Changing the nature of old connections is necessary as you change

It’s time to make a plan for a more balanced relationship with those who have helped you through out your addiction experience and may even have helped pay for your rehab.

Plan in detail how you can relate to them differently and have them see you differently.

Are there areas in their lives where you can provide assistance or even recognition of their strengths?
Are there interests they have, that you can talk about or participate in that are not related to your old roles?
It is time to move your relationships beyond the past; past your old addiction needs?

We all need helping adults in our lives.
Our sense of dignity and self-worth is reinforced when we act as helping adults for others and we practice compassion and caring.

Use of Alcohol or Drugs to Ease Points of Connection

Reflect on your use of alcohol and drugs to:

Initiate or have sex
Initiate or have difficult conversations
End relationships or start relationships
“Forget” about old relationships
Look cool or as if you belong

Connections need to be added as you change and have new interests

What are areas of your life that are important to you and provide you with a sense of connectedness and belonging?

Sports, reading, arts, nature, music, travel, dancing

Check your life goals for ideas

In what ways are you involved in these areas?
If these are areas that you have lost touch with, make a specific plan for developing connections
If they are new areas of interest, it’s time to make a plan for connections.

New connections are necessary as you change your life

It takes courage to make new connections and create positive relationships around us.

Take 3 minutes and list the ways you commonly made new connections in your old life:
How many of these required either the use of drugs or alcohol or going to places where drug and alcohol are used e.g. singles bars, sports bars, house parties, raves?

Now list new ways to make connections and consider: join clubs or special interest groups, take courses, volunteer, attend events where your special interest is showcased e.g. horticultural fair, sporting event

Changing celebrations and ritual

Now write down ways of managing or renewing celebrations and ritual:

Avoidance, don’t participate

Limit contact, show up for half an hour

Attend with someone who can be your support

Hold the celebration at your home and exclude drug and alcohol use

Honor others through gifts, letters or cards as opposed to a drink or using drugs

Change the nature of the total celebration: go to a show, attend a concert, go to a sports event

Create new family rituals that are more positive and life enhancing

Brainstorm ideas to manage celebrations differently or create new rituals
Make a celebrations goal, part of goals for life, e.g. celebrating through creatively honoring others and myself.

Validating Factual Information

List all the sources of information that you may use to access additional facts to validate what others have shared and add to your Support Network List so that can be part of your information support network.

This may include particular web sites, government agencies, text books, or organizations that have factual information available in the area you are researching.

Strengthening Your Support System is more than adding More People

Your current connections with your family, friends and others may need to be improved to ensure they are vibrant and meaningful as you change and grow.

Getting Factual Information

Family, friends or experts give us factual information about a particular important decision, idea or stressful event.

“Facts” that are skewed to represent a world view that is not in your best interests, or goes against your values must be reviewed with critical and rationale eyes.

These are people who you can turn to for quality information when you need to gather information to take action.

These are people who can give you the facts about a particular event or facts about a particular issue.

Sharing Factual Information

This area is particularly important when it comes to decisions regarding your goals or your past experience of addiction.

This is an area where you will want to screen out people who use their personal experience as evidence of fact for everyone else’s experience or have a personal agenda to influence you in a certain way.

This is also an area where you will want to screen out “moral” information or assumptions that are presented as factual information e.g. praying is sufficient activity to reach your goals.

Knowledge Support

A knowledge support network consists of credible people who you can turn to for sharing their points of view .

Remember knowledge is a combination of information, experience and reflection beyond their own personal experience with an issue.

These people are willing to offer their honest opinion about how they view a particular situation or how they would choose to handle it.

These are the people whom you can turn to in times of doubt when making key decisions or solving particular problems.

List the names of those persons you have identified from your lists of family, friends and contacts at work or school who can be part of your knowledge support network

Supportive Family, Friends, Contacts

Are those who provide the basis of your new support network for your new and renewed life.
Assess your list as the following slides appear as to the type of support you may be able to access from each person on your list.
Having only one or two people to provide support in your life, can be draining for them and you.
It is better to assess the type of support they can give that is a match with their abilities and resources.

Emotional Support

People are emotionally supportive when they tell us they care about us, believe in us and think well of us.

They help us stay true to our goals and give us an opportunity to help as well as be helpful.

They give us honest, constructive feedback, both positive and negative.

List the names of those persons you have identified from your lists of family, friends and contacts at work or school who can be part of your emotional support network.

Choose people with whom you have a sense of warmth and positive connection.

Overcoming Drug annd Alcohol addiction can be a difficult and sometimes lonely task. When someone leaves a drug or alcohol rehab it is more essential than ever to find and cultivate some true friendships. This always leads to the question of what is a true friend. Sometimes it is easier to describe what a real friend is not.

People Who Enmesh

People who are overly dependent on you or who use obvious control tactics are manipulators.

These are the people who cause high stress in your life through their behaviors.

Initially limit contact and repay any debt to reduce their control over you.

Manipulators rarely change their behavior through requests for change, they change when you fail to respond to their tactics.

Decisions on how and when to work on relationships with people who have these types of issues need to be based on their and your readiness to work through communication problems and to make change.

The only person you can directly control is you.

There can be many reasons why someone becomes addicted to drugs or alcohol. We know most of them all too well. How and where you were brought up. Who were your role models when you were a child. Your peers as a child had an influence. Your education likely ended up playing some role. The place where you currently live and work are peices of the puzzle. The stress levels in your life from day to day are important.
Good fortune or bad events that are outside your control are obvious things as well. Abuse and tragedy may have clouded your past. The list of reasons is truly long and varied. The most important question is who is responsible for your health and transition to a non-addicted lifestyle? Who is responsible to find solutions to the problems of where to go for treatment, and how to pay for it? Is it Family? Is it the government? Is it friends? Is it the person themselves alone that should shoulder the responsibility? How you answer these questions will ultimately have a say in what type of treatment you receive as well as how long you stay in an addicted lifestyle.

Your Home

Where is your home or where you plan to live located?

Is it on the street where you used to buy drugs or alcohol?

Is it in a building that is noisy and reduces your hope of having quality rest and relaxation?

Are there changes you can make inside your home or residence to plan for quality sleep, food and relaxation?

Get concrete here in your thinking, even down to the bed you sleep in!

Reflect and Plan

Over the next few days review your assessment of your home and community.
Keep thinking about changes you need to make to take advantage of opportunities and create an environment that sets you up for success.
If you do determine you need to move, this is the time to discuss with key people in your support network to help you get to the home and community you need to be located in to succeed.
Often it is a stepped process, I’ll go there and do this and then I’ll be ready to go… and do…