If there are fundamental principles of success in recovery, is it possible that there are also universal paths that inevitably lead to relapse as well?

Now of course there are a million and one different situations that could lead up to a relapse, but in my opinion, the actual decision to return to the madness is going to come from one of 2 possible mechanisms: self pity or resentment.

The reason I say this is because every relapse is preceded with mental justification. The recovering addict or alcoholic, if they have truly been living in recovery, will not just pick up a drink or a drug on a complete whim. If they have found any sort of meaningful recovery in their life then they have some level of protection against a snap decision. They can still relapse (and many do), but it has to be preceded by an emotional and mental process first.

Because the addict needs justification in order to relapse, this indicates anger. In order to justify such an outrageous move as to go back to the insanity of using drugs or alcohol, the addict has to do an amazing feat of justification. It can only happen if a person is angry enough and they allow it to happen. So really there are at least 2 steps to the process:

1) A heightened emotional state where the addict or alcoholic has a lot of anger.

2) Mental reasoning born out of this anger where the person gives themselves permission to relapse. They justify it before they do it.

I see two distinct situations where this can happen:

1) When an addict is filled with resentment and cannot let it go, and

2) When an addict is filled with self-pity and cannot snap out of it.

These are just labels of course (resentment and self-pity), but they describe the dangerous conditions we need to watch out for because they are both obsessive conditions. They are both driven by anger, and they are both characterized by being stuck in a repetitive, obsessive mode. The anger is revisited, over and over again.  Most people do not think that self pity is borne out of anger, but I have looked deeply at my own life and my own situation, and I believe that most of my self pity that I had was actually driven by anger on some level.

How can we avoid these traps that can lead to relapse?

There are different ways that we can strive to achieve emotional balance in our lives. But first we have to realize that some people are not even aware of their anger at all. Thus we might need to simply work on increasing our awareness and tuning in to what our emotions are doing at first.

Once we have learned how to listen to our own emotions and can start taking charge of them and take some corrective action, then we are in a position where we can actually protect ourselves from relapse. As you can see, simple awareness is a huge key to this. Identifying patterns of resentment and self pity is going to be important as well.

Self pity is a mental game that you play with yourself. It is not an emotion but rather an obsessive thought pattern that was born out of an emotion. You have a choice to control it and shut it down by simply refusing to let yourself go there. I know this because I had a strong tendency to engage in self pity myself, but learned to overcome it. This learning process that I went through was largely driven by discipline. I told myself I would not engage in self pity and so I stopped myself whenever I noticed the pattern. This worked for me.

I also used the idea of gratitude in order to overcome self pity.  I forced myself to practice gratitude when I found my mind reverting to self pity mode.  This also helped a great deal.

Tune in. Seek emotional balance. Correct when necessary.

Does anyone have any tips for overcoming resentments? Let us know in the comments…..

Today we are going to look at some of the fundamentals of creative recovery.

Creative recovery is a strategy used by recovering addicts and alcoholics who seek to create a new life for themselves using a holistic approach.

Holistic growth

Look at the winners in recovery, and see if their approach to growth in life is very narrow, or if it is expansive. Chances are good that you will find the people who are enjoying long term success in recovery have found ways to grow in several directions at once. Ask them about their spirituality, about their emotional stability, about their relationships and if they have improved, about their physical health, about their mental status and well-being. Those who stay clean and sober are growing on many planes at the same time.

Purpose

We might not have purpose in our life during our first week of sobriety. That is OK. But as we stay clean and sober, those who follow the creative approach to recovery will find certain things that are important to them. For example, a recovering addict might find a way to reach out and help other addicts who are struggling to recover. Over time this can give the recovering addict a real sense of purpose in their life and can add meaning for them.

This is a fundamental occurrence in long term recovery as everyone who stays clean and sober will slowly start to prioritize their life. Family and friends become more important and we start to care more about ourselves and about others. This leads us to find purpose in our life when we start matching up our talents and strengths with ways that we can help others.

Goals and self esteem

In creative recovery we start out by setting goals for ourselves. For example, I had goals within the first few years of recovery to improve my fitness, quit smoking cigarettes, find a meaningful job, and finish my education. At the time of becoming clean and sober, my self esteem was pretty lousy, but meeting these goals started to boost it a little bit more each time. The key for me was to take deliberate action and create this new life for myself one piece at a time.

This is fundamental to recovery because those who try to boost their self esteem without taking action end up doing so in some artificial manner. Simply sitting on the couch and wishing that things were different is not enough to change a person from the inside out. The real change happens through action; through creation. We have to get out there and make real change happen in our life in order to see positive results in recovery.

Everyone that I have watched in recovery who did not take this kind of action-based approach to their life ended up relapsing. In other words, those who were passive and lazy about their recovery inevitably relapsed. Those who took action and tried to create new things in their life did much better.

Today we are going to take a look at what the fundamental mindsets and attitudes are in successful recovery. The idea is that if we look at a large sample of the “winners” in recovery, we should be able to see some commonalities among these people and thus figure out what is truly important for sobriety.

Attitudes/mindsets - spiritual fundamentals in recovery

So what are the common attitudes that we see among the “winners” in recovery? Here is what I have seen working in myself and others:

1) Gratitude - This is fundamental to recovery and I see this as being a tool that can pull someone out of a bad day or a bad situation. Gratitude is the cure for a mindset of relapse.

Think about it…anyone who is in danger of relapse has shifted back into a very selfish, “I-deserve-to-get-messed-up” kind of mindset. In addition to this, they are probably saying “screw it” about their life in general and about their life situation. It is not the events that surround them that is driving the relapse but their reaction to these events. Even more specifically, it is their reaction to their reaction.

Gratitude is about changing our response to life. It is about looking for the silver lining in any situation and seeing that we can at least learn and grow through any unpleasant experience. And, gratitude takes practice. It is something that we can improve at, and something we can control. That is why I call it a tool. It is available to anyone who is willing to use it.

The winners in recovery have learned to use gratitude as a tool. It is a powerful way to shift perspective and see our situation in a more positive light.

2) Humility - This is particularly important in early recovery. Anyone who has all the answers at two weeks sober is headed for disaster. Being unable to become truly open minded and take in new ideas is a huge block to recovery. It is not about being completely humiliated, but more about shifting into “learning mode.” Asking ourselves, “what does this person have to offer me?” in any given situation. If we go through life and experience new things but refuse to learn from any of it, we are wasting our life away. In order to grow and evolve as a human being we have to be tuned in to the idea that we can learn new things. This is humility in action; how we grow in recovery.

3) Helpfulness - When I think about all the people around me who have achieved long term sobriety, they are always helpful people. Always. Not one of them is so self centered that they are generally not helpful to others. This has to be a fundamental trait of success. When we reach out and help others in recovery, some powerful things happen. Not only do we genuinely get to help another person, but we also get a huge bonus to our own recovery. One, we reinforce the lessons that we ourselves need to follow to stay sober. Two, we boost our self esteem and thus prevent our own relapse, because we give ourselves permission to value our own life more (because we know we are providing real value). Being helpful is a universal trait of success in recovery. Those who are selfish when it comes to this always seem to end up relapsing.

4) Eager to grow and learn - This goes along with humility, in that those who are successful in recovery are those who are eager to learn more about how to live sober. Anyone who is hesitant to learn more and put real energy into their recovery is in serious danger of relapse. If you are not excited about the possibility of living sober and learning more about yourself and finding new ways to grow, then you are just not “there yet” in terms of wanting to make recovery work for you. The mindset of success in recovery involves an eagerness to learn and soak up new knowledge.

5) Self care and valuing of self - We might not have this when we first get clean and sober because most of us have some form of low self-esteem when we first enter recovery. This is something that must develop over the long term though if we are to stay clean in the long run. Without building up our self esteem, we will be vulnerable to relapse. The best defense against relapse is for us to place an extremely high value on our sober life. We have to care about ourselves, our life situation, and our relationships in order to have a natural defense against relapse. Increasing genuine self esteem through positive action is the best way to go about doing this. Success builds on itself in recovery when we start making good things happen in our life.

All of the people who I have seen who have found long term success in recovery have built self esteem as they stayed clean. They are people who are growing and who feel better about themselves than they did when they first got sober.

Notice how these fundamental mindsets work together. Being helpful to others will naturally build up self esteem, because we know that we are valuable when we give real help. Having gratitude will allow us to stay teachable, even in situations that seem like a total loss, and so on.

Next we will take a look at the fundamental principles of creative recovery, and see what similarities there are among those who have found long term sobriety.