Leslie Glass's Blog, page 314

Why Quitting Is Only The First Step To Lasting Change

If you’ve recovered through a 12-step fellowship, you’ll be familiar with the philosophy that alcohol is a symptom of the disease of alcohol use disorder (formerly referred to as alcoholism); once you get sober and remove the alcohol, you’re left with the “isms.” Namely, the reasons why we drank or used drugs. Some people believe that if you don’t deal with the crux of your disease – or the “ism” – then you will return to use.

ISMs Bring Shame

As an acronym, “ism” stands for: “I, self, me,” or “I sponsor myself,” or “Internal Spiritual Malady.” The implication being that the recovering person is self-centered, self-absorbed, and maladjusted. Within this philosophy, this catch-all phrase describes the experiences everyone encounters in this life: anxiety, depression, fear, loneliness, feeling inadequate in some way – but without the anesthesia of drugs and alcohol to quell the pain. It also describes certain childish behavior like:

Blaming others
An inability to deal with conflict
Having poor boundaries
A tendency to treat other substances, or people, the same way as drugs and alcohol.

For example, some people believe that developing a problem with gambling, or getting involved in dysfunctional relationships, is an “ism.”

Recovery Brings Healing

To some extent, I agree that we need to get to the heart of why we were harming ourselves in way that led to substance use disorder. There was nothing healthy about drowning myself in four bottles of wine a day. The core of why I used alcohol and drugs in that way was that I had:

(Undiagnosed) Complex PTSD
Depression
Anxiety, and
Few coping skills for life.

However, I don’t believe these are “isms,” a spiritual malady, or even flaws of my character. Many of us in recovery have been deeply traumatized by something preceding our addiction or during it. Many of us lacked nurture and emotional support in our childhood. Almost all of us have an inability to cope with stress, and while we were using we didn’t fully develop emotionally. So, it’s only natural that when we recover, we discover more about ourselves that we need to nurture.

Recovery has been about recovering my capacity to self-regulate and manage stress. I’ve also learned a host of other lessons around having healthy relationships, setting and maintaining boundaries, learning how to live a healthy life, and how to parent myself. If I focused on the problems that led to these lessons:

Having unhealthy relationships
Forming insecure attachments
Seeking to escape through romantic relationships
Overeating
Under-eating
Exercising
Being depressed

…then I’d have a mindset that I’m broken and defective. I simply don’t see it that way.

Recovery Teaches Life Skills

The way I see recovery is that I needed to stop my harmful behavior, and I needed to grow up. I had to learn how to cope with life as a sober person. I needed to develop enough skills and purpose in life to make sure that my life was bigger than the desire to use drugs and alcohol.

When we are acting out with people, or even with food, our body and minds are telling us something is missing. I dealt with incredible loneliness by developing strong social supports and deepening a spiritual practice. My hunger was a message for irregularities in my body that I needed to see a doctor for, and also to feed my mind and spirit.

It’s taken me over six and a half years to get to a place where I see recovery as a process of rebuilding and relearning. No longer do I punish myself for being defective. Instead, I learned to sit with myself quietly and ask what I really need. That isn’t uncovering “isms.” It’s simply self-compassion and growth.

The post Why Quitting Is Only The First Step To Lasting Change appeared first on Reach Out Recovery.

Blessed Are The Peacemakers?

My family insists on bringing all cases to me, “Judge Grace,” because I’ve been the family peacemaker for years. This time, they wanted my ruling on whether my 35 year-old brother Ricky should move back home. Here’s what I decided.

I Set A Bad Precedent

For years, I settled all family arguments. Smaller cases went like this: My dad had the day off, but he didn’t wash the dishes. My mom was furious. She punished him with silence and called me to vent. I handled that case by calling my Dad to smooth things over. He then complained about her. I agreed because she treats me the same way. I cheered Dad up by reminding him of what he does well. Then I made excuses for Mom, “She’s just on edge because of that thing at work.” When we hung up, he felt better. I felt like a traitor. Something had to change.

My Family Still Wants To Me To Be The Peacemaker

In recovery, I learned this behavior of putting me in the middle was actually a form of triangulation. Here’s another example. My Dad called me this weekend to tell me my Mom wants Ricky to move in with them. My Dad gave me a list of why it was a bad idea. I agreed. Silently. During the conversation, I paid close attention to how I was feeling. I asked myself, “Was his sharing making me feel uncomfortable?” When it was my turn to speak, I simply said, “She has a sickness.” My Mom suffers from co-dependency. She knows I feel this way about her relationship with Ricky.

My Mom called on Tuesday to tell me Ricky’s news. Again, I listened as long as I was able to. When she paused for me to talk, I said nothing. She didn’t ask for my opinion, so I didn’t give it.  In the past, their wanting my opinion made me feel important, so I kept playing a part in the dysfunction. Now I see my opinion isn’t important to them. None of them asked for it! They just want someone to take their side. I don’t have a side. Nothing in this scenario is any of my business. Ricky isn’t wanting to move in with me and I don’t live there.

Triangulation And Addiction

Triangulation is common in families with addiction. Murray Bowen, an pioneer in American family therapy theorized,

In a dysfunctional family in which there is alcoholism present, the non-drinking parent will go to a child and express dissatisfaction with the drinking parent. This includes the child in the discussion of how to solve the problem of the afflicted parent. Sometimes the child can engage in the relationship with the parent, filling the role of the third party, and thereby being “triangulated” into the relationship. Or, the child may then go to the alcoholic parent, relaying what they were told. In instances when this occurs, the child may be forced into a role of a “surrogate spouse” The reason that this occurs is that both parties are dysfunctional. In a triangular family relationship, the two who have aligned risk forming an enmeshed relationship.

I Set Some Hard Boundaries

Over the last few years in recovery, I’ve changed my definition of peacemaker. My main goal is to find peace for ME. Once I began to see how settling their arguments hurt me, I had to be brave and tell them all “No.” I started with my Mom because I was the least afraid of her. The first time I told her I didn’t want to hear anything bad about my Dad, she quickly obliged. Unfortunately, a few days later, she tested my boundary. I reminded her I would no longer listen to negative comments. Telling her “No” gave me the courage to next tell Ricky “No.” After I stood up to Ricky, then I told my Dad. It’s still hard to say “No,” but it’s getting easier.

For a year after that, I quit listening to their stories. I learned to space phone calls out over several days. I called only when I had important news. I quit asking how Ricky or my Dad was. Taking myself out of their arguments has been one of the healthiest things I’ve done.

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Vaping Cannabis Produces Stronger Effects Than Smoking Cannabis For Infrequent Users

From Science Daily:

In a small study of infrequent cannabis users, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers have shown that, compared with smoking cannabis, vaping it increased the rate of short-term anxiety, paranoia, memory loss and distraction when doses were the same.

The findings of the new study, described in the Nov. 30 edition of JAMA Network Open, highlight the importance of dose considerations with the perception that vaping is a safer alternative to smoking cannabis, the researchers say. And they ask regulators of medical and recreational cannabis dispensaries to take note.

Vaping devices heat cannabis to a temperature in which the mind-altering compounds in the plant are released as a vapor that is inhaled. Vaping is thought to be safer for cannabis and tobacco use because it doesn’t produce many of the harmful components of burning material such as tar and other cancer-causing agents.

But, the researchers say, their study suggests that at least for first-timers or others who don’t use cannabis regularly, vaping delivers greater amounts of THC, the primary intoxicant in cannabis, which increases the likelihood of adverse reactions.

“In light of increased legalization of cannabis, we designed our study to be more representative of the general population’s exposure to cannabis, namely someone who has never smoked it and wants to try it for medical or recreational purposes, or someone who does not use it regularly enough to understand or predict its effects,” says Ryan Vandrey, Ph.D., associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “What our study suggests is that some people who use cannabis infrequently need to be careful about how much cannabis they use with a vaporizer, and they should not drive, even within several hours after use. It could be dangerous for themselves and others, and on top of that, they may experience negative effects such as anxiety, nausea, vomiting and even hallucinations,” he adds.

For their study, the researchers chose 17 volunteer participants (nine men and eight women, average age 27 years), who hadn’t used cannabis in the past 30 days, which was verified by a drug screen, and together on average hadn’t used in over a year.

In a controlled setting at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center’s behavioral pharmacology research unit, each participant either smoked or vaped cannabis containing 0, 10 or 25 milligrams of ?9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the active component in cannabis that gives people the high, in single visits once a week over six weeks. The researchers say that 25 milligrams of THC is a relatively low dose, and much less than is typically found in pre-rolled cannabis “joints” sold in dispensaries where cannabis is legal. The participants either smoked preloaded pipes or inhaled vapor from a vaporizer. Neither the participants nor the researchers knew the doses of THC that were delivered in a given experimental test session.

During each of the six sessions, the research team observed and assessed drug effects in the test subjects, including for adverse reactions. They also measured vital signs such as heart rate and blood pressure and collected blood samples just after smoking, every 30 minutes for two hours and then every hour for eight hours.

Each participant also completed the Drug Effect Questionnaire — rating self-reported drug effects out of a score of 100 — shortly after smoking and each hour for up to eight hours later. The survey assessed overall drug effect; feeling sick, anxious, hungry, sleepy and restless; and experiencing heart racing, dry mouth, dry eyes, memory impairment and coughing.

Results showed that a few minutes after smoking, those who vaped the 25-milligram THC dosage reported an average of 77.5 on the overall strength of the drug’s effect, meaning how high they felt compared with the average score of 66.4 reported by those who smoked the same dose. Participants who vaped 25 milligrams of THC reported about a 7 percent higher score on average for anxiety and paranoia, compared with people who smoked the same amount of the compound. Those who vaped any dose of THC also reported higher levels of dry mouth and dry eyes than those who smoked it. For example, when vaping 25 milligrams of THC, the participants rated dry mouth at 67.1 on average compared with 42.6 for those smoking it.

Researchers say the participants also completed three computerized tasks designed to measure attention span, memory, physical reaction time and motor movement. One task required the participant to replicate the shape of patterns, another required them to add up strings of single-digit numbers and the third required them to follow a dot across the screen with the cursor while also tracking a dot that pops up in the periphery.

The tests are meant to represent skills needed for proper workplace performance, operating a car or other daily activities. Reaction times on average were slower by more than 120 milliseconds with both active test doses of THC, using either smoking or vaping, when compared with reaction time after smoking or vaping cannabis without any THC.

Next, the researchers compared the effects of vaping compared with smoking on participants taking the computerized Divided Attention Task, which required participants to track a square on the computer screen while also monitoring numbers in each corner of the screen. The amount of time participants accurately tracked the square on the computer in the Divided Attention Task dropped by an average of 170 percent after smoking 25 milligrams of THC compared with the cannabis without THC.

The amount of time they accurately tracked fell an average of 350 percent when vaping 10 milligrams of THC and fell 500 percent when vaping 25 milligrams of THC, compared with those smoking either dose.

“Our participants had substantially higher impairment on the tasks when vaping versus smoking the same dose, which in the real world translates to more functional impairment when driving or performing everyday tasks,” says postdoctoral fellow Tory Spindle, Ph.D., a researcher in the behavioral pharmacology research unit at Johns Hopkins Bayview.

Other results showed that blood levels of THC were at their highest immediately after smoking or vaping cannabis. At 10 milligrams of THC, blood levels of THC reached an average of 7.5 nanograms per milliliter in vapers, compared with 3.8 nanograms per milliliter in smokers 10 minutes after they inhaled the drug. At 25 milligrams of THC, blood levels reached an average of 14.4 nanograms per milliliter when vaped compared with 10.2 nanograms per milliliter when smoked.

“There’s a definite differences in the amount of drug making it into the blood when using a vaporizer versus smoking the drug, so considerations need to be made when dosing to ensure people are using cannabis safely,” says Spindle.

The researchers note that they could only detect THC in the blood samples up to four hours after using, even though the participants reported the drug’s effects lasted five or six hours. The researchers say this suggests that blood testing isn’t an accurate way to tell if someone is high or perhaps driving under the influence.

Two participants vomited after vaping 25 milligrams of THC, and another experienced hallucinations. One person vomited after smoking 25 milligrams of THC.

Vandrey cautions that the study involved only a small number of younger adults and lasted only six weeks. “We still don’t have a full look at the long-term effects of vaping, such as whether there is a risk for chronic bronchitis, and more work needs to be done on that front,” he says. It is important to note that these effects were observed in individuals who don’t use cannabis very often, and may not extend to people who use cannabis routinely; they may have developed tolerance to these effects and also may be better able to regulate their dose.

In recent years, Canada and several U.S. states including Washington, California, Colorado and Massachusetts have legalized cannabis for recreational use. Thirty-two states have made cannabis available with a doctor’s prescription, including Maryland, where the research was performed.

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Letting Go Of An Ungrateful Son

Letting go of someone you love, but who uses you, is the hardest thing to do. My friend, Jackie, asked me for some advice last week. Her 29 year old son, Brent, was angry because she didn’t pay his bills or seem to care about him at all. He told her he never felt loved by her. Jackie is confused and hurt and was now considering giving Brent, who couldn’t keep a job or girlfriend, money to ease his pain.

An Ungrateful Child Happened To Me

I have been in Jackie’s shoes. I knew she wanted me to tell her, “Spend money on him, and he will suddenly wake up and realize how great he has it and stop being a self-centered adult.” Instead I said, “Let him go.” Her eyes filled with tears. I knew it was not the answer she had wanted and yet it was the answer she probably needed.

If I have learned anything over these past 6 years of being a single widowed mother of five children, it is that the quicker I let go and let them experience the consequences of their choices, the quicker they are to take charge and improve their lives.

Letting Go Is Being Brave

My mother’s heart has betrayed me more than once. I didn’t think a group or therapy could help me. I was wrong. I’ve used both to  guide my actions. The help of Al-Anon, my friends, my sponsor, and my therapist I have seen a better way to live my life and let my children live theirs. Yes, it is counter intuitive to let adult children struggle when they beg for help him “just this once.” Which is never just once.

Learning To Swim Before It’s Too Late

I told Jackie a story that always stops me from enabling my adult children. I picture my child struggling to swim in a calm river. He flounders and begs me again and again to give him an inner tube, or a boat, or a yacht. He feels he shouldn’t have to work this hard. I may be tempted to give him everything he wants and bask in the temporary glow of his relieved smile. While my child may be safe right now, the real danger for him is downstream with its boulders, rapids, and waterfall. He needs to get stronger before the real problems arrive.  My helping would only harm him.

The “What If”

My friend, Jackie, wasn’t satisfied with this story. “What if Brent dies because I didn’t help him? What if he kills himself?” I had the exact same fears and feelings. I told her what my therapist had told me. “Have the funeral.” If Brent’s death or suicide was the absolute worst outcome of Jackie’s not enabling him, then she would need to face that fear. I told her to picture the casket, the flowers, the music, all the people crying. Give each detail her full attention. Feel what it might feel like to lose her son this way.

This exercise helped me a great deal when I faced my greatest fear of not enabling my children.

No Guarantees

There are no guarantees whatever you choose to do. Not helping often yields better results in a far shorter time. When I think of the years I poured money, time, and excuses into my children with no real change, I’m sad. The real changes came when I stopped enabling and let them fall into their messes.  It sounds easy, but my gut always ached. My knees shook, and my heart felt felt torn in two. The only certainty was pain.

The Hardest Decisions Can Be The Best Ones

My heart goes out to Jackie. I know my hardest decisions were the best ones I could make. I know I wouldn’t have been able to let my children go without a support group encouraging me, taking my calls, texting me to stay strong, and patiently loving me as I formerly gave into the temptation to “fix the problem just this once.” The crises will keep coming, but not enabling will get easier. Part of me will always yearn to dive in and save my child, just one more time, but today I resist the drama machine and everyone benefits.

I hope Jackie will find the courage and support to resist, not only for herself, but also for her son. Recovery and treatment are for everyone, not just the person who is using. Find family therapy and support groups near you at Recovery Guidance.

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10 Signs Of An Abusive Relationship

What are the signs of an abusive relationship, and what steps should a victim take?  If you or someone you love is suffering from behavior described below, be aware that the situation needs attention.

This may have happened to you. Your partner apologizes and says the hurtful behavior won’t happen again, but you fear it will. At times you wonder whether you’re imagining the abuse, yet the emotional or physical pain you feel is real. If this sounds familiar, you might be experiencing domestic violence.

Can You Recognize Domestic Violence?

Domestic violence — also called intimate partner violence — occurs between people in an intimate relationship. Domestic violence can take many forms, including emotional, sexual and physical abuse and threats of abuse. Men are sometimes abused by partners, but domestic violence is most often directed toward women. Domestic violence can happen in heterosexual or same-sex relationships.

How Can You Tell

It might not be easy to identify domestic violence at first. While some relationships are clearly abusive from the outset, abuse often starts subtly and gets worse over time. You might be experiencing domestic violence if you’re in a relationship with someone who:

Calls you names, insults you or puts you down
Prevents or discourages you from going to work or school
Prevents or discourages you from seeing family members or friends
Tries to control how you spend money, where you go, what medicines you take or what you wear
Acts jealous or possessive or constantly accuses you of being unfaithful
Gets angry when drinking alcohol or using drugs
Threatens you with violence or a weapon
Hits, kicks, shoves, slaps, chokes or otherwise hurts you, your children or your pets
Forces you to have sex or engage in sexual acts against your will
Blames you for his or her violent behavior or tells you that you deserve it

If you’re lesbian, bisexual or transgender, you might also be experiencing domestic violence if you’re in a relationship with someone who:

Threatens to tell friends, family, colleagues or community members your sexual orientation or gender identity
Tells you that authorities won’t help a lesbian, bisexual or transgender person
Tells you that leaving the relationship means you’re admitting that lesbian, bisexual or transgender relationships are deviant
Says women can’t be violent
Justifies abuse by telling you that you’re not “really” lesbian, bisexual or transgender

Pregnancy, Children And Domestic Violence

Sometimes domestic violence begins — or increases — during pregnancy, putting your health and the baby’s health at risk. The danger continues after the baby is born. Even if your child isn’t abused, simply witnessing domestic violence can be harmful. Children who grow up in abusive homes are more likely to be abused and have behavioral problems than are other children. As adults, they’re more likely to become abusers or think abuse is a normal part of relationships. You might worry that seeking help will further endanger you and your child or that it might break up your family, but it’s the best way to protect your child — and yourself.

Break The Cycle

If you’re in an abusive situation, you might recognize this pattern:

Your abuser threatens violence.
The abuser strikes.
Your abuser apologizes, promises to change and offers gifts.
The cycle repeats itself.

The longer you stay in an abusive relationship, the greater the physical and emotional toll. For immediate help, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline: 800-799-SAFE (800-799-7233).

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Here’s How Feeling Grateful Can Improve Your Life

From Health.com:

There are those moments when sunlight pierces the clouds as if in a painting, your partner unexpectedly cleans the whole house on a whim, or your computer miraculously unfreezes after what you feared was a disastrous death spiral—and a warm feeling of gratitude pours over you. If you didn’t have next-door neighbors, you’d toss open the shutters and start singing like Maria on an Austrian hilltop.

Then there are most days. You know, the ones when you are laser-focused on prepping for your big work meeting or your endless to-do list or an upcoming holiday gathering, and you simply don’t think to pause and appreciate all the wonderful things and people that surround you. You’re in no mood to sing. In fact, you kind of have a headache. Thankfulness has pretty much disappeared from your daily routine, and that’s unfortunate. Because practicing gratitude isn’t just about manners—it’s an important and effective form of self-care.

“Gratitude is a powerful way to boost well-being,” says Amie Gordon, PhD, a research scientist at the University of California, San Francisco. A growing body of research links regular doses of gratitude to better sleep, greater happiness, and possibly even lower blood pressure. “And the times when it feels hardest to practice gratitude? That may be when you get the most out of it,” she says.

Robert Emmons, PhD, a leading expert on the science of gratitude, defines it as an awareness and appreciation for the goodness in our lives. It happens when we recognize the source of good as outside ourselves—say, Aunt Jean, who made you the cozy socks, or Mother Nature, who provided the dazzling night sky. Because it is “other-focused,” gratitude can also act as “emotional spackle” in relationships. When you acknowledge your spouse for that emergency dry-cleaning run, your exchange may bring you closer.

We’ll show you how to incorporate this emotion into your everyday life a bit more.

How to Overcome Instinct

If your glass often seems half empty (and, er, chipped), cut yourself a break. Some experts say that humans evolved to be on high alert for bad things. Our caveman predecessors who scanned the horizon for the sabertooth instead of stopping to smell the wildflowers had the right idea: They survived to reproduce. Today the threats are different (“Help! Why is the dishwasher making that weird sound?!”), but looking out for potential problems may still be our default, forcing life’s blessings to fade into the background.

Gratitude is also tricky because most of us have a natural tendency to adapt swiftly to changing circumstances. This works to our benefit when terrible things happen. For example, you might think the world has ended when you file for divorce, but a year or two later, most people rate themselves at their pre-split level of happiness. (Scientists call this hedonic adaptation.) Alas, we get used to positive changes quickly, too—and that means we often take them for granted. “When I moved into my new house, I felt so grateful to live there! I thought the hardwood floors were gorgeous and the windows let in so much light,” recalls Gordon. “But within months, I  was complaining the floors squeaked and the windows were cold in the winter.” And our modern world presents plenty of other obstacles. “Gratitude requires pausing and soaking in the things around you in a mindful way,” says Christine Carter, PhD, author of The Sweet Spot: How to Accomplish More by Doing Less. “But constant busyness has become our culture’s default mode. We don’t make time for the stillness gratitude requires.”

But here’s some insight to be thankful for: Understanding these obstacles is the first step to finding workarounds to make a  gratitude practice stick. You don’t need to carve out special time. (Hey, it’s hard enough to get to the gym and take your vitamins.) According to Emmons, the best way to practice gratitude is to integrate it into your everyday. In time, it will become a habit.

“Think of yourself as a curator of your own moments of joy,” says writer A.J. Jacobs, whose book on gratitude, Thanks a Thousand: A Gratitude Journey, is out this month. “Your goal is to collect the good stuff.”

 

Appreciate Your Blessings

Ready to feel grateful? Experts share surprisingly simple tactics to get you saying thanks—and meaning it—today.

Acknowledge your “invisible” helpers.

While writing his book, Jacobs traveled the world to thank everyone involved in the creation of his morning cup of coffee—the lid designer, the bean growers. “It can take hundreds of people for one thing to happen in our lives. You totally take them for granted,” he says. Practice a less ambitious version close to home. “If you are picking up your turkey at the farmers’ market, take 10 seconds to look the farmer in the eye and tell her how much you’ve enjoyed her turkeys over the years. It will make her day, and it will make you feel happier. That’s a pretty good deal for your 10 seconds,” says Jacobs.

Try out new words.

Even if you mean it sincerely, saying “Thanks” can come off as nothing more than a reflex, to you and the person you appreciate. Mixing up your phrasing gets you out of “robot mode,” Jacobs found. “To thank my wife one day, I said, ‘I just want you to know I am deeply grateful that you took Lucas to the orthodontist today.’ She was impressed.” His other faves: “I can’t tell you how much it means to me.” “I just want to let you know how much I appreciate…” It can jolt people into feeling the sentiment.

Make a list.

Intentionally looking for the positive can help you rewrite your brain’s negativity bias. Rachel Fintzy Woods, a psychotherapist in Santa Monica, California, keeps a running tally of 10 things she feels grateful for every day. She puts it in an email draft, but if you are interested in a more structured gratitude practice, try a written journal. It helps to keep things fresh: “Unless you really feel that way each morning, you can’t continue dashing off ‘I am grateful for my morning tea’ and get as much benefit,” says Gordon. To keep the ideas coming, create time for experiences that make you feel awe: a walk in a majestic forest, listening to a new piece of music. Or use preexisting pauses in your schedule to count your blessings. “Make it a practice you automatically associate with a time of day, like when you wait in line at school pickup or in the shower,” suggests Carter.

Use all your senses. 

When you not only look but also touch, smell, listen, or taste, you can’t help but slow down and appreciate your surroundings. Barbara Greenberg, PhD, a clinical psychologist in Fairfield County, Connecticut, intentionally engages multiple senses when she tends to her houseplants. “I have 50 of them, and first thing each morning, I walk around and look at each one. Then I smell them, touch them, maybe take a picture to capture a beautiful moment. I’m so grateful when I get to see one blooming,” she says.

Accept the bad, then move forward.

You don’t have to be blissed-out to feel gratitude, says Carter. Life is complicated: You might be waiting forever. Simply acknowledge that you’re peeved (“Ugh, he left his boxers on the bathroom floor…again.”), and then try to redirect your attention to something you would miss if the person or place that’s bugging you were not in your life. (“No more spooning sessions in the middle of the night? OK, I’ll keep him.”)

Write a gushy email. 

Penning a letter of gratitude to someone who has affected your life in a positive way can boost your happiness, research shows. And it’s a twofer. The recipient of your note feels good as well. So what holds people back? “Senders believe receiving a letter like this might feel uncomfortable or awkward for the person they are writing to. They also underestimate how much it would be appreciated,” says Amit Kumar, PhD, a professor of marketing at the University of Texas at Austin, who examined the question in a 2018 study in the journal Psychological Science. These were just emails (no quill pen and parchment required), but they still had a big impact. So go ahead and write that warm note to the violin teacher who always encouraged you. You’ll both feel happy about it.

Possible Perks

Here’s the science on how gratitude could do us good.

Sleep

Just two weeks of keeping a gratitude diary with three exercises per week led to a boost in sleep quality, per a 2015 study in Journal of Health Psychology. Increased optimism and positivity may have helped people sleep easier.

Self-Control

Make a gratitude list the next time you have to wait. In a study at Northeastern University, subjects asked to recall something they appreciated were better able to delay gratification.

Romantic Harmony

In one study, couples were instructed to express their appreciation for each other in four to six talk sessions. At the end of the study, they rated their relationships as stronger than those who used the time to chat about their day.

Happiness

A study in The Journal of Positive Psychology asked subjects to spend a week recalling and writing about three things that had made them feel grateful or three things that made them feel pride. Afterward, the blessing counters rated themselves as happier than the prideful.

Generosity

Subjects who were primed to feel grateful by having a disguised researcher fix their computer glitch were more likely to help strangers afterward.

 

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Learning To Live Again After A Loss To Addiction

My friend Ada lost her husband, Sam, a year ago. She believes Sam’s sudden heart attack was caused by his grief and anguish over their son’s addiction.

At the time of Sam’s death, he had been desperately trying to locate their son, Greg, a former marine and addict who had been homeless on the streets of San Francisco for months while he and Ada lived 3000 miles away on the East Coast. Sam was 48. Suddenly Ada’s nightmare as a mom dealing with an adult’s child’s addiction became much worse. Now she was a widow, too.

Ada had a happy family, a loving husband and gifted son. They were all employed and happy until Greg’s military service ended and he was prescribed opiates for a backache at a VA hospital. A year and a half later, with her son missing and her husband gone, Ada didn’t want to live anymore. But she kept thinking, “What if Greg wants help and comes home looking for me? He’d be an orphan. What a terrible thing for him.”

Even then, Ada could only think about Greg’s possible need for her as her only reason for living. This sounds familiar to me. I know many families that think only of trying to fix a loved one lost to addiction. This is can be true for all people who provide special attention and care to someone who isn’t well, however. Giving is natural and a good thing. But when nothing can be done to help another, the risk becomes losing one’s own will to live.

I remember thinking the same thing Ada did about my own life during a desperate time. I felt I’d had quite enough living but had to stay alive in case a loved one wanted or needed me. Living for another is hardly satisfying. It never occurred to Ada, or me, at that time that we could be happy when someone we loved had either passed away, or was alive but lost to us forever. We didn’t think we mattered. Addiction in the family damaged our own sense of worth and self esteem.

Those who learn to live again, and even to thrive, reclaim their lives by thinking less about the problems of their loved ones and more about the people around them who need or want or value them. Amazing concept. Ada, who thought she had nothing, found out that her friends at church and new contacts at Al-Anon all cared deeply about her. And they were there to show her she wasn’t alone. Ada began volunteering at a senior center, attending weekend seminars and learning new skills.  She can now do mani pedis for her friends and is learning to draw. Ada is also thinking about taking up dancing again, and has grown out her hair. Only one year later, this is what she told me.

“I’m happy. Sometimes several days go by when I don’t think of Sam or Greg. I have friends to do things with, and I love volunteering with seniors. Their courage gives me inspiration of how to think about life. Seniors have all lost loved ones. I see so much sadness in the world, but also a lot of joy. I try to do something enjoyable, or new, every day. My being happy is important. I never thought that before.”

This is a powerful recovery story. And we need to hear more of stories like Ada’s because family members suffer deeply and matter very much. Ada found her recovery answer in new things and people to think about. We often hear that gratitude is the key to recovery. But there is no single key to open the door to reclaiming hurt lives. Just look around.

The post Learning To Live Again After A Loss To Addiction appeared first on Reach Out Recovery.

When Grief Lingers

When my 39-year old sister died, I couldn’t function. I couldn’t quit crying let alone make it off the couch to cook dinner for my family. I thought I’d never find normal again. Yet life moves on, and I had to go back to work. To cope, I decided to ignore my grief. Little did I know, this method of coping led to an emotional infection of unresolved grief.

What is Clean Emotional Pain?

Dr. John Preston, PsyD explains that clean pain comes from experiencing “normal” human experiences like:

Losing a loved one
Contracting a serious illness
Experiencing abuse
Humiliating experiences
Failing at something we hoped would succeed at

Let’s say I got cut with a clean kitchen knife. The cut hurts, but if I clean the cut, it’s not likely to become infected. The cut is a good analogy for clean emotional pain. It is an unavoidable part of life.

What is Dirty Emotional Pain?

Dirty pain stems from how we handle the clean pain in our lives, and it includes:

Unrealistic expectations of how we should be feeling
Harsh judgments from others or the world on how we are dealing with the pain
Fixating on unfairness
Ignoring or mishandling the original pain

Next, let’s say I got cut again with a clean kitchen knife. However, this time I didn’t clean the cut. My cut becomes infected, and now I have two problems: the original wound and a nasty infection. The infection is a good analogy for dirty emotional pain or unprocessed grief. Ouch and double ouch.

Dirty Pain Is Optional

Pain is inevitable. Everyone we love will eventually pass. Children leave home. Jobs come and go, and some marriages fail. How we process the pain is what makes the difference. Martha Beck’s article on Oprah.com explains clean and dirty pain as:

“The two kinds of suffering occupy different sections of the brain: One part simply registers events, while another creates a continuous stream of thoughts about those events. The vast majority of our unhappiness comes from this secondary response — not from painful reality, but from painful thoughts about reality.”

In his book, The Paradoxes of Mourning: Healing Your Grief with Three Forgotten Truths, internationally noted author and grief counselor, Dr. Alan Wolfeit writes,

“Dirty pain is the story we tell ourselves about the clean pain. Dirty pain, once identified, can be safely separated out and ignored, leaving you with more psychic energy to embrace only the pain that truly needs embracing.”

Serenity And Emotional Pain

“Should’ve been” or “Ought to” are signs of dirty pain or lingering grief, and they spit in the face of acceptance.  In recovery, I’ve found the Serenity Prayer holds the answers to many of my problems. “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.”

When I ignore my need to accept grief, I determine the length and intensity of my suffering. While my sister’s death was unfair, refusing to accept it kept hurting me. After I finally decided to face the truth, I began to find some peace in her passing.

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There Are No Stages For Coping With Grief

There is a lot of information regarding grief that is inaccurate, especially the five stages of grief developed by Kubler-Ross. While this was an interesting study in 1969, later research has found that there are no stages to grief. So if there are no stages, how do we experience grief and how do we cope?

What Is Grief?

Grief, also called sorrow, is the process of loss; mourning and bereavement relate to the process of coping with loss. These losses may include:

The death of a loved one or a beloved pet
A dissolution of a marriage
Loss of a friendship
The loss of childhood innocence through abuse
The ending of a role such as retirement
Becoming an empty-nester
Becoming disabled or homeless
Suffering from a medical condition or a psychiatric illness
Any other of the many losses we face throughout our lifetime

Life is about love and loss. How we cope is as important as the loss itself. Grief can demonstrate itself in many ways:

Sadness
Tearfulness
Obsessing about the loss
Poor appetite or trouble sleeping
Sobbing
Anxiety
Anger
Guilt
Shame
Feelings of relief
Hopelessness and helplessness
Gratitude
Acceptance
All other feelings along the spectrum.

There is no right or wrong way to cope as long as it is a healthy process, i.e., not resorting to isolation, drinking or drugging or other self-harm behaviors, suicide attempts, or other dysfunctional coping styles.

The Coping Skill That’s Needed

In the beginning, we may just focus on survival. All we can do is put one foot in front of the other to get through the day. Time often feels at a standstill as we weave through the grief process. We may wonder if the pain will ever end.

And sadly, those of us in Western Society tend to struggle to give mouring its due.  We try to deny the pain and the loss instead of embracing what we had as well as what we lost. If we allow ourselves, we can work through the loss and come out on the other side and begin to thrive again. This doesn’t mean we won’t feel the sorrow.  We can allow it to manifest itself in positive ways.

For example, we learn to be more compassionate as we understand what others are also going through. First, grief teaches us to embrace the loss. Then we learn to allow healing because we know sorrow is as much a part of life as is joy. We may move through the grief on our own, with others, with a grief counselor or grief support group, but we can and do go on.

One Day At A Time

So we begin to get back into life by taking one-day-at-a time. We utilize all of our coping skills, for besides doing the healthy grieving, we also get back into our routines, doing enjoyable activities. We only use distraction skills as needed, such as:

Not focusing on the loss at work
Allowing ourselves a set time to grieve at home
Meeting and talking with others not only about your loss, but about life

We do our fun activities and while we may initially struggle with feeling joy, we continue to do these things as our pleasure will return. It’s important to tell ourselves that we will get through the loss and that we will enjoy life again. So take the time to experience life as an physical/emotional/intellectual/relational/spiritual event. Go for a walk, meditate, or play tennis. Participate in religious and spiritual activities, or hang out with others. Treat yourself to a special meal, reminisce, or read a mystery novel. Take a class or watch a movie – for there is more to life than just the emotional aspect of grief.

Take Grief As It Comes

Most of all, there is no set pattern to grief. It may come as a calmness or as a tsunami; it may come with sobbing or with a sense of peace. Grief may make you feel you are going crazy or it may be a stillness within. However it comes, let it be, for sorrow is a process. It’s not a one-time event. And if we are able to meet all our losses by grieving at the time, then this helps us from struggling with ongoing losses.  For if we do not address them each and every time, then they can build up and cause more issues such as:

Depression
Stress-related disorders
A complicated grief reaction

Grief is a natural process – depression is not. If you need help coping with grief, visit Recovery Guidance to see who the recovery professionals are in your area.

The post There Are No Stages For Coping With Grief appeared first on Reach Out Recovery.

Confused About Methadone?

Lets first start with some medical information about methadone and methadone clinics and then discuss the possibilities/probabilities with this method of medically assisted recovery.

Methadone has been used for over 50 years here and in Europe for heroin addiction and also for opioid addiction. It is quite effective when used correctly in this way.

The FDA oversees drugs in the USA and in 1970 released the following schedules under the Controlled Substance Act (CSA) which organizes drugs (prescription) into five groups based on risk or harm. The drugs with highest risk and no counterbalancing benefit are banned from medical practice; these are schedule one drugs. These have no currently accepted medical use and include drugs such as heroin, LSD, marijuana, ecstasy and Quaaludes (the drug Bill Cosby is currently in the news for giving to women and then having sex with them). Schedule two drugs include narcotics like Dilaudid, Percocet, Oxycontin, oxycodone, opium, morphine, codeine and Methadone. Schedule five at the bottom of the list includes codeine cough syrup.

When used correctly, methadone, which is longer acting then heroin and short-acting narcotics (like Percocet, Oxycodone) can help someone not crave the high of heroin and can help them regain a life of sorts. It can also relieve pain as the other narcotics can.

Methadone is also used for those addicted to other opioids. There are many Methadone Clinics all over the place and some are run better than others. There are some clinics that are run as pill mills though, and you already are aware that many pain clinics are not run legitimately. The practicing and prescribing patterns of physicians and the midlevel providers (physician assistants and advanced registered nurse practitioners) who work for them varies.

While addiction is a disease it, unfortunately due to the issues involved, is not viewed as other medical diseases because of the problems that can be caused by illegitimate use of these medications. Methadone supposedly reduces the drug cravings and harsh withdrawal symptoms that are often associated with a patient’s relapse, without creating the sense of euphoria associated with the abuse of heroin and the other opiates.

When a narcotic is used correctly for someone with pain and at the correct dosing they rarely have the side effects that drug abuser look for; the euphoria, high feeling. It is a complicated chemical pathway of receptors in the brain. Therefore, in the Methadone clinics the person addicted to heroin or other narcotics is switched from the drug that gives them a “high” to an opioid (methadone) that does not. They then can be titrated to gradually lower does over time with the goal of getting off the drug. So for the abuser who takes Methadone instead of their drug of choice the risk involves taking  too much or too high a dose in an effort to get the high that they want.

Because Methadone is a long acting drug when they take too much they are at real risk of overdose.

Now Let’s Look At Three Terms You Need To Understand: Addiction, Dependence And Tolerance.

Addiction: characterized by behaviors that include one or more of the following: impaired control over drug use, compulsive use, and continued use despite harm and craving. The user has developed physical as well as psychological dependence. They crave it and need it and do whatever they have to so the can get the drug.

Dependence: is the state of adaptation that is manifested by withdrawal syndrome that can be produced by abrupt cessation, rapid dose reduction, decreasing blood level of the drug, and/or administration of an antagonist. You have to have the drug or have problems when it is taken away.

Tolerance: is the state of adaptation in which exposure to a drug induces changes that result in a diminution of one or more of the drug’s effects over time. Over time taking the medication you need more to achieve the same effect.

The Negatives Of Methadone

So now lets look at concerns about this type medically assisted recovery. You probably won’t want to hear what I am saying but it’s important for you to understand for your sake if not theirs. If this person is getting methadone pills from more than one source, not all that are “legal” sources (doctor’s offices), it’s likely an addiction. Persons who are addicted do what they must to get what they want. At a minimum that involves lying.

How To Know The Truth?

A person can get Methadone from a clinic (pill mill or supposed legitimate office). If he really is going to a Methadone Clinic daily then a physician writes the order. Unless you have power of attorney over him, you will not be able to get medical records. I have often seen patients getting narcotics and going to a Methadone Clinic as well. This is particularly dangerous. The legitimate Methadone Clinics will test patients and look for issues but the “pill mill” Methadone clinics might not. Methadone will not show up in a drug screen unless specifically ordered.

Get Educated

I recommend educating yourself in all aspects of these drugs and their abuse potential; particularly learn about the side effects, withdrawal symptoms and how they appear when they are high. This education is too involved for this article as there are too many possible drugs and scenarios to describe. Learn more about Methadone clinics and about where you can obtain Narcan injectable which is becoming available in some areas. If you suspect he is overdosing this drug might help. Pay attention to where he is getting money from as street drugs are expensive and many user become dealers to obtain their supply “for free”.

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