Bottom Line: 10 Secrets to Effective Recovery by Guest Writer Suzanne K

Are you in recovery for addiction and looking for some tips on how to make it go more smoothly? While there’s no sure-fire method that’s guaranteed to be successful for everyone, there are some proven methods and strategies that you can use – or adapt – to your own recovery journey. These 10 secrets to effective recovery can be used as you see fit, alone or in combination. After all, recovery is a personal journey. Do what works best for you.

Take Small Steps

Many individuals who first enter recovery mistakenly view it as a lifetime of self-deprivation, joylessness, endless restrictions on freedom and choices, and a monotonous tedium. Relax. That’s a normal first reaction to trying to put into practice all the skills you learned during treatment and taking your first steps toward dealing with life’s daily stresses and challenges, warding off cravings and urges, recognizing and avoiding triggers. Besides, you’ve just left a structured environment where every minute was choreographed for you. It’s natural that you’d feel a bit overwhelmed, confused, frustrated, and want to retreat into solitude for a time. The good news is that this period of uncertainty can pass more quickly if you acknowledge that it is occurring, and then get on about the business of your new life of sobriety.

In this regard, it’s often helpful for those in early recovery to take small steps forward. That means – at least in the initial days and weeks – that you concentrate only on the essential elements of your recovery plan. For now, you’re not focusing on all the things you need to do one, two, or 10 years down the line. You’re just living in the here and now, practicing the things you learned during treatment, going to 12-step meetings, meeting with your therapist (if you still have such counseling as a part of aftercare), re-establishing communication with your family members, and taking good physical, mental, and emotional care of yourself.

Taking small steps is easier if you make out a daily schedule. For those who dislike lists, this may be a bit of a hurdle, but it actually becomes much easier over time. For one thing, making a list of things to do is just smart. It works in business and, in fact, is highly recommended by time management professionals. It works for homemakers juggling multiple family responsibilities. It also works for those in recovery – and, perhaps, is one of the simplest and most basic things you can do to help during the first months of recovery.

What should you put in your daily schedule? You can block out chunks of time, allocate by the hour or half-hour, as needed. Incorporate the time you get up and get ready for the day, responsibilities before work, including preparing and eating breakfast, helping children get off to school, things you need to do at work, such as meetings or projects to attend to, going to and/or eating lunch, things to do after work, preparation of the evening meal and dining with the family, chores and tasks after dinner, family discussion time, games, sports, and entertainment. Also include time to go to 12-step meetings, therapists, trips to the doctor, grocery store, pharmacy, cleaners, exercise or leisure pursuits, and so on. This is only a partial list. You’ll certainly have your own unique items to add.

The key is to give yourself the freedom to take it slow. Don’t rush into things, trying to make up for lost time. There’ll be plenty of opportunity for tackling more assignments and getting out there after you have a few months of recovery.

Celebrate Accomplishments

It’s also very important that you celebrate accomplishments along the way. For those attending 12-step group meetings, there are group celebrations and recognition of members who achieve their 30-, 60-, and 90-day sobriety milestones. There’s also a big celebration/recognition of the one-year anniversary of living clean and sober.

But there are many other things that you can and should celebrate in your first few months of recovery. First of all, it’s a really big event that you’ve returned home from treatment and are about to resume your life with your family. While this can seem overwhelming and a bit disorienting, it’s a huge step that deserves a celebration.

Your family may want to prepare a welcome-home dinner, for example, but it’s advisable to keep it to immediate family members. After all, you don’t need to be inundated by a crowd of friends and well-wishers at this early stage. Although they mean well, they may say or do something inadvertently that can throw you off – such as bring alcohol or drink in your presence. It’s also just too much for you to process so soon after treatment.

Other accomplishments to celebrate include the achievement of one week of sobriety, two weeks, three weeks, and so on. When you have bouts of cravings and urges, and utilize the coping skills you learned during treatment and are able to get through the 20 minutes or so that these typically last without succumbing to them, celebrate that achievement. And, make no mistake about it – this is a significant achievement. In fact, the more you practice the things you learned, the better you get at it.

Making Celebrations Safe

How can you celebrate? Doesn’t celebration bring to mind drinking and other dangerous behaviors? If your family members attended family therapy and were actively involved in group meetings during your treatment, they already know how important it is that they support you in recovery. That means learning how to avoid situations that may increase stress, result in triggers, or prompt a relapse. This also includes finding substitutions for alcohol during any family gatherings.

One way to ensure that celebrations are safe is to make sure that there is no alcohol of any kind on the premises – before you return home. If this hasn’t been done, it’s best if you leave the home while your family members gather up all the booze and get it out of the house and off the property. You simply can’t have alcohol around – especially if you are in recovery for a problem with or addiction to alcohol.

If your addiction was to illicit or prescription drugs, or other addictive substances or behaviors, you still can’t have alcohol around. Many recovering addicts have gone through treatment for one type of addiction – say, cocaine or marijuana – and substituted alcohol upon their return home. Many recovering gambling addicts are also addicted to booze and drugs. Better to abide by the recommendations of your counselors and have the house clean of all addictive substances – including alcohol.
You may need to have a discussion with your family members about the importance of maintaining a “clean” house. Some people think that, after a few months, they can return to having alcohol in the house, or smoke a joint in your presence without it causing a problem. You need to inform them in a firm but gentle way that this cannot happen. Enlist their support in helping you in your recovery.

Non-alcoholic beverages are easy enough to include in family celebrations of your milestones. Once you have your family’s understanding and support, celebrating at home should be safe and problem-free.

How to Deal With Nightmares, Cravings, and Anxiety

Let’s face it. Recovery can be tough. Some of the worst times are at night. Instead of sleeping peacefully and getting the rest you need, you may be plagued by nightmares, awakened with powerful cravings, or suffer with bouts of anxiety. Each of these is disturbing enough, but what if you have them night after night? What can you do?

First, discuss the situation with your doctor or therapist. You may be prescribed a medication to help counter anxiety or depression. You may need additional counseling to help you uncover what’s causing the nightmares, or learn a few more strategies to dealing with cravings and urges that rouse you from your sleep. If you are prescribed medication, take it only as directed by your doctor. Report any side effects immediately so that the medication can be changed, dosage altered, or eliminated, as required.

Insomnia is a frequent occurrence for some in early recovery. It often depends on the type of addiction the individual had, or combination of addictions. Some drug and alcohol addictions leave the person more prone to insomnia than others. After speaking with your doctor and therapist about your inability to sleep, it’s important that you acknowledge that you still have some things to deal with that perhaps you have still buried in your subconscious or don’t want to recognize. These are things you will need to work on in continuing therapy. If you don’t, they’ll just keep resurfacing and cause you more problems in your recovery journey.

It’s been mentioned that cravings and urges typically last about 20 minutes or so. Getting past this barrier involves using several different techniques at different times, depending on how well they work for you.

• Distraction – One popular technique involves distracting yourself with an activity. Get busy doing something that involves concentration, such as working a crossword puzzle. When your mind is on searching for the appropriate word, you are distracted. You aren’t thinking about the urge or craving. Before long, 20 minutes will have passed and the craving will be gone.

• Repetition – Some in recovery find it helpful to organize things, to engage in counting or reciting the alphabet backward and forward. Anything that’s repetitious – even mowing the lawn in a rectangle, diagonal, or other repetitive patterns – will suffice. This again involves some concentration, thinking about what you’re doing, striving to adhere to the pattern. Again, time will pass and the craving/urge will dissipate without much trouble.

• Physical Exercise – Get your body’s natural endorphins in gear by engaging in vigorous physical exercise. Do sit-ups, push-ups, run in place, get on the exercise bike, or take a brisk walk in the neighborhood. Since some of your cravings and urges may occur in the middle of the night, you may be wise to limit your physical exercise to inside the home. But cravings and urges happen anytime of the day or night. And physical exercise is an excellent way to banish them – and benefit your physical well-being in the process.

• Talk with a Friend – Sometimes all you need to do to get over the craving is to talk with a friend. Hopefully, this is a close friend, family member, or 12-step group member who understands what you’re going through. If none of these is available, call your 12-step sponsor. He or she has committed to being there for you when you need support, and while you’re having cravings and urges certainly qualifies. By the time you’ve talked for a little while, the cravings and urges will have disappeared – or you’ll be better equipped to deal with them.

• Ride it Out – Recognize that cravings and urges are bound to occur. But that doesn’t mean that they’re a sign of weakness or lack of willpower. It isn’t your fault that they occur, and you can’t stop them from happening. What you can do is realize that they only last a brief amount of time, and you will be able to ride them out. Just knowing that they aren’t a permanent fixture in your existence and that you will get better at dealing with them should be enough to give you comfort. Beyond that, talk with your therapist and 12-step group members about how else you may be able to combat cravings and urges.

Establish Goals and Refine Your Plan

Once you have a few weeks of recovery, it’s time to get out your recovery plan – the outline you put together in the final phase of your active treatment program. If you didn’t attend a formal treatment program, now is the time to put together a recovery plan. What does a recovery plan consist of? It’s basically a roadmap, if you will, or a plan for how you want your future to unfold.
Included in your recovery plan are the short-term things you want or feel you need to accomplish. This may be getting a job, searching for a new job, getting back into your existing job, working toward achieving a promotion, obtaining financing for school, restructuring your debt, paying off medical bills, and so on. Your recovery plan should also include long-term goals: buying a house, getting a degree, having children, becoming financially stable, having a stable personal relationship, and so on.

Needless to say, both short- and long-term goals involve interim steps, or stages, that you need to successfully complete before you can move on. As you think of them, put them into your recovery plan. Think of this as a breathing, changing document. Nothing is set in stone. As you progress in your recovery, you will find that your interests, as well as your wants and needs, will change. So, too, will the number and variety of opportunities and challenges that come your way. Nothing is static. Everything changes.

The secret to a successful recovery plan is your ability to remain flexible, to recognize and incorporate new opportunities as they become available, and having the discipline to use your recovery plan as a helpful guide to your future in recovery.

Become Resilient

Think of the damage hurricane winds do to trees. Buffeted relentlessly, many established trees are uprooted or break, unable to withstand the force. In contrast, more flexible saplings may be able to bend and bounce back. They are more resilient than their rigid counterparts, the elder trees. Using this analogy – and not that you are an elder, inflexible tree – your recovery can be more effective if you learn to become more resilient.

Instead of caving under pressure or mounting stress, learn how to let such things bounce off you. Recognize that every day brings challenges. Some of these are easily overcome, while others may tend to weigh you down for a time. Don’t promise more than you can reasonably deliver, especially in early recovery. Accepting too many assignments or asking for more work to make up for lost time may only result in you becoming frustrated or depressed when you can’t meet the deadline or need more help.
Being resilient also means you don’t allow things other people say to hurt you or deter you from your recovery goals. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but what others say and do is not your responsibility. You do not need to absorb their words and allow negative emotion to well up in you.

Live in Integrity

Of course, you do have to be responsible for your own actions and words. In this regard, what you do and say has a lot to do with how resilient you are. Think before you act or say something. Envision the possible outcome. Will what you are about to do or say result in something beneficial or harmful? Make your decision accordingly. Your actions and words have meaning. Make them honest, thoughtful, kind, and from the heart. This is living in integrity.

Find Joy in Every Day

You’ve been given a gift. You have a second chance (or third or beyond, as the case may be) to live. Look at each day as an opportunity to learn and build and grow in recovery. There’s beauty and love all around you, if you choose to see it. Find the joy in every day. Be thankful for all the goodness in your life, in what you have been able to change about yourself, in the things you are doing now and plan to do in the future to bring about serenity, peace, and love to you and your loved ones.

Discover the Value of Hope

When you were in your darkest hour of addiction, you may have lost all hope. It was probably difficult to get through a single day, let alone have any plans for the future. All of that is in the past. Today, you have your entire life ahead of you. Looking forward to the kinds of goals you want to accomplish entails having vision – and hope. If hope is a word that’s foreign to you, now’s the time to discover it. Make hope part of your life. One way to do this is to look forward to something in the near future. Make your plans as to how you will get ready for that day or event or activity. Every day that passes, keep track of your progress toward that goal. With each step forward, you will have a little more excitement, a little more anticipation. This is how you discover the value of hope.

Accept Love

In recovery, it’s more than just paying attention to goals, learning and practicing coping skills, restructuring your life, making plans, finding the joy in life and having hope. You also need love. That may be extremely difficult for those in recovery who feel that their past addictive behavior makes them unworthy of love. This simply will not do. Get over it. You are not defined by your addiction. Who you are now and who you choose to be from this day forward is all that counts. Granted you will have some amends to make, but that does not mean that you cannot have and give love.

You need to learn that you are loveable, and that you can love in return. For some, this will mean the love of family. Others will find platonic love. Many will give and receive love of the more intimate kind with a prospective or existing partner or spouse. To give or receive love means that you have to learn how to love yourself first. Once you love you, then you will be able to give from your heart and love others. It’s as simple and basic as that.

Love in recovery is a powerful boost to being able to live a life of sobriety. In fact, love is one of the best-kept secrets to an effective recovery. In the end, love – while it may not be all we need – is certainly one of the most satisfying elements in recovery.