Lives in Recovery

Category: Alumni

  • Recovery Talk: What Does Living In The Solution Mean?

    Recovery Talk: What Does Living In The Solution Mean?

     

    Even when you come out of the pit of your addiction, there’s no guarantee that you are home free from all pain and suffering.  There’s nothing you can do but just try to endure any suffering that may come your way because let’s face it – life is beautiful but it can also seem like one big, complicated mess.  It’s a paradox because events can arise that seem senseless, hurtful, and downright unacceptable.  As an alcoholic and/or addict, you cannot be the one declaring these circumstances as passable according to your own judgement because ultimately it’s not up to your own authority.  The reality is that living in the solution and maintaining the feeling of an overall sense of contentedness is reliant upon living in the solution, which is central to practicing acceptance.  Who would you be to deem any person, place, or thing as unacceptable?  You cannot be criticizing the handiwork of all else.  This thinking ostracizes and segregates the world around you to create unnecessary buriers.  No matter how long or short the length of time you have spent in recovery, it can be extremely helpful to be continually reminded about how to live in the solution so that you can pull yourself out of self-involved, self-piteous, and selfish thinking that leaves you susceptible to relapse.

    Living In The Solution

    Try Your Best

    An addiction can leave you feeling stuck as you strive to understand how obsession took such a hold of your life, but coming out of it allows you the ability to work on yourself through the process of recovery.  A program of recovery can show you as a recovering alcoholic and/or addict that even on the hardest, most challenging days when you know there’s nothing you can do over circumstances you are facing because you are powerless over the situations, it’s still okay.  You don’t have to use any type of mind-altering substance over it.  Even on days that you may fall short and slip into one or more of your defects of character, you still have the ability to pick yourself back up, get connected with another individual in recovery, and continue to just try to better yourself.

    Easy Does It

    Living in the solution also focuses on the positive as much as it gears you as an alcoholic and/or addict away from any notion that is directed on the problem.  It wouldn’t be far-fetched to presume that the problem has been glared at most of your life while you have spent a majority of your time critiquing on elements in the world.  Sometimes there’s nothing you can do except for take a step back and stop looking at what you think needs to be changed in the world so that you can focus on what needs to be changed within yourself.  It’s easy to look on the outside where everybody else, every place, and everything is, only to give a harsh critique.  It’s more difficult to see that the true area of opportunity is really in you.  Accepting the world as it is can help you find peace with it so that you can function throughout your day.  When you can live and let live, you will find that you are able to be calm in the day and your emotions don’t have the tendency to flutter all over the place or spoil your relations with others.

     

  • Importance of Sharing with Others in Recovery

    Importance of Sharing with Others in Recovery

    Everybody has hectic days, but when you as an alcoholic and/or addict have an unconventional and manic occurrence during the day, matters can quickly escalate to intense extremes.  When you’re recovering from an addiction, sharing with others is important because it can stop the heat of the moment and break the ice between people by allowing connections to unfold.   It’s only through being authentic and honest with one another that individuals can move forward, especially when it comes to alcoholics and/or addicts in the process of recovery.

    Related: 7 Reasons Why Connection With Self and Others Is So Important

    Sharing with Others

    The benefits that stem from sharing with others in recovery are great.  When you as an alcoholic and/or addict can begin opening up about the details of your life, a connection can develop.  Addiction leaves its sufferers clinging to substances and trapped in isolation.  The disease of addiction wants alcoholics and addicts to think they are alone, so they can cower away in their misery to stay sick and suffering in self-pity with their ailment.  Mind games can easily ensue and complicate their mind.  However, relief can be found when you as the alcoholic and/or addict reach out and are able to communicate with another who genuinely understands what the thoughts rolling around throughout your alcoholic and/or addict head are like on a regular basis.  When you don’t speak with others, you get stuck in your own head with your own thoughts and it’s too simple to get stuck playing the victim.  You can get left feeling like you’re all alone and have nothing to offer the world when this couldn’t be more false.

    Providing meaning in life

    Sharing with others doesn’t have to be limited to meetings at Twelve Step fellowships and can additionally occur as appropriate throughout the day.  By being able to stop what you are doing and take the time to listen to someone else and provide personal feedback, you contribute your share to the relationship you hold.  This will get you outside of your own head long enough to be removed from your own selfish and self-seeking thoughts.  An alcoholic and addict mind can get extremely self-centered, but when they are sharing with others, the defect is reversed.  Building real and fulfilling relationships can provide meaning and make living worth the while.  Now that you are sober, able to keep your word, and life has become far more manageable, developing and maintaining steady relationships may have become noticeably less complex for you.  Having relationships is essential in life because they provide connection and compassion in a person’s life.  You may notice how when you are active in sharing with others, you become present in the moment and forget about the tasks at hand.  The typical daily functions cease to be important and you can be there as a support and provide advice.  You can be involved in the conversation and come alive by responding.

    Help Others

    When you are sharing with others, you allow yourself to be vulnerable and become willing to be open to trusting others with intimate details that make up aspects of who you are.  Beginning to share portions about yourself can help tell about your testimony and allow you to better understand yourself.  It’s important that you are adamant about sharing with others in recovery, as well as professionals, family, sober supports, and your sponsor about how you are doing with your recovery as well as just communicating as normal.  Communication is a key focus point for maintaining any relationship because it allows for both parties to get an understanding of one another and whether their needs are being met.  

  • Staying Sober During Christmas – Infographic

    Here are some simple suggestions to help you stay clean and sober this Christmas.

    Please feel free to share our Staying Sober During The Holidays Infographic.

  • Recovery Talk: What Does Living In The Solution Mean?

    Recovery Talk: What Does Living In The Solution Mean?

     

    Even when you come out of the pit of your addiction, there’s no guarantee that you are home free from all pain and suffering.  There’s nothing you can do but just try to endure any suffering that may come your way because let’s face it – life is beautiful but it can also seem like one big, complicated mess.  It’s a paradox because events can arise that seem senseless, hurtful, and downright unacceptable.  As an alcoholic and/or addict, you cannot be the one declaring these circumstances as passable according to your own judgement because ultimately it’s not up to your own authority.  The reality is that living in the solution and maintaining the feeling of an overall sense of contentedness is reliant upon living in the solution, which is central to practicing acceptance.  Who would you be to deem any person, place, or thing as unacceptable?  You cannot be criticizing the handiwork of all else.  This thinking ostracizes and segregates the world around you to create unnecessary buriers.  No matter how long or short the length of time you have spent in recovery, it can be extremely helpful to be continually reminded about how to live in the solution so that you can pull yourself out of self-involved, self-piteous, and selfish thinking that leaves you susceptible to relapse.

    Living In The Solution

    Try Your Best

    An addiction can leave you feeling stuck as you strive to understand how obsession took such a hold of your life, but coming out of it allows you the ability to work on yourself through the process of recovery.  A program of recovery can show you as a recovering alcoholic and/or addict that even on the hardest, most challenging days when you know there’s nothing you can do over circumstances you are facing because you are powerless over the situations, it’s still okay.  You don’t have to use any type of mind-altering substance over it.  Even on days that you may fall short and slip into one or more of your defects of character, you still have the ability to pick yourself back up, get connected with another individual in recovery, and continue to just try to better yourself.

    Easy Does It

    Living in the solution also focuses on the positive as much as it gears you as an alcoholic and/or addict away from any notion that is directed on the problem.  It wouldn’t be far-fetched to presume that the problem has been glared at most of your life while you have spent a majority of your time critiquing on elements in the world.  Sometimes there’s nothing you can do except for take a step back and stop looking at what you think needs to be changed in the world so that you can focus on what needs to be changed within yourself.  It’s easy to look on the outside where everybody else, every place, and everything is, only to give a harsh critique.  It’s more difficult to see that the true area of opportunity is really in you.  Accepting the world as it is can help you find peace with it so that you can function throughout your day.  When you can live and let live, you will find that you are able to be calm in the day and your emotions don’t have the tendency to flutter all over the place or spoil your relations with others.

     

  • How to Remain Open to Suggestions

     

    As an addict and/or alcoholic beginning your recovery, you may not be open to suggestions.  It’s not unordinary to begin shutting down due to the stubborn nature of your disease.  Trying to find the willingness to listen to sober supports that have been where you are and understand the feelings you’re going through can benefit you.  It’s imperative to be open-minded enough to hear what others have done in order to do what they did and get what they have – a life in sobriety that’s happy, joyous, and free.

    How to Be Open to Suggestions

    It may sound absurd for an addict and/or alcoholic like yourself to even be considering being open to suggestions from another person.  You probably never thought you would do anything recommended by someone else.  Active in addiction, you made the rules because you were living in your own world.  Now that you’re in recovery, it’s time to see the world does not revolve around you.  Being open to suggestions is an integral part of this.  It doesn’t mean you have to strictly follow everything you hear from your newfound sober network.  Suggestions are simply defined in the dictionary as “ideas put forward for consideration.”  They are strong recommendations from people who have gone through what you are currently going through!  If you really feel strongly compelled not to take the suggestion, then wait on it.  Nobody is forcing you to take the suggestion.  All that’s asked is that you are open to suggestions and willing to make the effort to at least thinking about trying some of them.

    If nothing changes, nothing changes

    The reality behind not being open to suggestions is that if you don’t make any changes in your life at all, then nothing will change.  You should ask yourself if you are striving toward creating a better, positive, and sober life for yourself.  If you truly want this and wish to change, maybe it’s time to start listening to sober supports that have implemented changes in their life as well as professionals and begin the recovery process so you can have a positive change too.

    Left to your own devices…

    It’s unfortunate to face the truth in that your best alcoholic and/or addict thinking brought you into recovery for addiction.  Left to your own devices, you aren’t in the best frame of mind!  You should always be getting a second opinion from sober supports, your sponsor, and/or professional team.

    Change occurs

    When you become willing to take risks like being open to suggestions and putting in the effort to take action by committing to some, then true change can begin to take place.  This is where the miracle of recovery begins to unfold.

    Consider it building strength

    By allowing yourself to be open to suggestions of others in recovery, you are giving yourself permission for improvement.  Don’t think of it as you being weak or subjecting yourself to being pushed around.  Start viewing open-mindedness as the positive attribute it is because it provides you with the ability to become a stronger person.  Consider that the more you work on putting the suggestions of others into motion to see if they benefit you, the better the outcome will be for you living at peace in your recovery.

    Being open to suggestions doesn’t have to be viewed negatively.  Alcoholics and addicts can typically misinterpret the phrase for a demand when the reality is that they are words of advice from other alcoholics and/or addicts who have knowledge based on their own experience.

    More: Drop The Rock – Removing Character Defects

     

  • What To Do When You Grow Apart

     

    By working a recovery program for an alcohol and/or drug addiction, you can develop meaningful and genuine friendships along the way.  However, it’s unfortunately not unusual when friends made in recovery go separate ways with their program into unhealthy environments as time goes on.  It may be a struggle for you as an alcoholic and/or addict as you wonder how to deal with this situation.  Although the friendship may be important to you, protecting your own sobriety needs to be top priority.

    Growing Apart

    Dealing with friends in recovery who go separate ways with their program can be hard for you as an alcoholic and/or addict.  In the beginning, you may have been working a strong program and met friends in recovery through a 12-step fellowship, transitional living environment, or rehabilitation facility that you entered.  These recovering individuals may have been ambitious about their sobriety with you at one point but now you may be finding they aren’t willing to put in the effort to do their step work, get to meetings, contact their sponsor or sober supports, share at meetings, or do their daily chores.  When there isn’t willingness and character defects begin to come out, it can be an early warning sign for trouble.  This can mean the individual doesn’t want to take a look at themselves and that they aren’t ready to commit to change.  If they aren’t ready for change, then they aren’t going to grow.  This makes it likely for them to revert back to former behaviors they should realize no longer suit them.

    Setting Boundaries 

    When your friends in recovery go separate ways with their program into an unhealthy mindset and you feel it may cloud your judgement, a good suggestion may be to set boundaries with your friend.  Limit yourself to only being with your friends if it is going to be at a 12-step meeting or at a sober event.  This can reassure you that the conversations you will be having with your friends will be guided to a solution of recovery while leaving you in a safe environment.

    Understanding & Acceptance

    A huge aspect to grasp about recovering from an addiction to alcohol and/or drugs is that individuals heal at their own pace.  Recovery doesn’t happen instantaneously but rather occurs gradually as a process by alcoholics and addicts trudging through the work.  As they begin to work on themselves, more information is exposed to them about themselves, other people, and the world.  It’s important to realize each alcoholic and addict has their own walk in recovery.  When friends in recovery go separate ways, it doesn’t mean one individual is greater than or less than the other but rather they are each on their own journey.  It may take longer for others to grasp if they truly want to recover from their disease, then they simply cannot cling onto past ideas and negative behaviors any longer and must let go completely.

    More: 5 Stages Of Growing Apart

     

  • How To Build A Sober Support Group

     

    When you’re in recovery from an addiction to alcohol and/or drugs, building a support network can be an essential part of the recovery process.  Individuals who are struggling with an addiction may realize how necessary of a role this plays when they need to turn to a strong group of encouraging people in their life to maintain their sobriety during times where difficulty, frustration, and confusion plague them.  Finding a team that is understanding, supporting, empathetic, and empowering can prove to pull a struggling person along the way as they ask necessary questions to keep themselves in accountable to spot check.  Someone who is unsure about their disease of addiction may need to work on building their support network, especially so they don’t end up running on self-will due to being directed by their own poorly conceived notions.  This may require them to be vulnerable and put themselves out there in their program of recovery so that they can meet other sober individuals in order to be authentic with them when reaching out for a substantial support network.

    Building A Support Network

    A support network can play a prominent part when it comes to having changes occur in the recovering addict and/or alcoholic’s life because it can provide them with the necessary supplementary aid when they feel most insecure and uncertain.  Recovering individuals are given the opportunity to turn to real people instead of resort to substances for a temporary and artificial form of release.  They will find that they know they can depend upon these people for a real mutual trust instead of depend upon a substance which will only wind up controlling them instead.  Sobriety brings many gifts to the recovering individual, including a support network of genuine relationships as the individual is able to gradually learn how to build and maintain them through the process of recovering.  It can be challenging, uncomfortable, fearful, and downright strange at first, but a support network is much like getting sober in that it is a process.  It is also composed not just of people that a recovering individual sees in their program of recovery but also of people that the person trusts and can reach out to for suggestions.  Family and friends can be included in the group.  Being authentic with one another allows this care and responsibility to be further enhanced.  Each time the individual meets with them, they may find they can divulge more about themselves and listen to difficulties they may be dealing with in their life too.  Trust becomes a mutually built and shared bond among these relationships.  The process of building a support network doesn’t just provide the recovering individual an important recovery tool to use but additionally teaches them how to effectively develop and sustain relationships with other people in their lives.  This is a crucial building block for an addicted individual to learn.

    Home group, sponsorship, and regular meetings

    A 12-step program can provide a great support network for recovering alcoholics and/or addicts.  By attending a home group, getting a sponsor, working the 12 steps with a sponsor, and going to meetings on a continual basis, an individual may gradually see that they have accumulated a support network by just adhering to this on a consistent basis.  When recovering individuals keep up with a program, they become accustomed to the people they surround themselves with.  In doing this, recovering individuals are more likely to hear an impacting message of recovery, take gratifying suggestions, and empower others to strive for aiming onward in their sobriety.

    Contacting family and reaching out to loved ones

    Because addiction is a family disease, it impacts more than the alcoholic and/or addict.  When the recovering individual can branch out and learn to communicate more effectively, they may find a helpful support network in their family members.  Being able to reach out to loved ones can be extremely helpful during the process of recovery because the support can pull an individual through the hardship when they are dealing with confusion and suffering.  Sometimes a simple hug or holding a hand can mean more than knowing the right words to say because the disease of addiction can be insidious enough to make the individual feel alone.  It’s vital that sufferers know they are not alone in their suffering.

     

  • How to Talk to An Addict and/or Alcoholic When You’re Early in Recovery

    How to Talk to An Addict and/or Alcoholic When You’re Early in Recovery

    When you’re early in recovery, you may wonder how to talk to an addict and/or alcoholic who also deals with the same disease you do.  It’s natural and normal for you as an addicted individual to feel uncomfortable about reaching out to other recovering individuals.  You’re only going to get better by being authentic with others and communicating with sober individuals to see what they did to get where they are with their sobriety.  Learning how to break the ice and work up the courage to speak to addicts and/or alcoholics when you’re in early recovery can be a valuable lesson to gain insight on.

    How to Talk to An Addict and/or Alcoholic

    Communicating with recovering individuals can involve more listening than speaking.  When it comes to how to talk to an addict and/or alcoholic during early recovery, these two roles for communication are prominent.  Listening is a vital part of communication because more can be gained when the information the other party is communicating gets relayed and fully comprehended.  Afterward, a response can best be formulated when you pause and take time to think before reacting so the response can come from the heart.  This is how true communication can ensue, which is important when addicts and alcoholics are particularly connecting on an authentic level about their common bond: their disease of addiction and/or alcoholism.

    Shift your thinking and get out of the victim role

    An addicted individual in early recovery may feel compelled to talk about their day with other addicts and/or alcoholics.  When early in recovery, it’s common to unfortunately focus on the negative and play the victim.  Instead of slipping into this mindset, you can redirect your thoughts by asking for help.  You don’t have to list every area that went wrong when you share during a meeting.  State you are struggling and need help but willing to take suggestions to get better.

    Being mindful of love and tolerance

    Having conversations with addicts and/or alcoholics can get complicated because addicted individuals are known for being overly sensitive.  Whether they’ve been in recovery for a short or long period of time, it’s important to be conscious of treating them with dignity and respect.  Pausing and considering how they would react can be a smart tactic for conversation.  Consider the Golden Rule, which is where each person should do what they would want done to themselves.

    Identify, don’t compare

    Addicts and alcoholics shouldn’t compare themselves to others but should identify because although there are parts to each individuals stories that may sound extremely different, the feelings are truly similar due to the common bond behind the nature of their disease.  The simple fact that addicted individuals are unable to stop the cycle of their addiction once having abused the initial first substance holds the foundation for an understanding amongst one another.

    If you are wondering how to talk to an addict and/or alcoholic because you’re in early recovery for an addiction, don’t be nervous!  Move beyond the fear.  When you reach out, YOU are helping recovering individuals more than THEY are helping you.

    If you feel like your friend is suffering from addiction, you are not alone. Contact us now on how you can get them the help they deserve.  

  • Are Young Alcoholics Judged Coming Into the Rooms?

    What’s the deal with young alcoholics anyway? Can you really be an alcoholic before turning the legal age to drink? Entering recovery, it can be scary because you may wonder what others think about you, especially older alcoholics. You may feel judged by them easily and feel stigmatized, feeling less than because you are younger, often forgetting the common bond of alcoholism, the nature of the disease, the fact that you are all sitting in that room for one common reason – the fact that you all became addicted to alcohol and were powerless over the ability to stop drinking on your own.

    Young Alcoholics

    It isn’t uncommon to have a bundle of irrational and illogical fears when first walking into the rooms. Feeling judged is a typical fear that strikes many newcomers – young and old. In fact, it’s safe to say that many young alcoholics sober up and find themselves in denial of their alcoholism. “But I’m too young to be an alcoholic,” are common phrases heard in the rooms. There is nothing like judgment of one’s own self to lure an alcoholic back to picking up the bottle and then heading them right back to active drinking. That is the insanity of the disease of alcoholism right there perfectly demonstrated. When you are drinking and find you cannot control the quantity, you may be suffering from alcoholism.

    Alcoholism Is A Disease

    The main concept to grasp about alcoholism is that it is a disease. Alcoholics work to recover from damage they have created and rectify any harm caused. Age may be a characteristic, but it is not a qualification for alcoholism. When a recovering alcoholic can help another fellow alcoholic or even just reach out and share one another’s experiences, they are able to connect on the basis of that one major common bond: the nature of the disease of the addiction to alcohol. In fact, Page 17 of Alcoholics Anonymous otherwise referred to as the Big Book, states, “The feeling of having shared in common peril is one element in the powerful cement which binds us. But that in it would never held us together as we are now joined.”

    Want to learn more about young alcoholics and young people in AA? Click here!

    If you are struggling with alcoholism, there is hope, contact The Watershed today.

     

     

     

  • How to Enjoy A Sober St. Patrick’s Day During Recovery

    How to Enjoy A Sober St. Patrick’s Day During Recovery

     

    The first sober St. Patrick’s Day during recovery can be tricky for a recovering alcoholic when booze seems to be both left and right. Understanding how to enjoy the holiday without picking up a drink and instead focusing on partaking in commemorating the holiday appropriately can make all the difference for you this year.

    Tips for A Safe, Fun, and Sober St. Patrick’s Day

    Now that you’re not actively drinking alcohol this year, what can you expect from a sober St. Patrick’s Day? The holiday may be different and you may get extremely overwhelmed at times. Dealing with these arising emotions can seem to get tough, but being aware of these feelings is an important component that will allow you to be present during the day. The first major step of the day comes in this awareness because if you spend the day shutting off your feelings and staying in denial by cutting off how you feel, you prevent yourself from allowing yourself to be honest with what you really feel. Know that it’s okay for you to be angry if you’re upset about being unable to spend the holiday how you have in prior years this year. Maybe you are used to spending the festivities with family and may be upset because you can’t actively be partaking in drinking endeavors. Try to shift your focus on the fact that now you can actually be present with loved ones instead. Remember that life isn’t contingent upon the substances but rather on the substance of living and being genuine with others. Life has true meaning and value now because you aren’t putting an artificial substance in your body. You are putting real substance in your life now! What could be more meaningful than this in your life? Rejoice in the true spirit of a sober St. Patrick’s Day by celebrating with your loved ones and spending time with them. Instead of living in your head and replaying memories of the past where you were drinking to celebrate the festivities for a reason you probably didn’t even you realize you were drinking over, you can now actually focus on matters that are important.

    Tips for maintaining sobriety

    Try to plan out the day. Preparation can be helpful because it can give you comfort by allowing you a plan to fall back on. When you have a guide set up to fall back on, you may be more inclined to be eased through out the holiday. Whether you make plans with family and friends for later in the day to go out to a nice sober St. Patrick’s Day dinner, watch the town’s parade, or venture off to a celebratory Irish festival, you will know that you already have the day set up in advance. When the day isn’t set up, you risk leaving yourself susceptible to getting into trouble. You may find that you want to get involved in activities you used to, like going off and scavenging at bars or downtown at the parade to partake in binge drinking. Impulsive and reckless behavior is known for popping out on holidays when the day isn’t planned out with at least some ideas set out in mind, which is why it is important to remember that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

    Remember that sobriety is a full-time job and wherever you go, there you will always be! Days like St. Patrick’s Day may come around once a year to stir up some issues in life, but try not to get too distressed over the day. A sober St. Patrick’s Day should be about having a good time with friends without you focusing too much on the alcohol and/or drugs that tore up your life in the past. Don’t let it cause mental turmoil in your life now. Shift the focus on what you can do for others now by sending a positive message of impact on how great your life is now that you are without it.

    Do you know someone who is still going through a hard time because they are unable to put the drink and/or drug down? Contact The Watershed for help today and provide them the hope they long for so they can achieve the sobriety they are yearning for in their life. Call today because their life depends on it.