From the top of the 1980s hair band rock scene, to the rock bottom of drug addiction, Steven Adler, formerly of rock’s legendary band Guns N’ Roses, talks openly in his autobiography about drug addictions and fighting his way toward recovery.
Read more about Rock Legend Steven Adler’s Autobiography Cites Peer Influences for Drug Addiction
Drug addictions don’t just take their toll on the addict. These addictions can have a huge impact on the addict’s inner circle of family and friends as well. Many of these individuals struggle to live healthy lives themselves because they are so consumed with the health of the addict. Groups like Families Anonymous are helping many family members cope with what can seem like the loss of a loved one.
Read more about Families Anonymous Offers Support to Families of Drug Addicts
The power of addiction is deep-seated. It is so strong, that it may cause an otherwise, sweet and innocent individual to become a completely different person. It can push someone to prostitute themselves for drugs. Some struggling to overcome addiction will steal money from family or friends in order to get their next fix. Many will take advantage of those they care about because the urge to use is so intense.
Recovery from drug or alcohol addiction is a step by step process, often marked by success and then a relapse. Experts are studying the role of stress on cravings, and how cravings can trigger a relapse, in hopes of finding ways patients can manage the underlying factors that set them up for a fall as they are working toward recovery. Findings are pointing toward stress as the primary factor in relapse, and may even link biological processes related to stress to substance cravings.
Read more about Connections Between Stress and Substance Cravings Continue to Emerge
With a name that can raise eyebrows, the fellowship of Cocaine Anonymous continues to promote abstinence and recovery for thousands of members across the globe. Like other 12 Step-based programs, the members of Cocaine Anonymous (C.A.) gain strength from a shared struggle and commit to assisting other people as they recover from the addiction.
Read more about Cocaine Anonymous Unites Recovering Addicts’ Stories
Sexual abuse and addiction are a double whammy. Which came first can seem irrelevant in the scheme of things when it’s your life under consideration. All you know is that you have a world of hurt, and it’s easier to escape in booze or pills or shooting dope than to face the horrid reality that your life currently is. Even if you try to kick your demons to the curb, the nightmares sicken you so much that you run back to the safety and sameness of your drug-induced calm. No wonder it’s so difficult for those with sexual abuse and addiction to either want to change or be able to change their lives – let alone find love in the aftermath.
Read more about Finding Love after Sexual Abuse and Addiction
Healing in recovery requires paying attention to many different things, and nutrition is right up there at the top of the list. In fact, eating right can help speed recovery by giving your body the essential ingredients it needs to maintain or restore energy, elevate mood, and keep vital organs functioning at optimal levels.
But what constitutes eating right in recovery? While having access to a dietician could be helpful – and may be offered as part of an addiction treatment plan – you don’t have to be a dietician to figure out how to eat healthy. In essence, if you follow the basics, you’ll be doing your body a great service – and aiding in your recovery.
Use the Food Pyramid as a Guide
The basics in nutrition are easier to follow if you use the food pyramid as a guide. Offered through the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the new food pyramid makes use of healthy diet recommendations. These include:
• Emphasis on fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and fat-free or low-fat milk and milk products
• Includes lean meats, poultry, fish, eggs, beans, and nuts
• Low in trans fats, saturated fats, cholesterol, sodium (salt), and added sugars
Other food pyramids include the Asian Diet Pyramid, Latin American Diet Pyramid, Mayo Clinic Healthy Weight Pyramid, Mediterranean Diet Pyramid, and Vegetarian Food Guide Pyramid. While they all differ, they each emphasize limiting sweets and salt, substituting healthy plant fats in place of trans fats and saturated fats, increasing consumption of plant foods – including fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, reducing intake of animal foods – which are also a natural cholesterol source.
Whole Grains
Grains are an essential part of healthy eating, and whole grains are better for you than refined grains. Grains are good sources of complex carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals, and they’re low in fat. Whole grains contain more fiber and are better sources of important nutrients such as selenium, potassium, and magnesium.
You can find whole-grain versions of pasta, rice, flour, cereal and bread at almost any grocery store. Whole grains include: barley, brown rice, buckwheat, bulgur (cracked wheat), millet, oatmeal, popcorn, whole-wheat bread/pasta/crackers, and wild rice.
Always look at the label to ensure it says “whole” and that grains are among the first ingredients listed.
Read more about Nutrition in Addiction Recovery: How Eating Right Helps You Heal
One of the most worrisome aspects of completing addiction treatment and going into recovery is the thought that you may not be able to get your life back. With all the coping mechanisms and knowledge about your addiction fresh in your head, you wonder if your life will be anything other than a dreary and monotonous routine of attending meetings, avoiding people, places and things that trigger using, and leading a nondescript and boring existence. It is true that your new life of sobriety requires careful structure and maintenance. The good news, however, is that you can get your life back in recovery. Here are some tips to help you get there.
Set Your Resolve
You know all about making a decision that may be the toughest one you’ve ever made in your life. You went through that process before you went into treatment. It took a lot of courage – some would say guts – to admit you had a problem and accept treatment. Your genuine commitment to achieving sobriety is a testament to your ability to set your resolve.
Now that you’re in early recovery, you need to set your resolve again. This time, however, you’re resolving to do something positive with your life. To begin with, you only need to instill this thought in your mind. You resolve that you will put forth your best effort to achieve the kind of future that you decide is the path you want to follow. Included and inherent in this resolve is the type of lifestyle that embodies clean and sober living.
Resolve too that you will seek to find the answers to questions that may appear too difficult. Resolve that you will not cave at the first sign of difficulty, or when your emotions threaten to do you in and cause you to relapse. Resolve that you will seek help and support when you need it, instead of being too proud or afraid to ask.
Define Your Goals
Now that you’ve resolved that you will do something positive with your life, you need to define your goals. Having a future that you chart for yourself is probably something that you gave up on long ago, believing that you were somehow unworthy or that anything you really wanted was impossible. Now that you’ve overcome your addiction and are in early recovery is the perfect time to re-examine long-buried hopes and dreams. Resurrect those childhood scenarios of the future when you imagined yourself trekking off to the Himalayas or discovering a cure for cancer or becoming a dancer or having your own business or… You get the idea. Dust off the cobwebs from your childhood dreams and see if there’s something there that you can or want to build on now.
While you’re looking at the kaleidoscope of possibilities running through your mind, jot down on paper anything that jumps out at you as something really exciting or that has promise. It doesn’t matter at this point if it’s only a passing thought. If it intrigues you, that’s something to look closer at later on. Right now, you’re just capturing the essence of what interests you.
For some, defining goals is all about making statements about what they want to achieve in a certain time period. Goals can be short-term or long-term or anywhere in between. In fact, it’s always good to have a mix of both. Short-term goals can be interim steps in pursuit of long-term goals. If your goal is to obtain a college degree, for example, short-term goals would include successful completion of individual classes, semesters and years. Goals can be tangible, such as the purchase of a home, or intangible, such as the satisfaction and love of having children and caring for your family.
Getting your life back in recovery necessitates defining your goals. You can’t move forward with any sense of resolve or purpose if you don’t have goals. So, set your mind to it now and write down your goals.
Make a Plan
Now that you have a few goals written on paper (or in a computerized document), you need to do some more work to help you jumpstart your journey to achieving them. This entails making a plan.
You will need a plan for each of your goals and some plans will be more involved and detailed than others. If your goal is to buy a house, your plan would include accumulating sufficient savings for a down payment, applying for and obtaining a home loan, making an offer to purchase a home, going through the mortgage process all the way through closing, and finally moving into your home. Each step along the way toward achievement of your goal involves following a plan. Much research and hard work will likely be required. Again, some goals will involve more work and take longer to achieve than others.
It isn’t necessary when you begin making your plan that you have all the answers. No one ever does. But when you do think of points that pertain to your plan, jot them down.
Take Action on the Plan
If you make your plan but never take any action, it’s a little like the greatest story never told. But more than that, if you fail to act on your plan, you’ll fall into the trap of never getting your life back in recovery.
Having a plan implies that you do something with the plan. You need to act on it. Your plan to get a college degree (undergraduate or graduate) means you need to enroll in college, obtain financial aid, if necessary, sign up for classes, buy textbooks and other required course materials, attend classes, do homework assignments, take exams, and keep going for each semester.
It’s important to note here that follow-through is critical to the success of any plan. Being in recovery, you know that staying on top of your schedule is something you need to pay attention to.
Along with taking action on your plan, be sure to factor in your recovery needs as well. You don’t want to get so involved in plans and goals that you neglect the important steps in your recovery. In fact, your recovery needs very much to be a part of your action plan, since your overarching goal is sustained recovery. A recovery plan is probably something you worked on in the final phase of your active treatment. Most recovery plans include regular attendance at 12-step group meetings. Make sure you adequately parcel out your time so that you always have room in your schedule for your 12-step meetings. This is one of the most effective ways to help you get your life back in recovery.
Network Like Crazy
With your accumulated knowledge about your addiction and knowing that you have to steer clear of people, places and things that prompt you to use, you’ve no doubt already moved away from problematic relationships. Loneliness in early recovery can be a particularly troublesome emotion. The only way to guard against loneliness – which can easily sabotage recovery – is to make new friends. How you make new friends is to network like crazy.
Start with your 12-step group meetings. There are many different group meetings that you can attend, and there’s nothing that says you can’t attend as many as you like. In fact, until you find a particular group where you feel most comfortable, you’ll probably switch around your meeting attendance quite a bit. Eventually, you’ll settle on one meeting group and this one will become your “home” location, the one you return to weekly – no matter how many other meetings you attend elsewhere. In your home group or the other groups, there are countless people with whom you may find you share things in common.
Acquaintances may become friends. Even if you just listen to the stories of other group members, you may find that you learn something that can help you – in your sobriety, to overcome emotional difficulties, something that pertains to your plan or goals.
Your 12-step sponsor can really prove useful to you throughout your early recovery when you are in the process of getting your life back. Bounce ideas off your sponsor. Ask for feedback. Your sponsor will provide the kind of support and encouragement that you can’t get anywhere else.
Other areas to network include school, work, and recreational and sports venues. As you pursue your goals and carry out your plan, you will come into contact with dozens of people. This offers you endless opportunities to widen your circle of friends. Your expanding network may even lead to additional avenues with respect to your long-term goals.
Get Out and Socialize
Beyond networking, it’s important that you take time to socialize. This is being with friends for the pure sake of enjoyment. It’s not about finding someone who can help you get a promotion, or secure a better interest rate on a loan. You need to exchange conversation and laughter in the normal course of human interaction.
Some individuals in early recovery retreat into a self-imposed isolation, thinking that they need to punish themselves for their past misdeeds. They may also feel that they need to hide themselves away for fear that they may not be able to withstand the temptations of being out in society. Both are ineffective. While residual guilt, shame and remorse may still be prevalent, it’s important that you work through these negative emotions. Do so with your counselor and 12-step sponsor. But do get out and be with friends. Don’t let the fact that you’re a bit rusty hanging out with others who aren’t drinking or using keep you from making the attempt. It will get easier the more often you do it. And who says you have to be the most scintillating conversationalist? Just be yourself. Put your best foot forward. Be open and honest (but don’t spill your guts about your past to every person you meet) and the rest will fall into place naturally.
Pay Attention to Family
Your most important allies – next to your 12-step sponsor and fellow group attendees – are your family members. Perhaps your addiction led to strained relationships with one or more family members, or you may feel saddled with guilt over the pain you’ve caused a partner, children, or others in your close family. Part of your plan to get your life back in recovery has to involve rebuilding these critical relationships.
Even if your family stuck by you through your darkest days of addiction and through treatment, they still need – and deserve – your love and presence in your recovery. Now, in fact, is the most appropriate time to begin to share with them how much their support and encouragement has meant to you. You’d be surprised at how important this kind of acknowledgement can be when expressed to those who love you and whom you love.
After your own needs in recovery, your family should come first. Always pay attention to family. It is another essential part of getting your life back in recovery.
Analyze Achievements
As you move along with your plan, coincident with working your 12-steps in recovery, take some time periodically to analyze how far you’ve come. Look at the achievements you’ve made in the past 3, 6, and 9 months. In terms of your sobriety, attaining your 30-day, 3-month, and 6-month chips, and one-year medallion are terrific achievements that should be high on your list.
Refine Your Plan as Necessary
You may find that you’ve discovered a niche area where you’ve excelled, despite having no prior realization that this was something that really interested you. Being tops in your class in foreign languages or math or science, for example, may lead you to want to pursue other classes in this area. You may even wish to change your major, or add this new field of study as a minor.
Things happen in the pursuit of goals that require alteration of plans. Some goals open up new avenues that may prove more desirable.
Be flexible enough to modify and refine your plan as necessary. Remember that recovery is a lifelong journey. How you get there is very much a matter of being true to yourself and following your dreams. If that means altering your course to include discovery of new things, then that’s all the better. It means you are in charge of your life and firmly rooted in recovery.
Read more about How To Get Your Life Back In Recovery from Addiction
With an estimated 10 million young people addicted to alcohol or substances, according to recent data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), it may be logical to conclude that America’s future is in peril. It is true that addicts who do not get treatment are likely to not only remain addicted, but to get progressively worse. And many young people don’t get treatment for a variety of reasons, not the least of which are stigma, cost, fear, lack of access, and length of time required. Some express fears that treatment won’t do any good. But hidden among statistics is the very real story that recovery is possible for young people who are addicted.
Addiction Starts Early
Research shows that the earlier a person is introduced to harmful substances such as alcohol and drugs, the greater the likelihood that they will experience problems such as dependence and addiction later in life. Armed with statistical data from numerous governmental sources, the very real concern is that young people are starting to accelerate drinking and drug use earlier than they have in the past.
While psychologists, researchers, and treatment professionals debate the many and varied causes of addiction (genetics, family history, environment, peer pressure, curiosity, and so on), the fact is that availability of alcohol and drugs in society today makes it too easy for young people to get their hands on harmful substances. Kids being kids, they’re incredibly tempted to try something new – even if that something is bad for them.
It starts early, and usually with inhalants. Studies show that inhalants are often the first drugs that children experiment with. Inhalant abuse, called huffing, involves behavior where the child inhales deeply, gets high, and continues the habit. Doing crafts, painting, getting involved in various school projects, the child comes into contact with glues, spray paints, aerosols, markers, whiteout, polish and polish removers, keyboard cleaners, and other products. They may like the smell and initiate use on their own, or they and may imitate their friends who engage in huffing.
Inhalant use usually starts by age 13 and peaks by the 8th grade (age 17). The National Institute on Drug Abuse published data from a study which found that 17.3 percent of 8th graders have abused inhalants before. Inhalants are also now considered a gateway drug to other types of drug use.
In contrast, use of alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, ecstasy, and other drugs usually peaks by the 12th grade.
For many young people, however, the drugs of choice fall in the following order:
• Alcohol – Most young people who do use substances use alcohol.
• Marijuana – Running a close second to alcohol, marijuana use is high among young people.
• Prescription drugs used nonmedically – This is the most rapidly-growing segment of new use with high and increasing numbers of new users coming into the treatment system that used prescription drugs they obtained from relatives or friends.
Factors That Put Youth at Risk
Various factors put our nation’s youth at risk for using substances. These include:
• Underlying mental health issues
• Environmental factors, especially in a community where drug use is highly supported
• Drug use in the home by other family members
Why Young People Use Drugs
A typical scenario of a young person’s introduction to drug use may go something like this. Being around friends and/or family members who consume alcohol and finding it readily available, the adolescent – around age 13 or 14 – starts to drink. He or she thinks it makes him or her feel accepted, a part of a peer group, or believes that it helps alleviate anxiety, fear, and to deal with issues of fitting in. Next, the young person gravitates toward marijuana, which is typically easier to obtain than alcohol when a person starts developing a habit. Many young people find marijuana stashes in their parents’ cabinets and drawers at home, and it’s inexpensive enough to get among their friends who may have a dealer. Pretty soon, drinking and drugging becomes a normal way of life for the young person, who may develop an addiction to one or more of these substances.
Delving into heavier pharmaceutical drugs – prescription drugs and opiates (painkillers) used nonmedically – will ultimately result in negative consequences. The young person may become involved in accidents, fights, get arrested for driving under the influence (DUI), start failing in school or have other school-related problems. Medical health issues may start to surface or get worse, exacerbated by drug and alcohol use.
Often, parents don’t have a clue that their son or daughter is using and abusing drugs and alcohol – until it’s nearly too late.
What Parents Should Look For
Parents need to pay attention to what’s going on in the lives of their children. First of all, parents are the primary influence on the attitudes and behaviors of their children. If parents drink and do drugs – or express tacit or unspoken approval of such behavior in others – they can expect that their children will adopt the same types of attitudes and beliefs.
If their son or daughter starts hanging around with a different group of friends at age 15 or 16 than the ones they’ve had since they were pre-teen (around age 10 or so), this should be a clear sign that something is going on that may be a concern.
Addiction counselors who treat young people also recommend that parents go into their children’s bedrooms and take stock of what’s there. Look for drug paraphernalia, check to see what’s changed in the rooms. What kind of change should parents look for? If your child was formerly conscientious about picking up and making the bed, for example, and now the bedroom is a veritable pig-sty filled with food debris and other detritus, this is one sign that something may be awry. What would cause a child who prizes neatness and cleanliness to suddenly become careless about his or her surroundings?
Without being overtly nosy or acting suspiciously, parents should listen to what their children are saying to their friends, on the phone and in the house or elsewhere. Is their son or daughter becoming paranoid or secretive about their computer use? One solution is to remove computers from the child’s bedroom and keep it in a room where the family congregates. There’s less likely to be inappropriate computer activity in an area with mom and dad and other siblings nearby.
Protective Factors to Help Keep Children from Using Drugs
When children are very young and begin school, parents are often involved in their activities at school and outside the home. They may attend parent-teacher meetings, or go to their child’s dance recitals, science fairs, and school concerts through elementary school. By the time the child reaches junior or senior high, however, many parents feel the teachers are better equipped to handle whatever needs their child has, or the parents’ lives are too busy to continue active participation, or they think their child no longer needs such support. Look around at high school sports events and concerts and very few parents are in attendance.
In the community, parents should watch out for their own children as well as the children of others. Never let your child come home alone from school, day after day. If parents can’t physically pick up or meet their child getting out of school, arrange for someone else to do so – someone trusted. There are also after-school programs and programs at community centers between the hours of 3:00 and 7:00 p.m. that can provide healthy activities for children. It’s during these hours that children who are left to their own devices frequently get into trouble.
What Parents Can Do When They Discover their Child is Using Drugs
First of all, parents shouldn’t engage in denial over their child’s drug use. Avoid thinking that drug and alcohol use can’t be going on in your own home, right under your eyes, or thinking that it couldn’t possibly happen to your son or daughter. It does happen, and all the time. Statistically speaking, adolescents experience drugs and alcohol in one form or another, having been exposed to it at school, through friends, family members, or others.
When parents find out their child is using drugs or alcohol, there are two typical scenarios. One scenario is that there’s an open line of communication in the family and parents immediately try to address the issue with their children. Another is that parents dish out punishment and feel they’re done with the problem. Obviously, the punish-and-forget-it tactic is less effective. This is not to say that there shouldn’t be consequences for drug and alcohol use. There definitely should be appropriate discipline for repeated infractions. But punishment alone will not solve the problem. It may even make it worse.
Even with open lines of communication – such as the safety call home if a child calls the parents from a party and requests to be picked up – children may not want to tell their parents about their drug or alcohol use. They may fear getting grounded or loss of privileges (the appropriate disciplinary tactics), or they may not want to disappoint their parents. Still, parents need to encourage their children to talk with them openly about their feelings, what’s going on that trouble them, and parents also need to listen without being judgmental and critical when their children do confide in them. While this won’t solve problems, it does pave the way for the family together to work on solutions to the problems.
Treatment Programs and Services for Addicted Youth
Treatment facilities that specialize in providing programs and services for addicted youth are the best bet for getting help for young people with problems of drug and alcohol use. Parents and concerned others should look for facilities that treat adolescents and young adults, and that offer a full range of services. These services should include some or all of the following:
• Comprehensive assessment
• Personalized treatment program
• Gender-specific treatment available
• Evidence-based treatment (such as cognitive-behavioral therapy, or CBT)
• Substance abuse counseling
• Mental health therapy
• Psychiatric treatment
• Educational programming
• Medical treatment with appropriate professionals (pediatricians, etc.)
• Family therapy
• Working with young people on an in-patient and outpatient level
• Use of different approaches tailored to young people’s needs
Ideally, during the active treatment phase, the young person in treatment can learn to look at things in his or her behavior that needs changing and begin to work on those issues. Key components of treatment include identifying triggers to using, developing healthy coping mechanisms to use when feelings of anger, fear, sadness, and stress occur, and talking with others in a supportive environment conducive to healing.
A huge part of recovery for addicted young people comes about as a result of their interaction with other addicted youth in treatment. A young person may become so practiced at denial and self-justification that he or she can say anything to parrot what they think a therapist or counselor wants to hear. But when young people talk about their problems and issues in group therapy, it’s hard to pull the wool over the eyes of their peers. These young people have built-in radar that instantly identifies truth from falsehood. They call each other on their self-denial.
Recovery Schools are Another Option
The option of a recovery school may be the most appropriate form of treatment for addicted young people. These are schools that offer academic and recovery support for addicted young people and they are becoming more widely available. Currently there are recovery schools in 8 states and collegiate recovery schools in 9 states.
Recovery schools can provide the academic support for young people in early recovery, and help them to make the transition into long-term and sustainable recovery. Embedded support, such as coaching for subjects the student may have been failing in, mental health support, support for addiction recovery, relapse prevention support – all these are essential to help the young person reduce the number of days using and increase long-term abstinence from alcohol and/or drugs.
Recovery Requires Family Support
Successful recovery for an addicted young person is heavily dependent on family participation throughout the process, whether the child attends a treatment facility only or a concurrent or subsequent recovery school. Research shows that young people who have strong family involvement and support have higher rates of recovery those whose families do not participate.
What many parents fail to understand or acknowledge is that there is a great deal of shame and guilt over the fact that their child uses alcohol or drugs. They can try to deny it or sweep it away, but the feelings are still there. And they fester if they’re not dealt with. Treatment professionals say that addiction is a family disease. What this means is that it isn’t just the addict that suffers. Everyone in the family suffers as a result of addiction by one or more family members.
In the family component of treatment, family members learn about addiction. They learn that they are not the cause of their child’s addiction and there is no fault or blame that should be passed around. During family treatment, parents and other siblings learn how their behaviors and attitudes can be changed to be more conducive to their child in recovery. Healing the entire family is the objective of family therapy – but principally to allow them to be effective in providing support and encouragement to their child in recovery.
Community Coalitions Offer Important Support
Another area where parents can find support is through community coalitions. There are over 1,000 such community coalitions in the U.S. today, about a handful in each state. These coalitions consist of people in a community coming together for a common goal. The purpose of these community coalitions is to help connect people to services, to help restrict the availability of drugs and alcohol in the community, to strengthen laws and policies and to ensure enforcement.
How do you find community coalitions? Go to your state’s office of behavioral health, alcohol and drugs, or mental health and obtain a listing of community coalitions.
The Road to Recovery Begins with the First Step
Recovery is possible for young people who are addicted. It is often a difficult and painful decision for parents to make to get their child into treatment and to follow through by becoming educated themselves so they can be fully participating in their child’s recovery efforts, but the results are well worth it. Instead of ruined lives, young people who are addicted who get treatment and have the benefit of family support can go on to realize a life filled with hope and promise.
While they may go into treatment because their parents demanded it, if they fully commit to the program and see it through, they have every chance of experiencing a successful recovery.
No, recovery won’t happen overnight. It will take time, dedication, and a lot of hard work. But recovery is possible. The sooner treatment begins, the sooner recovery can get underway.
Read more about Recovery Is Possible For Young People Who Are Addicted
If you’ve been going along in recovery for quite some time, you probably feel secure in how well you’re able to handle whatever life throws at you. That’s a good thing, and a sense of self-confidence that all addicts in recovery strive for. Then, let’s say, out of the blue, you’re hit with an urge that’s so overwhelming, so powerful, that you feel like you’ve been slammed in the gut. You don’t know what hit you. Worst of all, you feel powerless to stop it. Here’s what to do when cravings resurface.
Don’t Panic
First and foremost, don’t panic. While it’s natural to feel upset – since you’ve been doing so well for so long – you can’t let it get to you. Cravings are insidious. Just when you think these urges are long past and no more a threat to you than being struck by lightning, they rear up and shatter your composure. The key to dealing with cravings that come out of the blue is to recognize that it’s happening, but that you’re not going to let it cause you to do something to undermine your recovery. Instead of panic, replace those feelings with self-confidence. You’ve come a long way. You’ve dealt with cravings before. You’ll do it again.
Assess the Situation
Take a look at what immediately preceded the onset of the cravings. Were you involved in an activity or around people who may have served as triggers? Did you see something on TV, or pass billboard advertising, or hear sounds that jumpstarted the urge? Was there an argument at home with your spouse or family member? Have you been stressed at work, suffering from medical problems, or overwhelmed by financial or other burdens? Have you recently experienced an emotional setback, physical trauma? Did you recently lose a loved one or become estranged from a relationship?
While a single one of these may not cause a resurfacing of cravings, a combination of them may, indeed, bring them on. You never really know for sure, but by analyzing what transpired just before the cravings occurred, you’ll get a better handle on what to do about them.
Look at Your Strategies
Remember, way back in the past, how you used to deal with urges and cravings? You probably still have some of the strategies written down or in a handbook somewhere. Drag it out and go over your list. See what worked the best for you then. Maybe you can utilize some of them now. Coping mechanisms that worked right after treatment may need to be beefed up or altered to take into account your circumstances now. Or, conversely, simple coping mechanisms that once worked may work just as well now.
Perhaps you allowed yourself to get a little lazy. You may have put yourself in the position of being around drinkers or users, thinking that you could handle it, since it had been so long since you used. Now you know that was a mistake. It’s time to get back on the self-discipline track in order to stay on the clean and sober path.
Enlist the Support of Your Network
This is what your 12-step support group is all about. Your sponsor and fellow group members have all pledged to help each other and themselves in time of need. Call on your sponsor as the most appropriate person to counsel you – or listen to your story – and talk with other group members as you feel appropriate. They’ve all been in this situation before. Some of them have been through cravings and urges on many occasions. Certainly, there’s strength in numbers. The group support and encouragement may be all you need to weather this unexpected return of cravings.
While you’re getting yourself back into your comfort zone of being able to deal with cravings, you may want to attend a few more meetings than you normally would. If you’ve been in recovery for several years, you may have stepped down your participation. Maybe consider going back once or twice a week for the time being.
Get Out of the House
Alone time isn’t the best way to deal with cravings and urges. Don’t sit at home and stew about what’s going on in your head. Get out and be with friends (sober ones). Do something physical that gets your adrenalin going naturally, such as competitive sports, a workout, running, or a recreational activity that you do with a group, like whitewater rafting.
You can also involve yourself in purely social activities. Take a friend out to dinner or go to see a movie, play, or sporting event with one or more friends.
Stimulate Your Mind
Another suggestion is to stimulate your mind with intellectual or artistic pursuits. Work on problem-solving, or do cross-word puzzles. Take a class or learn a hobby. Go to the art museum. Read or do some creative writing.
While you are immersing yourself in something that engages your mind, you won’t have room for thinking about cravings and urges. You could call it distraction, but the fact of the matter is that it works for many in recovery who are dealing with the resurgence of cravings.
Review Your Recovery Goals and Progress
For some in recovery, a review of recovery goals and progress is enough to quell the cravings. Looking at the overarching goal of sobriety – and the reasons why you want to remain clean and sober – may be sufficient to get your mind off the cravings long enough so that you don’t give into them.
How far have you come in reaching your short- and long-term goals? Look at each of them that you have achieved, and recall the pride you felt when you reached those goals. These were likely very personal and, therefore, very valuable goals to you. They involved a lot of effort and time. Some were hard-won, and some of those you may have felt were nearly impossible to achieve. But you did it. You can overcome these Johnny-come-lately cravings. They don’t matter in the scheme of things. You’ve conquered many difficulties getting to your current state of recovery. You will be successful in overcoming these cravings as well.
List the Pros and Cons
If you still need more ammunition for dealing with these recalcitrant cravings, make a list of the pros and cons of giving into them. What would happen if you take that drink, shoot that line, pop those pills, go to the casino, pick up the stranger for sex? Will you suffer physically, emotionally, lose family or friends, court financial or legal ruin, lose your job? The more graphic and vivid and catastrophic the potential consequences that you can imagine and write down, the better the deterrent to actually saying yes to the cravings.
What will you gain if you say yes to the cravings? Will it be a few hours of nirvana, a semi-fleeting state of floating, a feeling of being back in the action? Will it be worth it? Will you fall back into your hard-core addiction? Will you be able to stop? How much more difficult will it be to come back this time? Do you really want to take that chance?
Usually, looking at the pros and cons will pretty quickly convince you that giving into the cravings is a decidedly unwise move. Still, you may need to utilize some of the previously-mentioned strategies to help get you past the moment.
Imagine Someone Else Voicing the Same Cravings
Another technique that may work is to imagine someone else – someone very close to you – voicing the same desire to give in to the cravings. What would you say or do to help that person overcome the urge to give in? Marshal your arguments and talk to yourself in the same way that you would to that individual.
Allow Time to Pass
Recovery counselors say that most cravings will pass within about 20 minutes. If you can make it through this period, you should be okay. The trick is to devise and utilize all your aforementioned successful coping mechanisms or strategies to allow you to successfully navigate this admittedly confounding sense of compulsion and come out on the other side feeling whole again and craving-free.
Some people find counting exercises helpful. Or, try reciting the alphabet forwards and backwards. Read a mystery novel aloud. Rearrange the garage, kitchen, scrub toilets or paint the walls. Do whatever it takes to work through that 20 minutes to half-hour. While your mind and body are otherwise occupied, the cravings will tend to dissipate.
Keep Boredom at Bay
You may remember the saying, “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.” This could easily be applied to the circumstance where you are bored and cravings pop into your head. When you’re bored, your mind becomes restless. You seek stimulation, action, something to get out of this state of inactivity.
The solution may very well be to plunge into a new activity. You already know that when you’re actively involved in pursuing something you enjoy, your mind will be fully engaged – and not prone to giving into craving temptations.
Keeping boredom at bay may mean scheduling your days and nights so that there are plenty of activities to occupy your time. Of course, you need to rest. But put in a full day’s worth of activities – some physical, some mental – so that you never need to worry about boredom setting in.
Learn How to Relax
Anger, stress, frustration, anxiety, depression – these are powerful triggers that may cause cravings to resurface. How do you deal with these emotions so that you can curtail cravings? One way is to learn how to relax. Relaxation techniques are many and varied and include meditation, yoga, Pilates, massage, prayer, biofeedback, and deep breathing exercises, among others.
Learning how to relax also gives you the opportunity to take a class and get involved with a new set of acquaintances – who may become friends. You may need training in order to become familiar with the poses or techniques or breathing patterns of the particular form of relaxation. This is a great way to utilize several of your coping strategies: get out of the house, be with people, be active, and learn how to relax.
Consider Medication
If all else fails, you may want to talk with your doctor about a prescription to help with factors that may be contributing to your emotional state and the subsequent cravings. You may be prescribed antidepressants or anti-anxiety medication. If necessary, and prescribed by your physician, perhaps an anti-craving medication or, in the case of nicotine addiction, a nicotine vaccine (NicVAX), when it is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Currently, NicVAX, from Nabi Pharmaceuticals, is in Phase III FDA clinical testing as an aid to smoking cessation and long-term abstinence.
Additional Behavior Modification Therapy
You may consider brush-up or additional cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) to help re-structure your behavior to ensure healthier behavior. CBT has been proven to help addicts in recovery to strengthen their coping mechanisms and learn better ways to address cravings and urges.
Combo Strategies or Finding Something Different
Reading through the strategies mentioned above may cause you to wonder if any of them will really work for you. It’s quite possible, for example, that relaxing paves the way for cravings to become even stronger. You may need a combination of strategies in order to stave off cravings. Or, you may need to find something entirely different. Not every coping strategy is listed here. And, not every strategy or coping mechanism works for everyone. If it were that easy, cravings would be completely
eliminated.
Also, give yourself the credit you deserve. As you may have heard many times in your 12-step meetings, it isn’t the fact that cravings occur – it’s what you choose to do about them. You’ve been successful in the past, and you will be again. Do what works for you and keep at it. Who knows? You may create a new method of working through cravings that you can teach others. How great is that?
This Too, Will Pass
If you believe in a higher power, or are convinced of the power of the self, you know that you will not be given more burdens than you can handle. If time heals all wounds, time also allows current cravings and urges to pass. Make it through this time of temporary uncertainty and temptation, knowing that you will emerge stronger on the other side. You will also be more self-confident about dealing with such issues should they arise again in the future.