the giving is a one-way street, then I am hooked again. If the other person is too “busy”, “weak”, “sick” to ever find ways to please me, then I have jumped on my white horse again.

The problem with this balance of power is that the “giver” feels used and abused and unappreciated. Bring me flowers or clean my house or invite me out to lunch or take me for a ride to the ocean–all things that I enjoy– to show me that you appreciate me. This balance of power “game” is owned by the “taker” or “slave”. And, if and when, the “giver” gives up the relationship, the “taker” turns to another sucker on their wide list of “givers”.

I can see it happening all around me. In any game of power, the winner is the one who is most getting everything s/he wants. My wonderful mother who is waiting for me in Heaven used to call me long-distance to tell me what she had done and ask if I thought that this was co-dependent behavior.  I used to laugh and tell her that she wouldn’t have called to ask if she didn’t already know the answer.

I am married to another “giver”. Needless to say, it isn’t always quiet around here as we continue to learn how to give and get equally. We have no “boss” as we take turns being the “boss” and the “slave”. It isn’t always easy to give up power to get peace. Peace should never be a substitute for self-esteem. Keeping your mouth shut all the time means that you are stuffing your feelings.

But I am finally learning that being happy is more important than being “right”.

(1)  Twelve Step Cafe This site has many resources for the recovering person and includes a page of twelve step web rings. A web ring is a series of web sites with a common theme.

(2) The Recovery Resources organization has resources that include personal stories, AA-related links, newsgroups about recovery and support, adolescent substance abuse and online AA meetings.

(3) Offering help with the first step in recovery which is knowing that you have a problem with alcohol or some other addiction is alcoholism treatment. This site offers good direction for a family member who may be unaware of how to approach addicted family members.It also has good tips on how to have an intervention which should always include and experienced outside member. Site also has recommended books and workbooks.

(4) The Recovery Zone has links to articles for current information about treatment topics. It has a meeting finder that includes national resource directory of links to national self-help organizations. The forums here have a place to reach our for help as well as an opportunity to give help.All kind of discussion groups are represented such as gambling addiction, 12 step discussions, sex addiction and drug addiction.

(5) The directory at Sober Recovery has hundreds of resources for alcohol and addiction facilities including the prescription pill detox, rapid opiate detox clinics using Suboxone and Subutex, medically-managed detox and help for heroin, cocaine, alcohol and crystal meth.The centers range from the medical model, faith-based, 12 step alternatives and more.

(6) Grant Me the Serenity is a beautiful site with daily meditations, affirmations in recovery, books and other gifts of serenity which includes a directory to recovery groups and self-help and mental health resources. It also includes the large group of forums for health/fitness, newcomers, women in recovery, men in recovery, Christians in recovery, motivation and inspiration, anxiety disorders, eating disorders and abuse issues.

Technorati Tags : addiction, recovery, resources, treatment

“You see, I believe we can get past this thing called alcoholism and addiction. We can get past it by taking advantage of every opportunity for abstaining that we encounter. For most people that includes a period of time in a 12 Step Program. If it’s not AA right off the bat, almost ALL Treatment Centers refer clients to the 12 step programs anyway. So if you haven’t done it already, go ahead, bite the bullet and put a little time into AA.”

“One thing you’ll learn there is what Not to do if you really want to stop drinking. You will have many, many opportunities to study people as they stumble through the obstacles they place before themselves on the way to sober living. There are tricks to not falling prey to self-destruction while learning to not drink, and it’s less painful to learn those lessons second hand. I learned a lot of them there.”

“The bottom line for everyone is that if you really want to get sober, you will get sober. It doesn’t matter what your gig is, it could be the fishing cure, church, a hot new babe, 12 steps, or plain hard assed self-preservation. When the nickel drops and you know what you need to do to get the job done,,,, go ahead and do it. And do it like you never did anything before, because getting sober takes all the passion you’ll ever have. Staying sober, it gets a lot easier after the first 10 or 15 years.”

Addiction is not difficult to understand. Accepting we or a loved one is an addict is difficult. The only reason that people use a substance or a position (power) or food is to change their feelings.

Often the addict has a large reserve of hurt moments or experiences which s/he uses to prove why her/his life is so tragic.

I know this because during my addiction to alcohol I had saved up every hurt feeling or experience and I remember consciously choosing which feelings to use where. This all gets tremendously labor-intensive if the same people are seen very often as new abuses have to be “used”. So the ever resourceful addict creates sad, bad, horrible experiences that never happened. I think this behavior could safely be called “crazy”.

This behavior is what mental health professionals use to “prove” the mental illness. The problem is no one has been able to prove the medical model of the disease theory. So, as far as I am concerned, the disease theory is a theory.

Instead, I believe, that when we are under the control of an addiction, we make increasingly bad and hurtful choices. Remember, the addict is living in his/her head in a world of their own creation. Pile those crazy choices on top of the fantasy in one’s head and the addict is miserable. The misery is self-inflicted and he/she is the only one who can choose to leave that miserable state.

I believe mental health to be fluid and we are each in and out of it several times a day. I know I am healthy when I know I am crazy because I didn’t used to know the difference. Today, I have the choice to abandon my crazy behavior.

Addiction is very prevelant in our world. Changemaker defines addiction as any behavior that is chosen to enable a person to live a fantasy. Addicts don’t live in reality. They live in a mental world of their own creation. What an addict uses to control his/her feelings and thoughts is not important. Rather it be alcohol, food, religion, other drugs, power, money, etc., the addict is using the addiction for only one reason–to change how they feel. It is said that there are a million excuses for using the addiction but only one reason. And that reason is to change how he/she feels. When someone is living in his/her head, reality rears its ugly head in feelings. So those feelings have to go away—this is what the addiction provides. It takes the feelings away.

We believe that many of us use something from time to time to change how we feel. The addict is the person who uses the addiction on a regular basis to avoid the reality of life around them. For example, alcoholics may be daily drinkers (3-4 days weekly) or weekend alcoholics (mainly drink on the weekends), or periodic alcoholics (drink for 2-3 days in a row but do the drinking at different periods of time–also may go long periods of time (even years)–without alcohol.).

Substance addicts are easy to spot. But many more people are addicted to power (codependency), money, material possessions (living in homes/having automobiles they can barely afford), work (they will say that they have to work because they need the money–often married to poor money managers), sex, etc.

Many people are addicted to feeling bad (the victim role). Remember how we feel is our choice. It is very hard for the martyr to give up that “poor me” behavior but until both people in a relationship are free to give and receive without guilt trips, the relationship is not a positive experience for either.

The disease model of addiction has helped add to the confusion about addiction. Addicts live in a self-induced delusion. The delusion is that the world revolves around them. In reality, the world doesn’t revolve around any individual.

As John Powell has written, we each need a Copernican moment when we realize the world doesn’t revolve around us. Remember Copernius went against all other thinkers to say that the Sun didn’t revolve around Earth, but that Earth revolved around the Sun.

In other words, some of the main issues in addiction treatment are maturity issues. The age at which a person started drinking, using, eating, buying, being overpowering to others, using sex, etc. is the emotional age he/she still is. If he/she started at age 15, which is pretty normal, then he/she is age 14 emotionally.

So recovery is generally about growing up. Another main issue of why people are addictive is to continue to live life in their head or in their imagination. No one knows reality–we only have a perception of reality. But living in our head is not being free and open to life.

As the hero in 10 Million Ways to Die says, “I never knew that I lived in a world that I hadn’t created.” That is why the addict experiences such anger at having to give up the addiction. It seems to the addict that his/her use can only be pertaining to him/her. In reality, the addiction is affecting everyone in the addict’s life.

Read more here.

“You see, I believe we can get past this thing called alcoholism and addiction. We can get past it by taking advantage of every opportunity for abstaining that we encounter. For most people that includes a period of time in a 12 Step Program. If it’s not AA right off the bat, almost ALL Treatment Centers refer clients to the 12 step programs anyway. So if you haven’t done it already, go ahead, bite the bullet and put a little time into AA.”

“One thing you’ll learn there is what Not to do if you really want to stop drinking. You will have many, many opportunities to study people as they stumble through the obstacles they place before themselves on the way to sober living. There are tricks to not falling prey to self-destruction while learning to not drink, and it’s less painful to learn those lessons second hand. I learned a lot of them there.”

“The bottom line for everyone is that if you really want to get sober, you will get sober. It doesn’t matter what your gig is, it could be the fishing cure, church, a hot new babe, 12 steps, or plain hard assed self-preservation. When the nickel drops and you know what you need to do to get the job done,,,, go ahead and do it. And do it like you never did anything before, because getting sober takes all the passion you’ll ever have. Staying sober, it gets a lot easier after the first 10 or 15 years.”

Games People Play was the title of his first book and was a best-seller in the 1960’s. After 40 years and 5,000,000 copies, Games is still relevant today. Eric Berne influenced other authors; Thomas Harris, who also wrote about TA with his book, I’m OK-You’re OK, and Muriel James’s book, Born to Win. Berne founded The International Transactional Analysis Association (ITAA) which is still active and has several of the main ideas at their site.

The main ideas from TA are ego states (parent, child and adult), strokes, transactions, life script, contracts and games people play. One of the newer ideas from the TA group is about the blame game (i.e. why do blame—simply choose steps needed to move forward).

Two of the main concepts for the TA philosophy are we are each worthy of being accepted and people can change. Of the three ego states—parent, child and adult—when I studied TA, I found that I could only identify 2 ego states. I had a very judgmental parent (these are thoughts and ideas I had adapted from my parents) and child (mine was the willful me-only child state. When I first use this information to check myself, I found that I had no adult (the ego state used to live in the here-and-now with responses dependent on new responses). No wonder that I lived in yesterday or tomorrow. I had no inner guide to deal with today.