Category: Articles

Trust Your Sponsor

Learning To Trust Your Sponsor

Articles
Learning To Trust Your Sponsor

When you first arrive at a recovery meeting, you are filled with guilt, shame, confusion, fear, and anxiety. You are disoriented and you are completely bewildered by your own behavior. You have no idea how to live a life that is not consumed by alcohol. But, you do know one thing – you have a strong desire to quit drinking and stay sober.

You know you are in the right place because, after your first meeting, you realize you are surrounded by people who understand you. They drank like you did. You come to believe that they can help you and you become willing to do what they tell you. And one of the first things they tell you to do is get a sponsor.

Understanding What Sponsorship Is – And What It Isn’t

Sponsorship is a cornerstone of sobriety. You can’t work a recovery program without a sponsor.

A sponsor’s job is to work you through the program and show you how to live a sober lifestyle. They are there to teach the spiritual principles of the program. They are there to share their experience, strength, and hope with you. In time, your sponsor will become your trusted friend and spiritual adviser. They will become your lifeline.

A sponsor is not a counselor or a therapist. They are not there to loan you money or give you financial advice. Sponsors are not a relationship coach or someone who is supposed to help you fix your marriage. A sponsor’s only job is to show you how to stay sober – one day at a time.

How Can You Trust Someone You Barely Know?

One of the most essential ingredients in the sponsor-sponsee relationships is trust. You have to be able to trust your sponsor and become vulnerable with them. You have to share your innermost self with them and tell him or her what’s really going on inside you. Ultimately, you will make a searching and fearless moral inventory of yourself and share it with your sponsor. This takes courage – and a whole lotta trust.

It can be scary to call a stranger on the phone and share your feelings and it isn’t easy to bare your soul to someone you just met. It is uncomfortable to trust someone you hardly know enough to do what they are telling you to do. BUT….if you want to stay sober and experience the gifts of recovery, it is a risk you must be willing to take.

Understand that the establishment of trust between you and your sponsor will come slowly with time. As you take suggestions from your sponsor, and you begin to see that those suggestions produce fruitful results, you will deepen the faith and trust you have in your sponsor.

When learning to trust your sponsor you do not have to rush the relationship you have with them. Like everything else in sobriety, the sponsor-sponsee bond happens one day at a time. Just for today, make the decision that you will trust your sponsor and believe that he or she has your best interest at heart.

CLICK HERE to get a Free Confidential Addiction Rehabilitation Assessment.

emotions in recovery

Emotion as a Life Force

Articles, Australia, Education, International, Malaysia, Understanding Addiction, United Kingdom

Emotions in Recovery – Addiction and drug use are often difficult for those who do not use to understand. It seems odd to give up everything to use a substance that can ultimately end your life. For addicts the drug of choice is often just an answer that became a problem. Many times the addict is dealing with other issues and using is just a way to deal with those issues. While it may not be the best way to deal with problems addiction was at one time a solution that quickly became a problem. This means that addiction is wrought with emotion, even though addicts rarely feel those emotions until the addiction is truly addressed. Your emotions are a life force and without them life becomes unidentifiable.

Emotions in Recovery

Emotions are an invisible life force that drive people. Some people are driven by greed, others by love. Some people may not know what drives them. Addicts, when in active addiction are driven by the need to use. This is something that has to change as part of recovery. The change will take time and work as finding a new drive and purpose is difficult. When first entering recovery it may seem that the lack of resources is a hindrance, but this is actually the time when being resourceful will help you achieve your ultimate goal of long term recovery. The resourcefulness can begin by getting to the right emotion which can help you gain psychological strength. Once you are confident and strong in your own mind, you can move forward in other areas.

Psychological Strength

In order to gain this psychological strength you need to be able to answer the following questions for yourself: What am I going to focus on? What does it mean? And what am I going to do? Answering these questions forces the addict to look inside themselves and figure out what is truly important. Each answer will have an emotional connection for the person discovering the answer. These emotions will provide a catalyst to move further into recovery.

The key to using these emotions in recovery lies within the answers. Once someone decides what the focus of life will be without addiction then goals can be set. The goals offer purpose for the individual in recovery. This is not to say that the goals will not change over time or as they are met, but the first focused goal that is set will get things started. The way in which the goal setting and journey begin are the answer to what does it mean. As measurable and attainable steps are set the final question is answered as well.

Your Purpose

Emotions in Recovery – Now that you have the questions, the answers are up to you. Everyone needs a purpose and this purpose will bring about emotions that you must learn to harness, control, and use to meet the goals. Will you accept the challenge that comes with staying clean and sober? Only you can make this choice for yourself. Even if you have ended up in rehab against your will you have the choice of whether to make it work or not. The lesson to take away is that recovery is an emotional experience that will offer you the chance to grow as a person and change your life or stay stuck in a world of emotionless addiction. What will you choose?

CLICK HERE to get a Free Confidential Addiction Rehabilitation Assessment.

opioid abuse

Donald Trump Proclaims a National Emergency

Articles, Education, International, LGBTQ, Understanding Addiction, United States

Opioid Abuse. Donald Trump Vows to Proclaim a National Emergency as Opioid Abuse Claims the Lives of 142 People on a Daily Basis.

The harrowing scale of the opioid epidemic is out. It has revealed that near 150 people die each day due to opioid abuse. However, President Donald Trump is set to take swift action, declaring a national emergency to control this shocking scenario.

It is perhaps ‘the’ deadliest drug overdose and epidemic recorded in US history. Trump’s panel has urged the Commander-in-Chief to address the situation as quickly as possible.

The recommendation to declare a nationwide emergency stems from a preliminary draft that is a part of the opioid commission report. The report itself comes from the horrifying statistics that went back to the death toll due to opioid overdose in 2016. Shockingly, more Americans lost their lives to this drug than the total US causalities reported in the whole Vietnam War.

In 2015, deaths reported from drug abuse and opioid overdose easily toppled the annual death toll from motor vehicle accidents, gang wars, gun violence and terminal diseases such as HIV/AIDS. You would also be surprised to know that the death toll from an opioid overdose in 2015 was more than the number of people who lost their lives succumbing to the 1995 HIV/AIDS epidemic.

According to a new report on the opioid crisis, approximately 150 people die every day due to drug overdose and the US is enduring a massive death toll each year. To put things into perspective. More people die due to opioid abuse every three weeks than the total number of people who lost their lives in the September, 11 tragedy.

The commission to combat the current tragedy in the US includes the following key members of Congress:
  • Chris Christie (R), governor of New Jersey
  • Charlie Baker (R), governor of Massachusetts
  • Roy Cooper (D), governor of North Carolina
  • Patrick Kennedy (D) (former Republican)
  • Bertha Madras
The commission contains some big recommendations – and mentioned below are some of the more important ones:
  1. Grant Approval for the entire 50 States to Extinguish Federal Barriers Pertaining to the Medicaid Programs. This act approval excludes all Federal Mental Institutes – As per the Social Security Act, government funds for Medicaid cannot fund or reimburse services and facilities from inpatient care that are designed to treat people with mental disabilities and illnesses – this includes addiction, with 16 or more beds.

This is a major barrier the government needs to break, and the Commission seeks to do just that. By eliminating this inhibition, all 50 states will be able to immediately start treating thousands upon thousands of US citizens held up in current facilities.

  1. Setting Up Immediate Funding for Federal Programs to Enhance Access to Patient Care in the Form of Medication-Assisted Programs – This is the highest standard when it comes to treating people with opioid addiction. Research indicates that immediate medical treatments and assistance can cut the death toll from drug addiction in half or maybe more.

However, the problem is inaccessibility. Only ten percent of modern and traditional treatment establishments and treatments offer this sort of drug abuse intervention and medication-assisted programs across the country. The commission seeks to greatly expand this method of treatments. It is even targeting prison systems and various other types of drug treatment institutions.

You or someone you know suffering from Opioid Addiction? CLICK HERE to get a Free Confidential Addiction Rehabilitation Assessment.

sex addiction

In What Ways Can Sex Addiction Affect a Person’s Life?

Articles, Celebrity Rehab, International, LGBTQ, Understanding Addiction

There is a huge difference between having extraordinary libido and being addicted to sex. It is important that you know the destructive effects that sex addiction can have in a person’s life so when you sense its symptoms, you can tell your loved ones about it to get help. The shame, embarrassment and humiliation that come with admitting to being a sex addict can keep many from disclosing it ever. Here is how sex addiction can affect a person’s life. Once you know the consequences, help yourself and your loved ones from its life ruining impact.

It Makes the Person Weak

What happens when a person loses control over their thoughts and actions? They become weak. Any type of addiction has physical effects, but the primary target of addiction is disrupting brain functionality. That’s what sex addiction does to a person—it disables their brain functions and starts controlling them. A sex addict cannot avoid having sex, the urge is too powerful and can be likened to that of a cocaine or meth user.  

It Brings Them Embarrassment and Shame

It does not matter whether the sex addict takes shame and embarrassment seriously or not. What you as an outsider know is that revealing your sexual affairs and immoral sexual acts deprive a person from their self-esteem and self-concept. Between any two surge-points that push a sex addict into extremities of sexual behavior there are moments of respite and withdrawal where they are in their senses for some time. That’s when this embarrassment and shame bothers them too.

It Keeps Them from Having Long-term Relationships

It’s the mental state of a sex addict that makes them from entering any long-term relationships. What starts out as a shameful act soon becomes a habit and a way to escape stress, emotional setbacks, burden of responsibilities, depression, etc. In this state of mind, they are not able to feel for their life partner, if they have any. They just want to move from one person to another as quickly as possible.

It Pushes Them into a Battle with Conscience

 A sex addict wants to cut back on their sexual activities and fantasies. However, they succumb soon to the urge. This process repeats and as a result, sex addicts find themselves brawling with their conscience over and over. This particular situation has to be taken seriously because the worst end to this fight could be in the form of suicide or suicidal tendencies.

It Makes Them Less Efficient

Sex addiction can affect a person’s career and work life in a negative way too. Withdrawal from sex can often fill a sex addict with restlessness, anxiety or depression. Anxiety and depression invoke thoughts of doom and devastation in the mind of a person. This results in drastic lack of focus and concentration when a sex addict tries to carry out his professional obligations or perform mundane tasks.

It Leads Them to Other Addictions

Sex addiction can force a person into prostitution or having sexual meetings with prostitutes to fulfill their unending desire. In communities where prostitution is common, substance abuse is common too, leading the sex addict to abusing others drugs. Not to mention, the loss of self-control and will-power already weakens a person’s resistance to these addictive substances.

Sex Addiction – Final Words

While any thought or excuse that prevents you from staying away becoming an addict is great, it shouldn’t just be the fear-factor that helps you stay sober. In fact, another motivation to avoid sex or any other type of addiction should be a person’s well-being. Start making the healthy changes in your life from today and become a role model so you can save many other lives in addition to yours.

CLICK HERE to get a Free Confidential Addiction Rehabilitation Assessment.

Honesty in Recovery

Honesty in Recovery

Articles, Australia, Education, International, LGBTQ, Malaysia, Treatment, Understanding Addiction, United Kingdom, United States

Nearly all programs of addiction recovery will treat the idea of honesty as a central feature of recovery. Honesty in recovery and treatment is at least a two-fold issue. We need to learn to be honest with others and we need to learn how to be completely honest with ourselves. Since addiction necessarily involves a great deal of hiding, covering up, and lying even by omission, one of the first hurdles we must go over is addressing the issue of honesty.

At a minimum, living with drug abuse and alcoholism involved hiding the drug use and drinking from others. Nearly all drug addicts and alcoholics know that what they are doing is not acceptable and they go to great lengths to hide their using from family, friends, and co-workers. This leads to duplicity and lying. A crucial feature of drug and alcohol treatment, then, is opening up to people after years of hiding from them. People in treatment and recovery are generally required to finally admit to others what they have been doing. The purpose of this is to clear the air of what can be many years of suspicion and mistrust between the addicted person and the people who are important in their life. This stage of treatment and recovery is cathartic for many. They are relieved of the burden of hiding so much of themselves form others. But it is also traumatic. Treatment programs offer counseling and psychological help during the phase of things because revealing the truth of addiction can bring some painful realities to  both the recovering addict and to their families and friends

Another dimension to honesty in recovery is helping the recovering addict to be honest with themselves. There is of course the primary admission of the full extent of the problem. Most people who struggle with addiction and/or alcoholism find it difficult or nearly impossible to admit to themselves that their drinking and drug use is out of their control It is a natural form of resistance. None of us want to believe that there is a huge part of ourselves that is out of our control. Yet, it is critical for those in treatment to finally admit that alcohol and drugs are no longer a voluntary art of their lives. They are, in fact, controlled by their substances. Being completely honest with themselves about these facts is the first step toward recovery. Giving in to the fact that they have the disease of addiction allows addicted people to be properly treated.

Honesty in recovery works in at least two directions in drug and alcohol treatment. One admits to others the realities of what they have been doing. The mistrust that has built up, mistrust that can go back many years for some, can be healed by these kinds of admissions. It is often the case that family, friends, and co-workers have no idea what a person has been doing. Worry, fear, and resentment builds along with the deceptions of the addict. By clearing the air and being honest, a person in recovery can begin to mend these rifts. Alcoholics and drug addicts lie to themselves first and foremost and this self-deception must be the first course of real honesty. By being completely honest with themselves, people who suffer from addiction can get the real help they need.

CLICK HERE to get a Free Confidential Addiction Rehabilitation Assessment.