Beware of those tentacles reaching out from the past because they have one thing in mind, leading you back to a drink or drug.  I’m talking about an insidious creeping in of old behaviors and attitudes that can take down anyone, no matter how much time you have in sobriety. I used the picture of ivy because that’s what I think really captures this phenomenon.  You have a wall – the wreckage has been cleared away and it’s like a clean slate of sorts. It’s your new life sober.  You are doing really well, so well in fact that you don’t think you really need to worry too much about the principles of recovery.

Ivy can be a good thing if those branches reaching out cover up an ugly wall, but they are also a problem, especially certain types of ivy. They can damage the wall, even the foundation upon which its built. They find their way into cracks and crevices, exploiting the weaknesses in the wall.

So if there a bad ivy growing on  your wall?  Did you decide that a principle that kept you sober for the last five years isn’t really that important?  Have you started hanging around with people who abuse drugs and alcohol because you feel you are strong enough to resist? Are you really strong enough to resist?

Bad ivy can manifest itself in many ways, through changes in attitudes – more sullen or resentful – or through changes in behavior – more reclusive and insular. You can always cut back ivy, but unless you get to the roots, it’s tenacious stuff, weaving its way back across your life with little regard for where it goes.

We know when we’re letting bad old thoughts creep back in. We start to feel more impatient. We start to resent our friends and family and employer. We begin to avoid people who aren’t validating our negativity, and we gravitate people who are letting us know it’s ok to hate everything because everything really is an awful mess.

So if this describes your sobriety, maybe its time to dig down deep and figure out what is really going on. Is sobriety still at the top of your list of priorities?

I don’t mean to sound sarcastic or snippy about this, but it really shocked me. I always felt that speaking about what’s going on with you is critical – hermit-mode gets us into trouble – but I also know that listening is critical too. If you think the only value of a meeting is to air your dirty laundry, you are only getting a small piece of their value.

Face it. As alcoholics and addicts we thought our problems were bigger than the next guy’s. You’d drink too if you had my life. Sound familiar? One of the great things about 12-step programs is that equalize things – level the playing field, so to speak, by making us acutely aware that we are not the center of the universe and our problems certainly are not unique. We start to hear stories far worse than ours. We start to feel humbled by stories of recovery in which the person overcame horrendous obstacles to get sober and stay sober.

We get, sometimes for the first time in our lives, perspective.

I suppose the kind thing to say would be, some people just need to talk to stay sober, but I wonder if those who talk more and listen less struggle more in sobriety.  What do you think?

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A parent seeking to teach their teen how to drink responsibly may be misguided if they believe allowing the drinking to happen at home is a good move. Science Daily recently posted a report which examined a new study of 428 Dutch families which found adverse results from at-home drinking policies.

his study showed that the more teenagers were allowed to drink at home, the more they were likely to drink outside the home as well. In addition, those teens who rank under the watchful eye of parents or on their own were at a greater risk for developing alcohol-related problems.

Such problems related to drinking include trouble with school work, missed days from school and getting into fights with other people. Teens also experienced other problems as well.

In the Netherlands, many experts recommend that parents drink with their teenagers in order to teach them how to drink responsibly. The goal is to limit the amount of drinking teens will do outside the home, but the advice is based on reasoning and not scientific evidence.

“The idea is generally based on common sense,” says Dr. Haske van der Vorst, of Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands and lead researcher on the study. “For example, the thinking is that if parents show good behavior — here, modest drinking — then the child will copy it. Another assumption is that parents can control their child’s drinking by drinking with the child.”

In a study of 428 families with two children between the ages of 13 and 15, researchers found that the more teens drank at home, the more they tended to drink elsewhere. At the same time, out-of-home drinking led to more drinking at home.

Makes sense to me. My parents thought a little glass of wine would teach me to drink responsibly as I got older. However, I was so enamored right off the bat with alcohol and everything it seemed to represent (adulthood, mystery, social comfort) that it was only a matter of time before I started abusing the stuff.  Doesn’t it give tacit approval to drink if you are actually serving it to your kids?  It certainly lifts any sort of basic prohibition by simply saying we think you are mature enough to do this, as long as it’s at home with us.  Kids quickly forget the “as long as it’s at home with us.”

Whatever the stress is in your life, you have a major responsibility to focus on: staying sober. That means diffusing stress is critical for you.  The first thing to do is ask what you can change.  We all know the prayer in which we ask for the serenity to accept the things we cannot change and the  courage to change the things we can. There is a reason this is called the Serenity Prayer. When we try to change things we can’t control, or don’t take action to change things we can, we feel anything but serene.

No one lives a stress-free life. Stuff gets us down. Things happen that make us feel helpless at times.  However, it’s important not to let these things escalate until you feel hopeless because hopelessness is not a safe place to be in sobriety.

Some of this has to do with perceptions. If we continually perceive every set back as the end of the world and as evidence that NOTHING EVER goes our way, we are sure to end up depressed and miserable. If we see each event as an isolated event – part of the unpredictability of life on Earth – we can deal with these single events much better.

Do you have specific strategies and tools to deal with stress?  If life is going great, that can be a good time to develop habits and plans for when things don’t go as well.  There are certain activities and practices that can  help you de-stress:

Exercise such as a daily walk

Quiet time – contemplation, meditation, exploration

Friendship – talking to people who understand you

Family – keeping relationships strong so you aren’t just leaning on them in bad times, you are tending to the relationship in good times too

Giving – service and sacrifice to help someone less fortunate puts things in perspective

Peers – remember that only another alcoholic or addict really gets you on a gut level – don’t let these relationships slip away as time goes by