Leslie Glass's Blog, page 425

Boston Medical Center Follows Up Opioid Patients After Discharge

In much the same way that staff in an inpatient hospital wouldn’t want to discharge a diabetic patient without access to insulin, leaders at Boston Medical Center have worked to initiate patients with opioid use disorders to medication before they exit the door.

The safety-net hospital’s Addiction Consult Service, established in July 2015, is staffed by an attending physician who is board-certified in addiction medicine and a nurse with addiction expertise. A study published in the August issue of the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment helped to bolster the argument that initiating medications in an inpatient setting is a feasible strategy.

Zoe Weinstein, MD, director of the Addiction Consult Service, tells Addiction Professional that hospital leaders were compelled to move in this direction in part because studies that were conducted there had demonstrated that this strategy could be applied broadly. Since the period that was examined in the recently published study, the hospital has worked to give patients more rapid access to ongoing medication treatment in the critical time immediately after discharge.

“Our main discharge clinic for buprenorphine had been open only once a week,” says Weinstein. “Now we have the bridge clinic open Monday through Friday.”

Study parameters

The study examined the initial 26 weeks of the Addiction Consult Service’s activity, which consists of diagnosis, brief bedside counseling, initiation of medication treatment, and discharge planning. The outpatient clinical sites for post-discharge linkage included two Boston Medical Center clinics and three local methadone clinics operated by another organization.

Researchers examined patient engagement by calculating the percentage of patients who followed up at their first outpatient appointment after discharge and again at 30, 90 and 180 days post-discharge. A patient was classified as remaining in care if he/she had an active prescription for a medication to treat addiction and/or had notes in the clinic’s electronic medical record that indicated ongoing treatment.

The researchers reported that there were 337 consultations for Boston Medical Center patients in the first 26 weeks of the service. A total of 78% of these individuals had an opioid use disorder (by comparison, 37% had an alcohol use disorder and 28% had a cocaine use disorder). Among patients initiated on methadone, 76% visited the methadone clinic post-discharge, and engagement rates at 30, 90 and 180 days were 54%, 39% and 29%, respectively. Among patients initiated on buprenorphine, the corresponding percentages were somewhat lower (49% engagement immediately post discharge, and 39%, 27% and 18% at 30, 90 and 180 days).

Weinstein says there are several possible explanations for why engagement tends to be better among methadone patients, including that this could reflect properties of the drug itself. Selection bias in terms of who gets referred to which treatment also could be in play here, she says. In addition, the more structured setting of a methadone clinic can help to reduce attrition.

Naltrexone also was recommended for some patients, but it often could not be initiated in the hospital setting. One barrier here is that injectable naltrexone for opioid dependence does not tend to be on hospitals’ inpatient formularies, and that remains the case at Boston Medical Center, says Weinstein. Also, initiation of naltrexone can be hampered by the requirement that patients be opioid-free for several days before they can start on the antagonist medication.

Improving performance

The study paper concludes that while this research demonstrates the feasibility of inpatient initiation of medication treatment, “Effectively linking to and retaining patients in post-discharge addiction care remains a challenge and warrants further innovation and program development.” The expanded hours of the Boston Medical Center bridge clinic has served as one way to address that.

An advantage that the hospital had in establishing this inpatient service was its history of strong outpatient services. These transitional services are still rare at the inpatient level across the country, partly because of challenges encountered in linking to outpatient care. “You often have to go to an outside source,” Weinstein says.

The post Boston Medical Center Follows Up Opioid Patients After Discharge appeared first on Reach Out Recovery.

How to get enough protein, without meat

By Casey Seidenberg,

One of my son’s eighth-grade friends recently became a vegetarian. He joins the approximately 4 percent of youths in this country (up from 2 percent 10 years ago) who eat meatless. As much as my boys respect his choice and recognize his passion for the environment that spurred the decision, neither of them truly understands it.

Although my sons eat plenty of vegetables, their most requested dinners include sausage, pork or ground beef. In fact, their favorite meal is grilled pork tenderloin with bacon corn relish. We call it “pig on pig.” We eat it with loads of green vegetables and rotate fish, chicken and quinoa on other nights. But I won’t lie: I make it a lot.

The boys asked how their friend could put on enough muscle, possess enough energy or be such a good athlete without meat. I told them that meat can be very good for growing boys and athletes, as its protein helps to build muscle, repair tissue, provide energy and balance mood — but it is by no means necessary. If he’s eating enough vegetarian sources of protein, iron and B vitamins, their friend will perform just as well. In fact, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics’ position on vegetarian diets is that “well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes.”

There are many athletes who have risen to the top ranks of their sports while being meat-free, including tennis legend Martina Navratilova, football hero Joe Namath, 1998 Heisman Trophy winner Ricky Williams, Olympic track star Carl Lewis, baseball slugger Prince Fielder and tennis icon Venus Williams. Ins 2011, Venus Williams was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that caused her to step off the court for a period. She attributes her strong return to tennis to her mostly vegan diet and better lifestyle choices such as rest days. Ricky Williams told Men’s Journal that going meat-free “changed my game, and it changed my body. I had tons of energy.”

There is no doubt that meat provides protein, but so do beans, eggs, nuts, yogurt and even broccoli. The following non-meat foods contain plenty of protein:

●Nuts and seeds (4-10 grams per 1 ounce serving): walnuts, cashews, pumpkin seeds, pistachios, sunflower seeds, almond butter, hemp, chia and flax seeds.

●Beans and legumes (7-10 grams per half-cup): black beans, white beans, lentils, chickpeas, hummus and green peas.

●Grains (5-8 grams per cup): quinoa, brown rice, oats, millet and barley.

●Soy (9-16 grams per ½ cup): tofu, edamame and tempeh.

●Fruits and veggies such as avocado (4 grams per cup), dark leafy greens (about 5 grams per cup) and broccoli (4 grams per cup).

●Dairy (milk, yogurt, cheese) and eggs provide 6-9 grams of protein per serving.

●Here’s a surprise: raw cacao nibs provide 4 grams of protein (plus antioxidants, vitamins and minerals) per 1 ounce serving.

According to the Institute of Medicine, we should all consume between 10 percent and 35 percent of our daily calories from protein. This really is not that much and can be easily achieved with the non-meat foods listed above.

Babies: 10 grams a day.

School-age kids: 19-34 grams a day.

Teenage boys: 52 grams a day.

Teenage girls: 46 grams a day.

Adult men: 56 grams a day.

Adult women: 46 grams a day (more if pregnant or breast-feeding).

There are many benefits to eating a well-balanced vegetarian diet including cost savings, loads of fiber (which aids in digestion), less saturated fat (good for the heart), and a wider variety of vitamins and minerals proven to reduce diabetes, cancer and heart disease.

Just last month, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) announced a pilot program to bring meatless Mondays to 15 public schools. His isn’t the first city to take this approach; Baltimore, Vancouver, Pittsburgh, Sacramento and many other towns have launched similar programs in an effort to reduce obesity and halt climate change.

De Blasio is onto something: People can reduce their carbon footprints by cutting back on meat just once a week. According to the United Nations, the meat industry generates nearly a fifth of the man-made greenhouse gas emissions that are accelerating climate change worldwide. And approximately 1,800 to 2,500 gallons of water go into making a pound of beef, far surpassing the amount needed for vegetables and grains.

I don’t eat a lot of meat myself; in fact, my 13-year-old son loves to tease me for eating so many vegetables. If I say I’m hungry, he encourages me to roast the potted plant in our hallway. I am doing just fine, even though I eat more vegetarian proteins than “pig on pig,” and so will his newly vegetarian friend.

More from Lifestyle: 10 ways to prepare for a fall full of healthy eating We want kids to have healthy bones? It will take more than a milk mustache. Fatty acids lower your risk of heart disease. Without fish, you’re missing out. Kids’ books that inspire healthy eating — without sounding like lessons

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Take The Gratitude Challenge

What are you grateful for this season? Take the gratitude challenge for five days to love yourself and others more.One question we might ask ourselves is how appreciative we are about the many people in our lives–loved ones and friends. How much love do we show them. At the same time, many of us are suffering from the negative impact of addiction in our lives. How can we feel good about loved ones who cause us pain, even in the gratitude season. Acceptance helps us and them.

Over 100 years ago, philosopher William James, who happens to be the father of American psychology, wrote that ‘the deepest craving of human nature is the need to be appreciated.’

Attitude of Gratitude Challenge

Here’s the challenge: show your appreciation of those around you simply appreciating them, regardless the behavior they exhibit.When we take time to acknowledge the people in our lives, our world become richer with meaningful connection to those we love, helping them to feel good about who they are.

Take The Challenge

Begin by telling one person what you love and appreciate about them. Do it for five consecutive days By making gratitude and appreciation part of our daily ritual, we program ourselves to recognize the good in ourselves and others. We will therefore hardwire ourselves to have more positive feeling than negative ones. This really works.

Professor Robert A. Emmons, world-renowned expert on gratitude, has shown through extensive research that gratitude effectively increases happiness, confidence and all-around wellbeing. Share what you love about others and in the process, you will find out that you love and appreciate yourself more too.

Gratitude in Action

My family has a Thanksgiving ritual, we pass around cards and ask all who sit around our Thanksgiving table to write what they are grateful for this year. We found out that most years people are grateful for the same things: their family, spouse or lover, a new friend. Turns out, it’s the people in our lives and not the things we most grateful for.

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Gratitude When You’re Grieving

Feeling gratitude when you’re mourning a loss is especially challenging. Gratitude grieving is counter-intuitive, yet honors the ones who are gone. Two years ago, my parents died nine weeks apart. The amount of healing it takes to work through this level of grief can at times be overwhelming. During holidays it’s even more painful because of the joy I used to feel with my parents and now see others celebrating. Grieving and gratitude come together for me when I appreciate what is here for me right now.

What Is Gratitude Grieving

Struggling to stay present and aware of what’s here for me right now often trades places with feeling lost and alone. My tough exterior belies the weakness and lack of security that can isolate me from others, if I’m not careful. It’s a balancing act, and one that I’m  tired of trying to equalize. It’s hard to be grateful when you’re sad as these two emotions are on opposite sides of the spectrum, yet gratitude grieving keeps you positive when you feel sad.

Gratitude Honors My Loved Ones

Let it be that my life honors them is the promise I made so that I could get out of the grief. I choose it every day. I choose to live in the present and in a way that honors how they lived their lives and it keeps me grateful for right now. It’s a simple phrase that doesn’t allow for worrying about what my life will be like in the future, instead it allows me to choose how I will live it. And it’s in the choosing that empowerment is found.

Remembering With Gratitude

My parents were extraordinary people. They provided me with not only a sense of limitless possibility, but also the ability to choose and create for myself. They fostered this remarkable gift through the example of how they lived their own lives. I’m committed to empowering others in a way that creates a ripple effect that not only honors them, but also my own path. You can too.

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10 Signs Of Dysfunctional Families

Much has been written about dysfunctional families. At times it may seem that every family has its unhealthy elements. To understand what is actually family dysfunction, we need to examine it on a scale of 0 (no family dysfunction) – 10 (horribly sick). At times all families may experience some dysfunction, but this does not mean the family is unhealthy. The following symptoms, especially if your family demonstrates a number of these characteristics, are problematic and reveal a dysfunctional system.

Physical Abuse/Sexual abuse/Emotional Abuse or Neglect 

This is the most significant problem demonstrated by sick family systems, either by abuse or by neglect. Abuse indicates active harm such as a parent sexually molesting a child, while neglect is inactive harm, such as not attending to a child’s needs of feeding, bathing, or giving love and attention.

Denial/Secrets/Lies

This category relates to such conditions as trying to hide a substance use problem, or that Dad is sexually perpetrating his daughter. This may be denial or outright lying. As is well established, “secrets keep us sick.”

Addictions

Addictions such as alcohol and drug addictions, as well as process addictions such as gambling or sexual addictions, are prevalent in dysfunctional families.

Don’t Talk/Don’t Trust/Don’t feel

Keeping secrets and hiding from outsiders is also very prevalent in dysfunctional families (and well-noted in addictive families) – don’t talk about any problems/don’t trust anyone, especially outside of the family/don’t feel your feelings. This also relates to poor communication between family members.

Lack Of Boundaries

Poor boundaries include all of the above as well as such things as the eldest child taking the role of the parent of unhealthy parents and younger children.

Poor Communication Including Ridicule, Criticism, Conflict, Mixed messages

Making fun of a family member isn’t humorous; it’s abusive. Also, dysfunctional families tend to criticize and give mixed messages that appear to say, “Come here/go away.” With these messages, the other family members don’t know what is true and how to respond (i.e., one day the parent is loving and the next day is punishing by making fun or hitting a child). These messages are inconsistent and unpredictable and cause more conflict within the family.

Lack of Love, Compassion, Intimacy

A dysfunctional family doesn’t demonstrate healthy behaviors of attention and love. There is no closeness in the family, and love may be withheld as a form of punishment. Or there may be no compassion at all.

Closed Family System

In this family, others such as extended families, friends, schools, or religious/spiritual systems are kept away in order to keep the secrets of the family. Because of this, the family members are unable to interact and learn healthy behaviors from others or to seek help from others. This keeps the family in a rigid, closed system.

Rigid Perfectionism

Perfectionism is another damaging trait in a dysfunctional family system. Family members may try to achieve perfectionism, something that can never happen. Perfectionism is an unhealthy way to try to gain control and mastery. Because being perfect can never happen, significant problems arise over a lifetime.

Denial Of Spiritual Focus 

Not allowing family members to participate in spiritual activities is deeply harmful. This may include being prohibited from attending religious/spiritual services, meditating, and examining beliefs. This may also include enjoying nature, being creative, having time to play, pray, read spiritual information. try out new religious services, volunteer, and help with social justice activities.

As a family, working towards a healthier family system is always a goal. If you see yourself or your family as a product of dysfunction, look at ways to improve the health of the family. This often may include family counseling to help, or if you grew up with these rules and want help, then individual counseling or 12 step groups may be valuable, for all is not lost if you choose help.

 

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Emotional Pain Doesn’t Have To Be Lasting

After my 39-year old sister died, I couldn’t imagine my life without her. I cried for hours on end. Eventually, I learned an unhealthy way to deal with the emotional pain. I ignored it. Little did I know, this method of coping wasn’t clean. Instead, it created a dirty pain that 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 raged. I didn’t clean the cut out of spite. 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. 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, 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 participate in dirty pain, I determine the pain’s length and intensity. 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.

Save

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5 Ways Food Recovery Matters

Food recovery turns out to be as important as sobriety. After two years of sobriety, I found myself 150 pounds overweight and miserable. I wasn’t eating to recover. I was eating the way I used to use substances. I’ve had food issues all my life. Now, without my trusted drugs of choice to ease my pain, the only solace I found was in food. I was sober, but binging my way into an early grave.

Bingeing Is A Food Addiction

I couldn’t understand why I was binging on copious amounts of highly processed foods: cakes, pastries, chocolate, breads, cheese. I’d spend time in meetings fantasizing about what I was going to get to eat on the way home. Sometimes, I’d leave the meeting early because I couldn’t wait to get to the store.

Food Recovery Means Addressing The Food Addiction

When I got help with food, and trained as a nutrition coach myself, I fully understood that bingeing behavior—just like addiction—was out of my control. It was my brain’s way of saying that I had a chemical imbalance, and it overrode the rational part of my brain rendering me somewhat powerless over my actions. Sound familiar? It is just the same as substance use disorder.

Certain foods can release the same chemicals as drugs. When we get sober, we simply transfer the addiction—but it is so subtle, that we don’t always realize that we’re doing it. And what makes matters worse is that we punish ourselves for it, and even label it as gluttony—a defect of character.

But, as I’ve explained, the brain is far more sophisticated than that. It has nothing to do with character defects, and everything to do with healing our whole selves by eating well. Food recovery for me has to be a holistic approach. I need to fuel my body in order to be well, and feel well. That is what gives me a lust for life; it is what helps me jump out of bed in the morning and seize the day—well, most days.

5 Ways To Eat For Food Recovery

Eat Fruits and vegetables: Foods high in nutrients–whole fruits and vegetables in a range of colors– can help speed up the healing process from the damage caused by substance use disorder.
Don’t Eat processed foods: Processed foods are anything that is packaged. Boxed or frozen meals: macaroni cheese, TV dinners, cookies, candy, sodas, pre-made sauces and dressings are all processed foods. By not eating them, you can avoid the energy spikes and crashes—which only create a craving for more. These foods are high in salt, sugar and trans fats which are not great for overall health. In fact, this food (also referred to as highly palatable) has been manipulated by scientists that much that they can override the rational part of your brain–this is why you look down and wonder how you’ve even a whole pack of cookies. Ditch cookies and TV dinners, in favor of fresh fruits and vegetables.
Eat These Good Mood Foods: Turkey, chicken, pumpkin seeds, nuts, oats, cottage cheese—contain tryptophan. This is used by the body to produce serotonin—a chemical which helps produce healthy sleep and a stable mood.
Amp Up Your Immunity: Fruits and vegetables in particular can improve immunity, thus warding off colds and viruses—or if you do get them, it can reduce the illness duration.
 Eat whole, natural and unprocessed foods: They will reduce your risk of relapse due to depression and fatigue. Eating whole, natural, and unprocessed foods, your body is more likely to get both the nutrients and energy it needs to function optimally.

 

 

 

 

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3 Ways To Feel Good on Thanksgiving No Matter What

Thanksgiving traditions are meaningful. This was always the most important holiday when I was growing up. The religious holidays could cause strife because my family members held a wide variety of beliefs about God and religion. Some in my family believed God was a powerful Her.

And some didn’t believe in any God at all, which enraged those who thought He was with us even in the bathroom. I remember my grandmother explaining how as a young girl (in the early days of the 20th century) she was taught to wash without touching herself. Which I always thought meant that prayers alone kept her clean. My grandmother also didn’t eat tomatoes, having been taught that tomatoes (love apples, she called them) were poisonous, and that bananas could keep you going when medicine failed. She lived to be 96, all beliefs intact.

Christmas and Chanukah were hot button holidays; Easter and Passover were hot button holidays; Halloween and Valentine’s Day were also hot button holidays. All of them presented a wide variety of potential bogs of dogma in which to fall. The last two were particular stressors for us kids because trick or treat was considered begging and sugar was prohibited.  With all the things that were no-nos in my family, only Thanksgiving was absolutely pure. And always the most joyous. Love, gratitude, and forgiveness were the hallmarks of Thanksgiving then, and they still can be. 

How To Find Peace And Joy In A Day That Brings Painful Reminders of All That Isn’t.

These days are more complicated for everyone. Families are scattered and often deeply hurt by separations that occur for so many reasons. Work and living far away, military service. Schooling; and sadly the heartbreaking separations, both emotional and actual, that addiction so often brings. Native Americans, who have suffered so much as a result of colonization, also find the celebration of Thanksgiving a painful reminder.

Here are some of the ways to keep the old traditions alive.

Share your Thanksgiving with others. It doesn’t matter if you gather friends from work or church or meetings or the gym, or anywhere. Sharing your table, or just being with others, can bring joy. It’s a real kindness to offer comfort to others who may also be missing a happy family as much as you do.
Remember the good times. Often we get into the habit of thinking only of what we’ve lost and how terrible that loss is. But even when the losses seem unbearable, it’s okay to celebrate the love and happiness of the past. Corny but true: Remembering happiness with an open heart can lead us there again.
Be Grateful for what is. This is the most basic, and maybe the most important, quality of recovery. When you enjoy a meal, or never miss a sunrise, or find beauty in the rain, you have something for which to be grateful. Saying thank you is the first step on the path to whatever you want to be, and wherever you want to go.

Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at ROR. Sending Love and Blessing and Prayers to all who are impacted by addiction.                   

A Reach Out Recovery Exclusive By: Leslie Glass

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Triggers Can’t Ruin Co-Dependent’s Pumpkin Pie

Six years ago, my mother-in-law and I had our second Thanksgiving feud. She said some things, and for the first time ever, I said some things back. The argument escalated, I called her a name, and she slapped me. Back then, I had no recovery and no boundaries. Even though she’s no longer a threat in my life, simple fall traditions take me back to that night. Instead of comforting me with warm family memories, pumpkin pie and a slow roasted turkey are triggers, stabbing me with past pain. I remember the room, where she stood. Where I stood, and the phrase that started it all.

Triggers Turn Into Reactions

Unfortunately, these feuds with my mother-in-law weren’t isolated incidents; they were only two of many scenes from a 20-year manipulative and toxic relationship.

Researchers at the University of Iowa found that memories associated with acute stress and trauma get stored in the part of your brain responsible for survival where they serve as a defense mechanism against future trauma.

Ergo, some of these triggers have been hard-wired into my brain, and my first response is to react protectively even when the danger is no longer present. So, how do I come to terms with the holidays without eradicating fall related traditions? Fortunately, in the rooms of recovery, I found some tools to help handle my past hurts:

The Serenity Prayer helps me find peace in accepting my past as something I cannot change.
I’m aware of triggers like pumpkin pie and slow-roasted turkeys. I can accept that those items are things here in the present, and then take a healthy action – like reminding myself I am safe and she is gone.
I am not my story. The things she did to me did nothing to change my eye color, my love for cheesecake, or my ability to solve quadratic equations. She didn’t change me.
One day at a time – Living in these 12 hours of today let me focus on the good things in my life now, like my wonderful family.

Everyone in my house loves pumpkin pie, and we eat it year-round. I love that it’s actually a vegetable posing as dessert, and my son loves it for breakfast. I refuse to let it be a casualty of war.

The Co-dependent’s Crustless Pumpkin Pie

Pie Filling Ingredients:

1 15-ounce can pumpkin
2 eggs
3/4 cup honey
3/4 cup coconut milk
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp ground cloves

Oatmeal Crumble Topping:

2 cups quick-cooking oats (a.k.a. minute oats)
5 TBls butter
1/3 cup sugar
A pinch of sea salt

Hand mix the pumpkin, eggs, honey, and flavorings in a large mixing bowl. (This recipe is so easy you don’t even have to drag out your mixer.) Add the coconut milk and stir until blended. Pour into greased pie pan.

Next, place the oats, butter, sugar, and salt in a food processor. Pulse until blended. Batter will start to form small crumbles. Sprinkle crumbles on top of pie filling. Bake at 375 degrees for 35-40 minutes. Check to see if the pie is done by inserting a knife near the center of pie. The pie is done if the knife comes out clean.

The post Triggers Can’t Ruin Co-Dependent’s Pumpkin Pie appeared first on Reach Out Recovery.

Co Dependent’s Crustless Pumpkin Pie Triggers Pain

Six years ago, my mother-in-law and I had our second Thanksgiving feud. She said some things, and for the first time ever, I said some things back. The argument escalated, I called her a name, and she slapped me. Back then, I had no recovery and no boundaries. Even though she’s no longer a threat in my life, simple fall traditions take me back to that night. Instead of comforting me with warm family memories, pumpkin pie and a slow roasted turkey are triggers, stabbing me with past pain. I remember the room, where she stood. Where I stood, and the phrase that started it all.

Triggers Turn Into Reactions

Unfortunately, these feuds with my mother-in-law weren’t isolated incidents; they were only two of many scenes from a 20-year manipulative and toxic relationship.

Researchers at the University of Iowa found that memories associated with acute stress and trauma get stored in the part of your brain responsible for survival where they serve as a defense mechanism against future trauma.

Ergo, some of these triggers have been hard-wired into my brain, and my first response is to react protectively even when the danger is no longer present. So, how do I come to terms with the holidays without eradicating fall related traditions? Fortunately, in the rooms of recovery, I found some tools to help handle my past hurts:

The Serenity Prayer helps me find peace in accepting my past as something I cannot change.
I’m aware of triggers like pumpkin pie and slow-roasted turkeys. I can accept that those items are things here in the present, and then take a healthy action – like reminding myself I am safe and she is gone.
I am not my story. The things she did to me did nothing to change my eye color, my love for cheesecake, or my ability to solve quadratic equations. She didn’t change me.
One day at a time – Living in these 12 hours of today let me focus on the good things in my life now, like my wonderful family.

Everyone in my house loves pumpkin pie, and we eat it year-round. I love that it’s actually a vegetable posing as dessert, and my son loves it for breakfast. I refuse to let it be a casualty of war.

The Co-dependent’s Crustless Pumpkin Pie

Pie Filling Ingredients:

1 15-ounce can pumpkin
2 eggs
3/4 cup honey
3/4 cup coconut milk
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp ground cloves

Oatmeal Crumble Topping:

2 cups quick-cooking oats (a.k.a. minute oats)
5 TBls butter
1/3 cup sugar
A pinch of sea salt

Hand mix the pumpkin, eggs, honey, and flavorings in a large mixing bowl. (This recipe is so easy you don’t even have to drag out your mixer.) Add the coconut milk and stir until blended. Pour into greased pie pan.

Next, place the oats, butter, sugar, and salt in a food processor. Pulse until blended. Batter will start to form small crumbles. Sprinkle crumbles on top of pie filling. Bake at 375 degrees for 35-40 minutes. Check to see if the pie is done by inserting a knife near the center of pie. The pie is done if the knife comes out clean.

The post Co Dependent’s Crustless Pumpkin Pie Triggers Pain appeared first on Reach Out Recovery.