HOW TO AVOID RELAPSE AND QUIT DRINKING FOR GOOD

Transcription

1 HOW TO AVOID RELAPSE AND QUIT DRINKING FOR GOOD PATRICK MENINGA 3

2 Contents Dry Drunk Syndrome... 1 Identifying dry drunk syndrome... 1 Strategies for overcoming dry drunk syndrome... 2 Action items what you can do:... 4 How to Stop Drinking... 5 The perceived benefits of drinking... 9 Reasons to stop drinking Quitting drinking and your lifespan Quitting drinking and the quality of your life Stop drinking too much alcohol, or quit entirely? If you can t stop drinking now Stop binge drinking How to Live Without Drugs and Alcohol Using a program of recovery as a guide for living The subjective program of recovery So back to the question: How do I live without drugs and alcohol? About the Author Get Help for Addiction Now

3 Dry Drunk Syndrome 1 Dry drunk syndrome is a term that refers to someone who is not drinking or using drugs but they have already relapsed emotionally. If someone is a dry drunk it basically refers to the fact that they are not actively working on their recovery, and therefore they might just as well be drinking although they have not technically done so yet. So basically: Dry drunk = relapse mode. It is often characterized as being restless, irritable, and discontent. Anyone who is in this state of mind is headed for trouble unless they can somehow pull themselves out of it before they pick up a drink. Identifying dry drunk syndrome It all starts with self-awareness. This is critical because if you simply storm through your life and your recovery without paying close attention to your own emotional state then chances are good that you will at some point be knocked off balance and thus risk relapse. So we have to 1

4 pay attention to our own emotional state and occasionally take action to correct it. How quickly do we always recognize when we are getting restless, irritable, and discontent? You might think that we can identify these states instantly but they can creep up on us sometimes. Therefore we must make a conscious decision to recognize these emotional states and catch ourselves when we think we are going there. Now there are some things you can do once you realize you are sliding into this emotional state but if you never even realize it in the first place then these things will do you no good. So you have to be aware of when things start sliding out of control. How can you practice this? By simply paying attention. Become aware of it and watch it happen in yourself. Notice it. This is a huge part of the solution and in fact it is almost the entire solution. Simply become more self-aware and tune in to your own emotional state. Recognize where you are at throughout the day. Strategies for overcoming dry drunk syndrome 1) Self-awareness - Like I mentioned above, simply increasing your self-awareness is a huge part of this process and can work wonders. The more mindful you can become of your own emotional state, the more 2

5 protected you will become against becoming overly off balance. 2) Networking - If you are restless, irritable, and discontent, find someone who is even worse off than you are and then help them through it. This might sound ridiculous but it absolutely works. One of the best ways to do this is to regularly work with newcomers in recovery. When we reach out and help others we actually help ourselves. When we reach out to others and calm them down emotionally we are actually calming ourselves. When we teach others the way to emotional balance we teach ourselves. When networking with others in recovery becomes a habit then this creates a safety net. This is why 12 step programs recommend daily meetings. If you are plugged in to this type of networking every single day then it can help protect you from becoming too far off in your emotional balance. 3) Action based recovery one of the worst ways to fight dry drunk syndrome is to do nothing. If you don t do anything to try and actively correct your emotional state then you run the risk of letting it progress into a true relapse. Essentially a dry drunk has already relapsed emotionally and is one step away from the bottle. So the key is to pull yourself out of the emotional relapse. How can this happen? 3

6 Action. It is purposeful action that will make a difference in this case. Don t think that you can sit around and wait for the solution to come to you. It won t. You have to get out there and create your recovery. Remember that it is our natural state for addicts and alcoholics to be using drugs and alcohol. This is our normal behavior and we will return to it eventually unless we take action to do something else. For me, that something else that we need to do in recovery is to create a meaningful and purposeful life of sobriety. This doesn t happen while sitting on a couch. You have to have vision and you have to chase your goals and you have to get out there and do stuff. Find your passion and take action. Action items what you can do: 1) Tune in to your emotional state so that you are aware if you are acquiring dry drunk syndrome. 2) Make a habit - of helping others in recovery as protection against relapse. 3) Focus on action in recovery don t do nothing. 2 4

7 How to Stop Drinking Far too often, the traditional wisdom for how to stop drinking is plagued with useless relapse prevention tactics that try to pinpoint our problems and triggers in helping us to prevent relapse. My experience has shown this to be ineffective. Better than tactics for recovery are strategies. Strategy is more useful because it is more encompassing and can affect larger areas of our lives, in such a way that we can affect massive change. Using tactics is more short term and leads to smaller, more incremental changes. In addiction recovery, we need massive change. We need to change everything. Strategies are the way to do that, because they give a broader sense of guidance for all of our actions and decisions. Strategy #1: Take massive action If nothing changes, nothing changes. The scope of what you are trying to do (quitting drinking) is truly massive. You are trying to change your whole life. This takes a huge effort. Do not underestimate it. Go big or go home. Strategy #2: Blast through your denial 5

8 See your drinking for the crutch that it really is. Honestly see how it controls you and dominates you, even though you enjoy it. Measure your time spent being happy while drinking, and notice that you are almost always miserable, but hanging on to happy memories of drinking. Strategy #3: Seek professional help Alcohol detox can be dangerous. There are huge benefits to inpatient treatment. Seeing a counselor or therapist can be a turning a point. Getting any form of help is action, which is always good. Strategy #4: Build real self-esteem This is the strongest form of relapse prevention: if you truly value your life, you will not throw it away on a relapse. Take care of yourself. Push yourself to grow. Help others. Strategy #5: Pursue holistic health Recovery is about living healthier. Extend this in new directions to enhance your recovery from addiction. Quit smoking, start exercising, make nutritional changes, seek emotional balance, etc. Strategy #6: Create a new life 6

9 You have surplus time and energy now that you are in recovery. How will you use this surplus? Find outlets that match your talents and strengths, while allowing you to help others and create real value in life. Experience growth. Strategy #7: Seek balance as you progress Watch out for extremism. Recovery is about living, not about recovery. Balance growth and acceptance. Stay active in pursuing new things. Stay open to growth opportunities. Strategy #8: Push yourself to grow Do not get lazy in recovery. Do not justify laziness with self- acceptance. Do not close the door on selfexamination. If you stop growing, you relapse. Strategy #9: Get physical Fitness is huge in recovery. Most people disregard fitness due to inherent laziness. Push yourself to exercise regularly and reap huge benefits. Some recovery programs are based on exercise alone that is how powerful it is. Strategy #10: Embrace gratitude 7

10 If you are truly grateful, relapse is impossible. Gratitude is the mindset for learning and growth experiences. Practicing gratitude enhances recovery and leads to more learning and thus more growth. Strategy #11: Avoid complacency Our natural state is to be drinking. Therefore, we have to keep pushing in order to avoid reverting to our natural state. We can only do this through the push for personal growth. Seeking holistic health gives us a broad platform for growth experiences. Strategy #12: Explore a new vision Take action first, then reflect on how it has helped your recovery. Seek growth based on your strengths. See how you can use this to help others. Start becoming the person you were always meant to be. Strategy #13: Discover your purpose Your vision made real. Helping others in a profound way based on the personal growth you have experienced. Achieving dreams that you once thought were blocked forever by your drinking. True contentment and joy. Stop drinking today.how many reasons do you need? As a recovering alcoholic, I know that this is a difficult decision. Even though there were a million reasons for me 8

11 to stop drinking, I had a million reasons why I should continue. These reasons of mine to continue drinking were because of something called perceived benefits. The tricky thing is that there are some real benefits to drinking alcohol for most of the adult population. But for the true alcoholic, those benefits are largely illusory, and become less and less valid as their disease progresses. In other words, an alcoholic might cling to the benefits of drinking, rationalizing that these are important reasons for them to continue to self-medicate, but in reality those reasons are no longer valid, and they are just fooling themselves. This is called denial. The perceived benefits of drinking The perceived benefits of drinking will be a bit different for different people. Just to give you an idea, here is what I thought alcohol was doing for me: 1) Fixed my shyness Before I started drinking, I was naturally shy and found it difficult to speak in groups larger than 2 or 3 people without any anxiety. Alcohol fixed this. The problem is that, even though alcohol fixed this, it was not a viable long-term solution to the anxiety problem. This is because my tolerance increased and I had to drink more and more in order to overcome my shyness. Eventually it stopped working altogether, and I would 9

12 remain shy even in a complete blackout. But I stubbornly clung to the idea that I had to drink in order for this personality flaw to be corrected. 2) Celebration and passion for living - I believed that life was a party, and that you were not celebrating life unless you were living it up and getting wasted every day. Somehow I believed that the only way to live passionately was to drink heavily. These ideas were obviously from the good old days when drinking was still fun, and hanging onto this illusion was just another part of my denial. 3) Drinking = happy I truly believed that the only way that I could be happy in this life was to be drunk. This was a twisted mindset. I really looked down on other people who didn t drink and pitied them that they were not able to get happy like I was. The truth of the matter was that I was miserable for 99% of the time, and it was a rare moment when I could find the right level of toxicity where I could even claim to be happy in my drunken stupor. So these were my main benefits of drinking. I call them perceived benefits because this is what I truly believed, but looking back we can see that I was in denial about my drinking and therefore I was only fooling myself. These benefits were illusions that I clung to; they were actually false 99 percent of the time. 10

13 The denial exists because alcohol used to work as described. At one time, these perceived benefits were real, and my life was not screwed up yet from excessive drinking. In other words, there were some good times that I had with drinking, and my mind stubbornly clung to those ideas. This is just one mechanism of denial. All of these perceived benefits became false as my alcoholism continued to progress, but my denial kept me from seeing the truth. When you really analyze the perceived benefits of drinking, it almost looks like a belief system. I had established the idea firmly in my head that alcohol was wonderful and those who did not drink it were missing out in life in a big way. I really believed this. Not only that, but I believed it at a very deep level and it had become part of who I was. So in spite of these perceived benefits, eventually we have to see the illusions for what they are and break through our denial. It is only then that we can have any hope at even caring about a reason to stop drinking in the first place. But once we become the slightest bit open to the idea, the tide can turn, and we can start to get excited about a sober life again: 11

14 Reasons to stop drinking We can separate the logical reasons to stop drinking into these broad categories: 1) Longevity of life 2) Quality of life Pretty basic, right? Alcoholism can affect how long you live, and also the quality of your life. So let s take them one at a time: Quitting drinking and your lifespan Obviously, if you are an alcoholic, then quitting drinking will greatly increase your potential lifespan. But by how much? To answer that question, we have to look at some statistics. I ll spare you the charts and data and summarize it for you: most alcoholics die about 15 to 20 years earlier than their peers. Now the question is: How much is 15 to 20 years of your life worth to you? This question is actually fairly deep and complicated, because the answer can change so drastically depending on your state of mind. For example, a miserable drunk will usually brush the question off entirely, waving his hand and saying 12

15 whatever. Take me right now if you want! That is the miserable desperation of addiction talking. Now if we manage to sober this person up and get them involved with a creative new life in recovery, their answer will likely change quite a bit (I know mine did!). Life becomes precious in recovery. And of course we are just talking about numbers and percentages here you might be able to continue to drink and still live a very long time. But the odds are against you. It s not just the direct effects of drinking that can kill you. For example, guess what the number one killer of recovering alcoholics is? Lung cancer. In other words, it s not just the booze that will kill you.it s the lifestyle that gets us in the end. Not to mention drunk drivings, accidents, slip-and-falls, alcohol poisoning, liver damage, and so on. With alcoholic drinking, there are a million ways to die. Problems compound as the lifestyle becomes increasingly more dangerous. It s a progressive disease, so the risks increase for both the direct effects of alcohol, as well as for lifestyle deterioration. In other words, as time goes on, our drinking takes us to new lows and to do things we said we would never do. All of this steadily increases the odds of our untimely demise. Luckily, there are a million ways to stop drinking as well. 13

16 Quitting drinking and the quality of your life The discussion so far as focused on how long we will live if we drink alcoholically. But lets take a look at what it does to the quality of our life. There are a number of ways that drinking impacts the quality of your life: 1) Overall health Not only will heavy drinking reduce your lifespan, but it also has the potential to bring on any number of diseases, disorders, and ailments. 2) Alcoholics are more susceptible to other drugs which can have devastating effects on your life as well. Many people pick up new habits while they are drunk. 3) Alcoholics are several times more likely to be cigarette smokers - which, combined with drinking, can really have devastating health consequences. 4) Risk of suicide is determined by studies to be over 5,000 times greater in alcoholics than in that of the general public. 5) Social effects Alcoholism negatively impacts divorce rates, domestic violence, job stability, and so on. 6) Mental effects Alcoholism contributes to depression, anxiety, and in the long run can result in ever more serious mental conditions, some of which might 14

17 eventually be permanent Is there a Stop drinking pill? There is a medication called Campral that can help with cravings, but it is by no means a magic bullet. People who rely on the pill to fix their alcoholism are going to be very disappointed. There is no magic cure and you have to put forth a tremendous effort in order to get sober aside from simply taking a pill like this. But, it can be helpful, and so any alcoholic should consider talking with their doctor about medications like Campral that might be one piece of their recovery journey. Stop drinking too much alcohol, or quit entirely? Some people think that they might be able to regulate their drinking instead of quitting entirely. If this works for you, then that is great! Moderate your drinking. But an alcoholic is defined by their inability to do so. Eventually you may have to get honest with yourself and realize that you cannot control your drinking consistently. Denial is the trap that you can control your drinking some of the time. If you hang on to those successes, but ignore the train wreck that is your life, then you are in denial. If you can t stop drinking now 15

18 If you try to stop drinking now but find that you cannot do it on your own, then ask for help. Call up a local treatment center and ask them what you need to do in order to get into treatment. They will lay out your options for you and help you to get funding so that you can get the help you need. Pretty much anyone who is persistent can find some resources to help them with their problem, it is just a matter of putting in the effort and the footwork that is necessary to get the ball rolling. Stop binge drinking If you are a binge drinker then you may be fooling yourself that you do not have a problem, when in reality you need to stop just as bad as anyone else. The binge drinker is a special kind of alcoholic, but they are still an alcoholic. They may go for long periods of time without drinking any alcohol at all, but when they do drink, they go on long binges and usually spin out of control completely. Just a different flavor of alcoholic, but one that still needs help in order to change their life. Problem: an active alcoholic does not care about this stuff So here is the real challenge: even when posed with a vast list such as this as to why a person should stop drinking, 16

19 most active alcoholics could care less. The problem is that they are depressed, suffer low self-esteem, and cannot bring themselves to care much about their own wellbeing. In other words, you could promise them the world if they would just quit drinking, and they will politely decline and go back to the bottle. They just don t care. Now I know this because I have been there before. And eventually I got to a place where I wanted to care, but I still could not bring myself to do it. I was stuck as a miserable drunk. I could not figure out how to stop drinking alcohol. The breakthrough for me came when I decided to give sobriety a chance. Perhaps this was divine intervention. I had tried to achieve sobriety in the past but it had not worked, so I was extremely skeptical. But for some reason I was miserable and tired enough to give it another shot. This is the balancing point. This is that tricky area of surrender that a drunk has to find their way to. It is a fine line. You are just miserable enough to want to stop drinking, but at the same time you are 2 seconds away from saying screw it and going to get another bottle. 17

20 This is why I think surrender to the disease of addiction might be divinely inspired. It almost seems impossible for an individual to find their way out of the alcoholic trap. If you want to know how to stop drinking, here is my number one suggestion to you: Ask for help. Really. That s it. Start with that, and things should start falling into place. It is possible to learn how to stop drinking on your own, but it is pretty tough 18

21 3 How to Live Without Drugs and Alcohol A struggling addict or alcoholic might ask: How do I live without drugs and alcohol? The proposition can be mind-boggling for someone who is still caught in the grip of addiction. Typically, the addict or alcoholic cannot even picture their life and what it would be like without self-medicating with drugs and alcohol. Furthermore, even if they could imagine such a life without chemicals, most of us do not want such a fairy tale existence. The idea of sobriety repels us, because we imagine that we will be miserable without our drug of choice. I know this because I once stood at this very jumping-off point: baffled by how I had become so dependent and miserable using drugs, but unable to picture a positive life for myself in the future. So how do we strip away the drugs and alcohol, how to we manage a life with this apparent emptiness that is sobriety? First of all, that emptiness that is so dreaded by the newcomer is nothing but a huge mountain of fear (one that is paper-thin, to borrow a great quote). It is only by walking through this fear and giving your new life in 19

22 recovery a chance that you can begin to understand how that emptiness without drugs and alcohol was nothing more than an illusion, and anyone who stays the course in recovery will reap the rewards of a rich and full life. Understand, however, that you probably cannot convince a struggling addict or alcoholic of this. They must accept it on blind faith that their life will get better.just as I did. Using a program of recovery as a guide for living They say that recovery is an action program. This is absolutely the truth. You can see evidence that any recovery must be an action-based program when you start looking at the success stories and comparing them to the countless people who tend to relapse over and over again. The main difference can always be measured in terms of action and follow-through. The people who relapse often talk a good game. But that doesn t keep anyone sober. Living without drugs and alcohol requires action on a daily basis, and that means discipline. Why discipline? Because the actions that carry you through each day sober have to be repeated, over and over again. That means you need to find and carefully evaluate what works for you in maintaining sobriety. 20

23 A program of recovery (such as the 12 step program) is supposed to be an objective set of guidelines to instruct recovering addicts and alcoholics on how to live their life on a day-to-day basis. Now this is all well and good, and can certainly help many people to live without drugs and alcohol. But remember that a program of recovery is nothing by itself, it only becomes useful after an individual interprets it. And after it is interpreted, it is no longer objective. It has now become part of that person s direct experience. The subjective program of recovery Each program of recovery, regardless of who is working the program or what steps they are following or what book they are reading, is subjective. Any program of recovery must be first interpreted by an individual and then implemented in that person s daily life in order to be effective. In the beginning, we have to be told what to do, and how to stay clean. There are a number of programs out there, and an infinite number of interpretations of those programs. But we come into recovery in a sad state, out of control and afraid to even make decisions about our own lives. We know that we are beaten and that we need help. As we grow in recovery, we start to see that the program that we have been following all along has several 21

24 interpretations. There are many winners in recovery: people who have achieved a meaningful, long term sobriety. And among these winners, we see that their exact implementation of recovery varies by quite a bit. For example, there are winners in recovery who never meditate. Some of them have never even tried. They might pray to a higher power, or find meaning within a spiritual group, or do other things that they consider to be spiritual exercises, but they never meditate. This is not good or bad, it simply is. On the other hand, there are winners in recovery who base their entire lifestyle around meditation. They are meditation fanatics, and this becomes their core spiritual practice. It becomes a lifestyle for them. Is this good or bad? Of course not.it simply is. The point is to illustrate that recovery programs are truly subjective. They are not etched in stone and only open to a single interpretation. Just look at the wide variety of success stories in recovery so many different people, achieving meaningful sobriety in so many different ways! Don t shy away or be afraid of this diversity, as it is cause to celebrate. This brings hope for the addict or alcoholic that thinks they will never fit in to a recovery program. 22

25 So back to the question: How do I live without drugs and alcohol? There is a great saying around the tables of AA: Take what you need and leave the rest. This is to be taken literally as sound advice. You have to find your own path in recovery. No one can show you the exact way, because so much of the journey is about introspection and finding out who you are and who you are supposed to be becoming (i.e. what God s real work for you is). Yes, you are on a journey, and you re going to have to navigate at least some of it on your own. Others can help you with much of it, but in the end, you will find your own path. Everyone eventually finds their own path this means that they can look back at their recovery program and say yes, I can see now how I tailored these ideas to fit in to my life. And it worked for me! Good luck to everyone out there who is working a program of recovery. Don t be afraid to find your own path. 23

26 About the Author Patrick Meninga is the Editor-in-Chief of Spiritual River and an Intake Specialist at a Drug Rehab in Michigan. He has over five years of experience working directly with recovering addicts and alcoholics and has been sober himself for over a decade. Patrick actively writes on the web about addiction and has contributed over one million words to try and help others find a path in recovery. His main focus is on personal growth as a strategy for relapse prevention. He believes that staying clean and sober can be done without a formal program of recovery, but rather through personal motivation and the push to grow in a holistic manner. He has published several ebooks available for free download on the web at 24

27 Get Help for Addiction Now Addiction is a disease that takes many forms. Studies show that one in every ten Americans is affected by addiction to substances. Addiction can be extremely dangerous and potentially life-threatening if not treated immediately. The road to addiction recovery takes immense strength, courage, support and guidance and should not be undergone alone. Getting help for addiction is crucial and should be done with patience, encouragement, and support. Spiritual River partners with Transformations Treatment to assist readers through live chat and phone help. The caring, professional Transformation staff use a variety of approaches based on individualized treatment plans. Counselors are dedicated to helping clients understand the roots of their addiction. Experienced, licensed and credentialed professionals are dedicated to obtaining the absolute best results possible for every client. Transformations Treatment follows up treatment with a world-class aftercare program. If you or a loved one is struggling with addiction, call (888) to learn about how you can begin your journey to recovery. 25