Communication in recovery, both in a drug or alcohol rehab or after rehab.

There is a phenomenon in early recovery, especially when just leaving a rehab facility, where many people feel compelled to share every last detail of their compulsive behaviour–to unload all of the secrets that have burdened them for so long.

And while this may feel wonderful at first, it frequently is a source for much regret and shame later in recovery.
Keep in mind, you cannot ask someone to un-know what they know.

Choose with great care the people with whom you share details of your past.
When you err, err on the side of sharing too little information, you can always give more information later but you canâ??t take it back.

Share information within the confidential and ethical boundaries of group and one to one therapy only enough to support your personal growth and understanding of yourself and others.

What to communicate to others regarding your past

When discussing your past addictive or destructive behaviour, talk in terms of how that behaviour is changing, not how bad it was at one point in your life.

Never share play by play or blow by blow descriptions of past behaviors or events such as the time, place, method of sex, what you wore or didnâ??t wearâ?¦ too much information.

When discussing other people’s addictive or destructive behaviour, stick to facts, personal insights and maintain a “growth-oriented” focus. Ask questions that bring out other’s values, not more gory details
In all cases, get to know the people, rather than their addiction.

Share yourself, not your addiction
(http://www.understandingsexualaddiction.org/pridelessons/pride_00o.asp)

Concentrate on your future not on your past;
on your strengths not your mistakes

The last point in critical as it will always keep your boundries intact. It is wonderful to be sober for the first time in a long while. It is wonderful that spending time in a rehab has helped you grow. Just like the process of going to an alcohol and drug rehab may take some time to complete, go slow on revealing everything to those around you. Caution will prevent you from damaging a relationship, that may just be starting to heal. Damaging a relationship will just lead to more stress which just complicates the whole process of re-building your life after your addiction and rehab experience.

Taking a Look at Your Last Relapse

Take 3 minutes to do the following exercise:
Think back to your most recent relapse.
Picture what was happening in your life, the stresses or irritations you were facing in the days leading up to and just before your decision to use again. Use point form and jot them down.
Now Look at the following list of items and write down those that apply to your pre-relapse situation or stressors.

Common Stressors That Precede Relapse
Loneliness
Feeling manipulated
Anxiety
Depression
Boredom
Fight with your boss
Argument with wife or family member
Money problem
Too little sleep
An illness
A problem at work or school
Bad or no sex
Feel under valued
An insult or criticism
Too much time on your hands
Offer of drug or alcohol from a friend or relative
Girl or boy friend problems
Pencil broke, shoelace broke, tooth broke

Now think again

Quickly read over your stress inventory and compare with the description of your stresses before your last relapse. Are they the same or different?
Add all the items to your stress inventory and underline the ones that are high risk. High risk are the stressors present before you relapsed
Make one last check for any items you may have missed
This is the beginning of an important part of your relapse prevention plan
You canâ??t manage stress if you donâ??t first take the time to identify it.

This is a simple a basic tool. Basic but extremely important. Drug and alcohol rehab gives you an enviroment to change. Drug and alcohol rehab give you the support to change. Great goals and vision gives you to reasons to change after rehab. Relapse derails all that effort. Sometimes a year’s hard effort in a rehab and after the rehab, can spin apart in a few weeks, if stress is not handled proactively. It is not enough to avoid stress. You must acquire the skill to tame or deflect it to the point that you never use drugs or alcohol again in your life. Take the time to think about what role stress has played in your addiction.

Yesterday I made the point that after drug or alcohol rehab it is not a craving that leads to relapse so much as it stress. So what are all the common types of stress that can present a danger to relapse. While looking at the following examples think about weather or not they present a potential concern as a trigger that may lead to drug or alcohol abuse in your own situation.

The problem of other drivers
You are driving on a busy highway in the fast lane. The driver in front of you is driving a 10 miles per hour below the posted limit and refuses to get out of your way.

The problem of getting up
You have been having trouble sleeping and are very tired when you are awoken by your alarm clock.

We spend time trying to make hair we donâ??t like and a body weâ??re not too keen on, look good.
We look in a closet that doesnâ??t have the clothes we want or they are in the dirty laundry basket.
We are expected to work at a job which may or may not be satisfying but which is filled with difficulties.

The choices you make can:
Increase your anger, depression, anxiety and thus your stress.
Increase the conflict in your life.
Calm you and enhance your feelings of wellbeing,
Support you to find solutions that benefit you and your family.
Make it more fun to be you.
Help you to find new ways to solve problems .

Life is always filled with stressful situations. Learning to manage stress is about thinking and living with a different frame of mind. Take the time to write a real thorough list of some the types of stresses that may have really got to you in the past. Order them from most annoying to least annoying. Then start to come up with alternative ways to deal with it. Read your list and then re-read your choices for defusing the stress several times. Addiction is about repetitive behavior. Use the same skill to practice and learn new skills that will support your new choices. That way you can avoid the “bam” of life’s stresses gardually building up to a relapse and another visit to a drug or alcohol rehab.

Leading experts in relapse prevention based on interviews with former addicts found:

Relapse is generally not triggered by physical cravings, even in the case of substance addiction such as drugs, alcohol and cigarettes.

Addicts of all types relapse in response to stress related to feelings of anxiety, fear, anger, frustration, depression, social pressures and interpersonal conflicts.

What is Stress?
The stress response is unique:
It has no biological structure, unlike germs or viruses.
It is purely the result of how our mind and body function and interact.
It is the consequence of how we do or do not regulate our physical and mental functions.
It is a true example of the connection between how we think about things and our physical reactions to those thoughts.(Freedom from Stress, A Holistic Approach, Phil Nuernberger Ph.D. The Himalayan International Institute of Yoga Science and Philosophy of the USA 1981.)

Stress is defined as
â??A mentally or emotionally disruptive condition occurring in response to adverse external influences and capable of affecting physical health, usually characterized by increased heart rate, a rise in blood pressure, muscular tension, irritability, and depressionâ?? (Http://dictionary.reference.com)

Define what stress means to you

Take a moment and write down in your own words what your definition of stress is.
Add some concrete examples of what you think causes you to feel stressed.
You will be building your own stress inventory.

We are required to travel on roads with people we donâ??t know and who can pose considerable risk to us.
We spend time with people who are not of our choosing e.g. at work, at school, on the bus.
We have bills arrive in the mail and a wallet that never has enough cash.
We face the â??slip on the banana peelâ?? daily surprises the universe may throw our way just to test us.

Add any of these items to your stress inventory that ring a bell for you. By taking the time to do a real and complete stress inventory you can start to preplan and practice ways to deal with them before they arrive. Relapse doesn’t happen by accident. So many times when someone re-enters a drug or alcohol rehab program they will say they don’t know what happened. After the left the last rehab they were cruising along and then “bam”, it hit them and they started using or drinking again. What lead up to the “bam”? Most likely it involved stress of some kind. Let’s start to look more closely at these and see how to deal them most effectively in addiction treatment. Maybe you can avoid a “bam” in your life and avoid a relapse and multiple visits to rehab.

It’s really quite simple. The key to any addiction treatment or visit to a rehab is not to relapse. Whether it is cocaine, alcohol or any other drug if you don’t relapse, you don’t have to go back to a rehab again. If you build a great fulfilling life, relapse is not an option.
In the past few weeks we have examined several core areas of our lives. Work, financial, where we live, education.
Spiritual, why we are here and what we ultimately want to do. Our health, body and hobbies and interests
These will also determine how we interact with everyone, therefore affecting our relationships as well.
Once we have a clear plan that will take us in the direction we ultimately have decided for ourselves, we come to the most critical and valuable step in the whole process. We need leverage, and a lot of it, because with leverage we can find the special and unique â??tipping pointâ??. This will be the single most important cog in your growth, and relapse prevention plan. Although all change starts on the inside with you, it is your ultimate destination, wants and desires that will determine the direction, and thus your first steps.

Start to divide your list into the must doâ??s and the want toâ??s
Take the list of must doâ??s and rank them in order of priority
When prioritizing consider both the ultimate importance of the goal as well as if the goal is a necessary prerequisite for an even more important goal

Also look at ranking your goals by what is the most important goal in each area of your life
Work
Spiritual
Relationship
Learning
Physical
Special Interest â?? hobbies, artistic expression, charity

Take your top three goals that you have ranked and look at the steps and timelines you have laid out.
Place the timelines together and examine whether or not you will have to alter your commitments to devote enough time to really make a change.
â??We have time enough if we use it rightâ??

Again to make permanent and lasting change it is neccessary to go through these steps. Drug addiction is a bad habit and cycle. You have to crowd it out with good things. All the time spent in rehab will go down the tubes if you don’t do the work to move to a new place in your life. If you go back and look at all the things we have discussed over the last month, you will end up with a list to move away from drugs and alcohol. Cocaine is addictive, but not as addictive as success. Hang in there for the next week, as before I move on to a different area of drug addiction, I really want to nail the value and techniques of great goal setting and dealing with objections. Then you can use the information we are giving down the road to solidify your foundation. Rehab is about change. Change is about work. Sorry, no shortcuts.

It is a difficult decision to go to a drug or alcohol rehab. It takes time, energy and resources to make the decision to invest in a lengthy stay away from your regular life. You want to maximize the treatment of your addiction and make permanent change in your life. Once somone gets to a rehab facility a common mistake occurs. They start to look at everything that is wrong with the rehab.
The facility may not be as nice as they hoped. The food may not be as good as they were anticipating. Their room is in a poor location. The meetings may not be quite suited for their particular needs. The list can go on and on. All this detracts from your goal. Facilities will NOT change your life. If better food would cure drug addiction, there wouldn’t be the need for rehabs in the first place. Concentrate on the changes you need to rid yourself of drug or alcohol addiction. Look at the things that are wrong in your life, not the life of the rehab. Even if the place is only half of what you expected, you can still make positive changes in your life.
Don’t waste precious time trying to “improve” the program. Improve yourself. By trying to improve the rehab you are simply deflecting time and resources away from the cause of the present situation in your life. If you really think something is wrong with a program, suggest it in a letter AFTER you have left and been sober for 6 months. Then the letter will carry some clout and significance.
Nothing is perfect, or even close to it. Rehabs are no different. Also please remember, a rehab is not the enemy. Your drugs, alcohol, and their dealers are the enemy. The rehabs are the good guys. Cut them some slack. Look in the mirror and deal with the only thing you can really change, yourself. Any rehab, no matter how imperfect still only wants one thing, to assist you in stopping drug and alcohol abuse. And that’s exactly what you should concentrate all your energy on.

The real goal of addiction treatment is a great fulfilling life. Sobriety, though not to be understated is not a goal. Sobriety is a characteristic or by-product of a great life. If you go back through the last few weeks of suggestions I have been working on the basics. Constantly over the next months I will consistently keep going to the fundamentals of change. Relapse is not a required step in drug addiction treatment. The key to relapse prevention after time in an alcohol or drug rehab is to work on real goals for a real and compelling vision for a great life.
The steps I have discussed in the last week have been about giving that plan the best chance for success. The patterns that we short-circuit the best of our dreams must be dealt with in a realistic open matter. Everyone leaves rehab with the best of intentions. Everyone leaves rehab saying never again will I behave in the same manner. If that really was enough, why do so many people relapse? Why are there so many people in their 4th , 5th or even 7th rehab. It is because change is difficult. Change in drug and alcohol addiction is even more difficult. That’s why you are going to see here over and over again the steps to change and the steps to remove roadblocks to change. Tomorrow we will start a new series, but the theme will always be the same. Build a better more compelling set of goals and reasons to do great things in your life and there will be no room for drugs or alcohol. Get off the relapse and rehab merry-go-round. Do it right the first time, or at the very least the next time. Take the time to do the real work for real change in your life.

Once we team up energy and momentum there are still inevitable roadblocks to change. The changes required in treating drug addiction are no different. Some of these roadblocks are simple distortions, like saying to yourself it will never change. We have discussed how to handle those in the past. However in dealling with drug and alcohol addiction, some of the things that come up are REAL OBJECTIONS. Drug rehabs are expensive. Courses are expensive. Going to a rehab takes a lot of time. How does one handle these objections.

Real objections always boil down to 3 things
Money
Time
Pain or discomfort

Just think about it for a second, all legitimate objections are always a variant of those three. It takes too much time, I donâ??t have enough time, itâ??s too expensive, I canâ??t afford it. What is interesting is that any beginning salesperson in sales 101 learns how to handle these objections easily, so why donâ??t we use one of these â??salesâ?? techniques on ourselves for our own benefit
The simplest is Feel, Felt Found

Next time you are planning to make a change in your life, and the voice in your head says, â??Yes, but I donâ??t have the time to exercise EVERY dayâ??. Answer very politely, â??Mr. Voice, I know how you FEEL about not having enough time. When trying to find time to exercise, others have FELT the same way. What they Found was they gained so much energy by working out first thing in the morning, they got more done during the day and actually had more time to do things.â??

Hereâ??s another example: Your brain voices the objection, â??If you go back to school, you will have to write some papers. Donâ??t you remember how difficult and uncomfortable that was?â??
Reply â??Mr. Voice, I understand how you FEEL about writing all those papers. Others FELT exactly the same way when they went back to school. What they Found was because it was their choice to go back, and the subject was of their own choosing, the actually enjoyed writing papers.

You give it a try, about something costing too much.

Fundamental changes do bring up real objections in your life. Going to rehab costs time and money. Taking courses to improve your live so you never return to drugs and alcohol costs time and money. Getting off drugs before going to rehab is uncomfortable. It you really want to change you have to get through the objections and follow you dreams to a new better life. Remeber drug and alcohol rehabs are a place to make permanent changes, they in themselves are not the solution.

If we are truly to continue our journey and make lasting change in addiction treatment, momentum is absolutely essential. Momentum will keep you going on your changes and goals and plans even when everything else fails. The really interesting thing about momentum, is that you have to earn it. For many people it starts in a drug or alcohol rehab facility. The day to day structure of a rehab starts the slow but steady process of building momentum in your plans to change, As you start to believe that you can change, you gain even more momentum and you approach the final stages of your stay in drug rehab. Your reach for tougher and tougher goals. The objective is that as you leave a rehab, the momentum you have built up, combined with your new evergy levels will carry you through any down dime you may have in the first few weeks.

Real change always involves the slow steady process of looking where you are and where you want to be. All the hard work that is begun in rehab is carried on by a high energy level and momentum, so you can raise the standards in your life we talked about. Those higher standards mean a permanent change away from aclohol and drug addiction. Momentum is earned as one small step is linked with another over and over again. It is the relentless effort in the right direction that ultimately means a large scale change will take place. Go out and earn some momentum, start today. There is never a reason to go to rehab after rehab after rehab. Go for the fundamentals, go for a better life.

The third way to increase the energy level so to continue in the changes neccessary to treat drug addiction is a healthy mental diet.

Positive Mental Diet

In computers they say â??Garbage in, Garbage outâ??
In nature, a farmer always will reap the crop he sows.
Again there is some research to support such statements.
The brain is only capable of processing one thing at a time. This is why both music and noise together DECREASE the ability to perform mental work. Essentially the brain is forced to swap between thinking about the task at hand and following the tune. It is similar to a computer running slower when more than one program is running.

By reading and listening to things that are consistent with the skills and traits you want to acquire, you brain wonâ??t have to waste time processing things that donâ??t support where you want to go and discard them.
It allows you to accomplish more â??mental workâ?? in the direction you wish to go.
It also provides you examples of how others have solved some of the same concerns you may be facing.

Don’t underestimate the power of a positive mental diet in treating drug addiction. Again one of the reasons that drug rehab works is that by controling the enviroment you can limit the effect of a negative mental diet. Rehabs are the training ground to practicing the skills we discuss safely so you can feel confident when you step back in the real world. The couselors and staff at a great drug or alcohol rehab will be walking examples of the benefits of a positive mental diet.

Why not use all Three?

If we combine all three simultaneously exercise (especially first thing in the morning), a healthy diet, and the mental efficiency of a positive mental diet we can increase our energy level to really impact the chance of success of our plans to change our behavior patterns of substance abuse. Again a drug rehab is one of the best places to get going on the three similtaneously. If the drug addiction is well established a rehab may be the only place to make such a change efficiently.
Add to this mix the power of momentum, but that is tomorrow.