VistaTaos

Dealing with anger during recovery is a real Catch-22. You feel angry about the need for recovery from substance abuse, and so you’re likely to use your substance of choice as a way to assuage that anger. On the other hand, you can’t really give clear thought to handling your anger unless your mind is clear.

As you embark on recovery, you need to realize that it’s natural to feel anger. Everybody gets angry: Whether or not a person is in recovery, he will have days when he feels simply overwhelmed by annoyance, irritation, and all the other synonyms you can think of for this frustrating, negative feeling. However, anger can be very destructive, but learning about it can abate its damage.

There are three components to your anger:

• First you experience cognition, the actual thought process of knowing that you are irate, whether or not you know the reason.
• Second, you will feel a physical reaction to your anger, such as an increased heart rate, gulping in air, or even breaking out in hives.
• The third aspect of anger brings out your negative behaviors, whether you slam a door, pound a table, or shout.

It’s easy to understand why you’re riding this rollercoaster of emotions as you work on your recovery. When you were using, you were doing something that felt good—even if it wasn’t healthy for you, physically or legally. Whenever you became angry, the feelings were muted or anesthetized by the drugs you were using.  If you had things in your life that provoked your anger, you could mask those emotions by using. Now that you’re not using, the things that get on your nerves throughout the course of a normal day are compounded by the cravings you feel from not using drugs.

Many people use anger as reason for relapse. Let’s correct that: Many people use anger as an excuse for relapse! It’s easy to see why. Besides the fact that you’re missing your drug of choice as well as the partying, you also feel resentment toward the people who urged you to go into rehab. Even if you recognize that this was something you needed to do to get your life back in order, you can’t help wondering why you had to be among the percentage of the population afflicted with a challenging addiction disorder.

Now that you are changing your life by participating in treatment in an alcohol or drug rehab center, you’ve also got to find new ways to manage negative emotions.  Your rehab counselor can help you with the issues that make you feel angry at yourself. You will also need help in understanding why you bear so much hostility toward certain people in your life. Whether or not those feelings are justified, you have to learn that you can’t change the past, and you probably can’t change other people. You have to move forward from the hurts of the past, and you can only change yourself.

What are the dangers of anger? If you don’t learn how to control negative emotions, you run the risk of increased health problems, including insomnia, fatigue, headaches, nausea, and even cardiac complications.  You may end up destroying relationships or losing your job. People who live with strong negative emotions are statistically more likely to commit a crime, and they are also more likely to be the victim of a crime.

As you develop a relationship with your counselor, the two of you can discuss the anger you feel.  Your counselor will help you learn ways to combat anger so that its impact on your recovery diminishes to a manageable aspect. You will always have days when you get angry—we all do—but you will learn how to deal with anger during recovery from substance abuse and as you move forward in your life.

For drivers in New Mexico who believe it’s okay to risk drinking just a little bit, penalties are about to get a great deal stiffer. State Representative Brian Egolf has introduced legislation directed at persons convicted of drunken driving in New Mexico and ordered to utilize an ignition interlock device: They will no longer be able to purchase alcohol. Beyond traditional alcohol retailers, that includes convenience stores and even restaurants.

New Mexico ranks eighth among all states in the number of fatalities from automobile crashes related to alcohol consumption.  That’s actually an improvement, since it ranked fourth about a decade ago.

Egolf saw the need for the legislation because too many people with alcohol-related convictions are able to skirt current restrictions. He described watching a man with an ignition interlock device as he purchased a Coke along with three mini-bottles of whiskey. He then blew into his interlock ignition device, and once the car was started he poured the whiskey into his Coke, set the drink into his cup holder, and took off.

The court requires anybody convicted of drunken driving to have the device installed. Usually, for a first offense, it must remain in place for a year.  But many people tell the court that they do not have access to a car. There are many others who simply don’t buy the device.

The House passed it by an overwhelming vote of 59 to 5, and it was referred to a Senate Judiciary Committee which recommends its passage.  Among the 5 congressmen who voted against it, Congressman Antonio Maestas based his opposition on the law’s failure to require addiction treatment for drunken driving. It will simply create more criminals convicted of drunken driving in New Mexico, he says.

The executive director of the D.W.I. Resource Center located in Albuquerque stated that the bill may not have any effect on reducing the numbers of people injured or killed from alcohol-related auto accidents. She believes that people who want to drink will always find a way to buy alcohol.

There may be some irony in the director’s statement since the top headline displayed recently on the agency’s website indicated that traffic deaths have reached a five-year high. During the first nine months of 2012, about 40 percent of all                  traffic fatalities involved alcohol.

This law will also most likely be opposed by owners of restaurants and convenience stores responsible for checking driver’s licenses. It states that those who violate the law can be charged with a misdemeanor, but the fourth time someone sells alcohol to someone with a marked driver’s license the consequences will be prosecution for a fourth-degree felony.

Nevertheless, insists Egolf, even if the bill isn’t perfect, it will save families. He points to an auto accident that occurred the same week as the vote on the legislation in which the driver was suspected of drinking, injuring a pregnant woman.

Many people who drink regularly refuse to admit that they suffer from drinking problems. However, once someone is convicted of a drunken driving offense, it’s time to recognize the need for some kind of treatment for alcohol abuse or dependency.

Getting treatment for substance abuse is the first very important step. But how do you maintain recovery? That’s what relapse prevention is all about.

During recovery you learn to recognize the thought processes and the actual expressed excuses that are typical of addicts.  Anticipating a return of those negative attitudes is the first step in relapse prevention. It’s easy to fool yourself into thinking that you’ll never have those kinds of thoughts again, but everybody does.   

Defeatist rationales are better known as “stinking thinking” within the 12-step community. Learning the language of relapse arms you against the dangers it presents. Here are some of the typical warped justifications that lead people down the dark path:

• I’ve really put a lot of work into recovery. Nobody will blame me if I just take a break from it.
• I’m doing so well that I really believe I can handle just one drink.
• If I’m going to be accused of drinking, then I might as well go ahead and do it.  

These types of thoughts occur in the person who thinks he has totally beaten his addiction:

• I know what my weakness is now. I’ll avoid that substance and use this one instead.
• I just want to test myself.
• I don’t really have a need to use, but since I’m with my friends I’ll just have a hit.

Many people find it easy to justify a decision to use again. Everybody, and that means everybody, has made a resolution to stop doing something—spending, eating, using bad language—and then justified a reason to break that resolution. Someone might blame it on his partner or the group of friends he’s hanging out with that day.  It’s natural, because when someone has only a short amount of recovery time under his belt, he is actually going through a healing process, just like a person recovering from a physical injury.

The person who has just begun treatment feels the effects of all kinds of hurtful emotional baggage and negative behaviors that were part and parcel of his substance abuse.  Even when he’s abstinent, he remains vulnerable to having those feelings return and overwhelm him.  The person becomes crushed by the weight of his emotions, often suffering from anxiety, irritability, and depression. Some people experience sexual dysfunction or lose interest in their love life. For others, it’s more about boredom.

These emotions can build to an overwhelming crescendo, and it’s quite understandable. After all, with all the work that somebody puts into recovery—accepting the need for treatment, examining his conscience, resisting temptation—feelings can run pretty wild.

These are some examples of the common relapse justifications—the lies—that people tell themselves:

• My parent/spouse/sibling died. Nobody would expect me to stay sober today.
• I just got fired. Why shouldn’t I use?
• My mortgage is going into foreclosure. I really need a drink!

Other times, people shine on with some seriously silly logic to justify using, for example:

• Look at the weight I’m gaining! If I drop some speed, it’ll curb my appetite.
• Sex is no good without drugs.
• I have to give a presentation at work, and I’ll function better if I just take this first.

Emotions often get the better of someone who is trying to stay sober. He is not yet experienced in turning his thinking around. He may be dealing with the following thoughts:

• I’m so depressed, I don’t care what happens to me.
• She made me so angry that I’m not responsible for my actions.

Here’s What to Do:

Never take your recovery for granted. Addiction is a medical diagnosis, like diabetes. Just like a diabetic, you will have to manage your illness for your entire life. You must always be prepared to handle thoughts about using, because they will always be with you. But you can beat them! Consider the variety of excuses you’ve read here, which ones apply to you, and how you would fight them. Whether you get out your Big Book, call your sponsor, or go to a meeting, your job is simple: Never give up.

Does a person with a mental health diagnosis become an addict because of the medication he needs to help his illness? Can an addict be the victim of medications with side effects that go awry and spark mental health problems? The answer to both questions can be yes. Addiction treatment specialists are looking at the very real challenges of addressing co-occurring diagnoses of mental health problems and addiction.

You’ve Heard About the Chicken and the Egg…

Even with everything that addiction specialists know today, they still cannot agree on what comes first—addiction or mental health problems. Sometimes there is a clear timeline that allows doctors or counselors to recognize that a person suffered from emotional disorders long before he was abusing drugs, but often there is no unambiguous distinction.

Possibly someone with an underlying mental health disorder begins taking drugs to make himself feel calmer or happier. Maybe a person functions well with no obvious problems until his experimentation with drugs brings to the surface the symptoms that he was genetically in danger of developing. In many cases, nobody really knows for certain.

Unfortunately, both of these problems frequently co-exist or co-occur. Politicians, insurance administrators, and people involved in the legal system insist that they are separate issues, and so mental health and addiction treatment specialists are stymied in their attempts to formulate coordinated treatments for affected individuals.  

When Drugs Come First

People who use drugs experience a wide spectrum of mental health symptoms even if there is no underlying mental health problem. For drugs as commonplace as cocaine and amphetamines, symptoms can range from paranoia to anxiety and agitation to aggression. Sometimes a person will see and hear things that aren’t there. Drug-related psychoses come into play when you consider that methamphetamine users often report hearing voices and seeing things. Even with marijuana, now approved for recreational use in Colorado and Washington, scientists are connecting the dots between a gene variant (catechol-o-methyltransferase) and schizophrenia.

Specialists do know that when someone is predisposed to develop mental health problems such as manic depression or even schizophrenia, once he begins to take drugs the symptoms of the mental health disorder will come to the surface sooner had the person not used drugs.  An older person might accept a warning that he should avoid drugs for that reason, but somebody who is in his teens or early 20s figures that he’s invincible and he will typically scoff at any warnings.

When Mental Health Comes First

Someone who suffers from a mental health diagnosis is at a very real risk of drug abuse. In younger people or in people without a regular family physician, depression or mood disorders may go undiagnosed for years. Attention deficit disorder may be written off as a behavioral problem. The person goes untreated, and he discovers that he feels better if he smokes a joint or takes a pill that he finds in the family medicine cabinet.

Treatment Is Possible

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, about 26 percent of the general population suffers from some kind of mental health disorder.  Substance abuse professionals realize that just by statistical default, 26 percent of their patients seeking substance abuse help will suffer from a mental health disorder.

Licensed and accredited substance abuse treatment centers, like Vista Taos Renewal Center, can help the person become whole even if he suffers from the dual diagnoses of mental health problems and addiction. Both illnesses should be treated together, but even if relapse occurs the patient should maintain focus on working toward recovery. The counselor will educate the patient so the he understands both of his illnesses and becomes empowered to develop coping skills and strategies. With patience and perseverance, recovery from a dual diagnosis is possible.   Get help today, call 1.800.245.8267 to learn more.

When a person is abusing drugs or alcohol, he seldom stops to think about how his substance abuse affects the family, specifically his children. The person’s compulsion to use clouds his awareness of his impact on the youngsters that depend upon him.  Almost 10 million of our nation’s children live in a household with at least one parent who abuses alcohol or drugs. About 2 million children have a parent in jail.

The normal child needs clothing, food, and shelter from his parent. During the course of the day he expresses his need for comfort or reassurance, food, an extra blanket or sweater, or just some playful interaction with his parent. The parent who is numbed by his drug of choice—or preoccupied with getting his next high—misses the normal cues sent by his child. The youngster’s cues gradually decrease, and he disengages from his parent.

• He becomes distrustful as well as disinterested in learning from his parent.
• His understanding of normal behaviors demonstrated by others will not develop, and he will not be able to form good relationships when he gets older.
• He loses confidence in himself. His undeveloped social skills mean that he will likely fail in his schoolwork or in socializing with peers.
• He grows up to be oblivious to the emotional needs of others. He feels little concern or remorse if he hurts other people’s feelings.

These are the developmental issues that children suffer when a parent’s substance abuse affects the family. Just how do such problems manifest?  

• The typical child of an alcoholic or drug addict suffers from anxiety and depression.
• He becomes embarrassed about the drug-using parent. He doesn’t bring friends home, he doesn’t ask for help with homework, and he doesn’t come to his parents with questions about health or safety issues or even sex.
• In school, he does poorly on achievement tests and he shows little interest in developing a plan for college or other success in life.
• He suffers from lack of parental supervision, resulting in a disregard for curfews and acceptable teenage behavior.
• He mimics the behaviors modeled by his parent—substance abuse is an acceptable behavior for him.

In many households, a dynamic called parentification occurs: The child by default must take over parenting roles that the drug-using parent is not fulfilling. An older child may have to look after younger siblings. He may have to do cleaning or cooking that a parent would normally do. In extreme cases, a child finds a way to augment household income by dealing drugs or engaging in some other kind of illegal activity.

There are other cases of parentification in which the child provides for the emotional needs of others in his family. He is expected to offer comfort to his parent and also to his younger siblings. One or both of the parents saddle the child by confiding inappropriate information to him. He becomes the mediator when his parents are arguing.

Drug abuse is a selfish thing. The drug abuser thinks only of getting his next high. Expected to attend the son’s basketball playoff game? Well, that falls by the wayside when Joe is waiting at the bar. Dance recital time for the daughter? Too bad rehearsal starts at 11 a.m.—it’s just not possible to make that with such a roaring hangover. People tell themselves they are too depressed to go somewhere, but they’re really just lying in bed crashing from their last high and thinking about the next one. Is that what’s happening in your household? Maybe it’s time to get help.

Whether you’re seeking help from a drug abuse treatment center or you’re the family member of someone who is using, it will help you to understand the connection between the addict and her drug.  There is a relationship between the addict and her drug of choice that is more important to her than any of the relationships she has with the people in her life.

Think about the obstacles she overcomes to maintain her use:  She’s fighting with people, struggling to sustain some semblance of a daily life, and possibly even backed into a legal corner. Despite those negatives, she really enjoys the way that substance makes her feel. It’s a relationship that she never wants to end.

She puts more work into that relationship than with any of her real-life relationships.  Consider the qualities that go into a relationship: You think about commitment, dedication, faithfulness, honesty, and communication. But those qualities demonstrate themselves in a kind of twisted way when it comes to drug addiction.

She lies to the people in her life because she is committed to maintaining her addiction. She is dedicated to maintaining a façade that will protect her ability to use.  No matter what opportunities are presented to her, she remains faithful to her addiction.

Just how does that relationship become such a reality for the addict? As she descends into an ever-deepening abyss of addiction, she rationalizes her drug use by telling herself that she is different from other people and she can handle the drugs. That means that people are wrong about drugs being bad.

She has to believe that in order to maintain a positive self-image. The alternative is accepting that drugs generate negative behaviors, and she will have to despise herself for her use.  She must then despise the people who love her because, since she’s not worthy of love, the people who love her must be stupid. All of this unhealthy reasoning is exacerbated by her use.

Loved ones ask, “Why are you doing this to us?” Initially the addict promises over and over again to stop using. But she doesn’t stop. The satisfaction she gets from her high becomes the primary motivation in her life. Nobody and nothing matter as much as the substance of choice.

How does she shut down the people who are interfering with her drug of choice, the real love in her life?  You’ve heard that the best defense is a good offense: So the addict responds by lashing out at her family members.

She’ll begin with something like “I’m not hurting anybody but myself.” But she will spiral downward to horrible things like, “I don’t want you to interfere in my business” and “I hate you—I will never forgive you—leave me alone” and even “Why don’t you die.” She will say and do anything to get family members to back off.

If you are dealing with an addict and you feel that you are not as important to her as her addiction, you are correct. That’s why recovery requires involvement of the entire family. The addict is still fighting you when she says “I got myself into this—you can’t help me get out of it.” Recovery is not something she can do alone. A drug abuse treatment center can bring her to communicate with honesty. Only when she accepts the truth that her addiction affects her entire family, and only when she begins to work with her loved ones instead of against them, will she truly be able to achieve recovery.

There is a debate going on—it’s actually not a new one—about whether or not family members should have the power to force their addicted spouses, children, or parents into alcohol or substance abuse treatment. Those who favor mandated addiction treatment believe that requiring someone to confront his addiction or abuse will put him on the road to recovery. Others express concerns that such mandates violate civil rights.

Maia Szalavitz addressed the issue in Time.com’s Healthland article of October 3, 2012, entitled “Should States Let Families Force Addicts Into Rehab?” (http://healthland.time.com/2012/10/03/should-states-let-families-force-adults-into-rehab/?utm_source=Join+Together+Daily&utm_campaign=63d65f8447-JTDN_Govt_Prgm_Help_Drs_Fight_Rx_Abuse10_4_12&utm_medium=email) Besides her concern for protecting a person’s rights, she also questions whether addiction counselors are adequately trained. She believes that forced rehabilitation cannot succeed unless the addict is humiliated into acceptance of forced changes—and how permanent will changes be if they are forced, she asks.

Half of the addicts going into treatment, Svalavatz purports, are sent there by the legal system; and she believes that such forced treatment is neither effective nor pretty.   Better, she suggests, to offer a market-based treatment model: One in which the addict recognizes the benefits he will accrue from going into treatment. She suggests that programs should work with the addict’s needs in order to attract customers.

However, most addicts will never agree to treatment until they’re backed into a legal or socioeconomic corner.

The Temper Tantrum

You’re probably reading this because you know someone who needs treatment; take a minute to think about the last time you tried to curtail that person’s use of his substance of choice. Did he rant and rave at you, tell you he hated you, and demand that you mind your own business?

If you’re a parent, think about the time when your child was young and he threw a temper tantrum at a store because he wanted some toy that you told him he couldn’t have. He threw himself on the floor and hollered. He was small enough so that you could pick him up and cart him away.

The behavior of addicts when confronted by their family members is very similar. In fact, it really is a full-blown temper tantrum, designed to deter you from ever again insisting on such an outrageous idea as substance abuse treatment. That is why it becomes important for families to persist in their insistence. Addicts will not stop until they are forced to do so, whether the force comes through the legal system or through the boundaries that you draw for the addict.

The Medical Diagnosis of Addiction

Szalavitz makes a good point that for addicts “the fun is long gone.” However, for people who abuse substances, their motivation goes beyond the question of having fun. Medical studies actually suggest that they are more biochemically susceptible than others to activation of the cerebral cortex when they use, which activates a pleasure response. Thus the more they use, the more they want to use. It really is a biomedical condition that they cannot resist. And in the face of this irresistible compulsion comes a need for someone to step in and say “It’s over.”

The Stages of Change

Getting someone into substance abuse treatment means recognizing the need for change.  Addiction counselors talk about stages of change identified as precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance and relapse prevention. A person in the precontemplation stage if forced into treatment will say, “I don’t know why I’m here. I know people who do things much worse than I do.” If someone is at the next stage, he might say, “Yeah, I know someday I have to quit, but not yet.” The point is to move the person via his treatment plan through the various stages until he accepts the need to maintain sobriety and prevent relapse.

In the meantime, what are your options if you want to force a family member into change? According to Mental Illness Policy.org’s list of State-by-State Standards for Involuntary Commitment (http://mentalillnesspolicy.org/studies/state-standards-involuntary-treatment.html), only a few  states specifically spell out legal standards for involuntary commitment in cases of substance abuse: Hawaii, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Nevada, West Virginia, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin.  Since that list was published, Ohio has passed legislation and Pennsylvania is working on it, while California has backed off from the issue.  Yet all states in some language or another specify consideration for inpatient care based on mental health illnesses.

What about Szalavitz’s suggestion for market-based treatment options? The fact is that many residential substance abuse treatment centers now offer client-based services that put the addict in control of his own treatment progress. This is called a client-centered approach. The addict helps to determine the treatment goals and hoped-for outcomes. He remains motivated throughout his treatment period to progress toward recovery. That’s why it’s important to choose a treatment center with counselors who have significant experience in addiction treatment.

Always remember as you move toward helping your relative that recovery is not easy.  It’s true that many experts report on a low success rate at drug treatment centers; but the fact is that anybody who goes through a treatment program is learning the tools he needs to maintain recovery, even if this is actually a gradual accumulation of the knowledge and understanding required to succeed.

Just as Szavalatz talks of J. in her story, a young man who became addicted to pain killers through no fault of his own and refused treatment, there are other stories of other people who learned something from repeated exposure to treatment.   There’s another man whose story has not been made public, but he tells of completing a 90-day treatment center and maintaining sobriety for another 90 days and then relapsing to a point of use worse than anything he’d ever experienced.  He awoke one day in a hospital “with tubes coming out of everywhere,” at the brink of death. As he lay in his hospital bed, he began to think of what he had learned during residential substance abuse treatment, and gradually he began to put it to work for himself.  His story hasn’t ended, yet, because recovery is forever; but  that’s where he is right now.

So, should a person be forced into treatment? The law will take care of that if he is charged with driving while intoxicated, or if he hits and kills someone with his vehicle. But what about other endangerments he creates? He may endanger himself by getting so high that he falls down flat on the sidewalk and bashes out his teeth.  He may put himself at risk if he passes out and simply quits breathing. He may endanger his family by getting fired and not being able to pay the bills. He may hurt his family if his behavior while intoxicated brings emotional damage to the people he loves. 

Are you ready to hold him—or her—accountable? Maybe it’s time to draw some boundaries. If you or someone you love is looking for to start on the path to recovery call Vista Taos Renewal Center today at 1.800.245.8267.

Additional Resources:

Manderscheid, Ronald W et al. Preventing Chronic Disease, Volume 7, No. 1, A19, January 2010. Evolving Definitions of Mental Illness and Wellness. http://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2010/Jan/pdf/09_0124.pdf.

Visit the government’s Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services (SAMSHA) website and explore counseling requirements for your state, and its National Review of State Alcohol and Drug Treatment Programs, including state by state licensure and certification requirements, at http://www.socialworkers.org/credentials/specialty/c-catodsw.asp.

News outlets throughout the Southwest and in fact nationwide are reporting on a new prepaid credit card called the “Next Step” card. It’s a card intended for use by adults in recovery. It cannot be used at bars, liquor stores, beer or wine distributors, pawn shops, or ATM machines.

The company offering the card was founded by a group of three recovering addicts:

• Eric Dresdale has a BA in business management and has worked primarily in real estate. He is also known for his involvement in charitable organizations.
• Louis Fisher is proud of his military background and has since funded and organized a variety of entrepreneurial projects. He also works closely with several charitable organizations that target recovery.
• Ryan Jaffe’s background is in marketing and sales, and he works regularly to help addicts who are crossing the bridge from treatment centers to recovery.

The founders came up with the idea for the card because “cash in hand” typically has been an addict’s trigger for use. A trigger is something that makes someone automatically want to use a substance. For example, give a cigarette smoker a cup of coffee and he will automatically want to light up. With substance abuse, the triggers can be many things, but most experts agree that cash triggers a desire to use.

Others dispute that cash is a trigger. Dr. David Festinger and his colleagues writing for The Partnership at Drugfree.org argue that there is insufficient research to support this theory. While there is acknowledgment that having cash on hand has on occasion brought someone to a point of relapse, they say that most people in addiction treatment utilize their cash funds wisely to pay bills or buy food.

However, many addiction treatment centers restrict the use of cash by the clients they are treating. In some cases, even a T-shirt decorated with cash or gold is frowned upon. Clinicians have found that addicts who are in treatment together will, during periods of socialization, enjoy talking about past deals they made, how they scored, and what they would do if they had money. Glorifying cash and drugs does not help someone who’s trying to recover.

How does the Next Step card work? The person in recovery cannot set up his own card. He must have a family member or friend who is willing to establish a primary card, and that card will control or limit the funds for the Next Step card. That means that the addict has to be in a stage of recovery so that he or she has gained the trust of this other person.

It’s also not free. There is a $10 fee to set up the card, and then the user incurs a monthly fee of $15. Transactions are limited to 40 per month for adults, and parents of teens can set up the card so that the teen can use it once per day up to five times daily. The card will not work at package stores for beer, wine and liquor; at bars, taverns, pubs, nightclubs, and cocktail lounges; gambling establishments; dating or escort services; tattoo  or piercing parlors; or ATMs. It will not offer a cash-back option at point-of-service establishments.

The company cannot, of course, guarantee misuse by vendors who will help the addict circumvent the restriction by inflating a purchase price and then giving the addict cash back. The card will not stop someone from purchasing alcohol at a store where the primary business is not alcohol; for example, at a supermarket, the store’s primary products are groceries, but many sell alcohol.

Some people believe, however, that the Next Step card is a real way for the person serious about recovery, working in tandem with a caregiver who supervises his card, to transition back into society and get a feel for controlling his own finances once again. Many people believe that the founders are taking advantage of an opportunity to just make some bucks; but if you consider the cost of the card against the fees charged for house arrest, it might just be justifiable. What do you think?

Resource:

Festinger, David et al, for The Partnership at Drugfree.org. Commentary: Charging Into Recovery – Is Cash Really a Gateway Drug? http://www.drugfree.org/join-together/addiction/commentary-charging-into-recovery-is-cash-really-a-gateway-drug?utm_source=Join+Together+Weekly&utm_campaign=cda10d62b1-JTWN_Charging_into_Recovery_Gateway_Drug_102612&utm_medium=email

See also Nextstepcard.com

Some people who recognize that they need to be in recovery simply refuse to attend AA or NA meetings: They just don’t want to be “hassled” by others who practice religion openly in their lives. It turns them off when they hear someone say that they will be doomed if they don’t embrace religion, that they can’t achieve recovery or maintain sobriety without the help of God.

Is that a valid excuse for skipping step work? Can you find your way into recovery without embracing religion?

If you go into a recovery program for 90 days, for example, you will learn the 12 steps of AA or NA, but because understanding each of the steps takes so much time and thought you will really only work your way through the first four steps. They talk about being powerless, believing in a higher power, turning yourself over to your higher power, and conducting a fearless moral inventory.

If you were raised in a household where religion was practiced sternly or not practiced at all, you simply might not see the relevance of turning your life over to the care of God.  After all, all religions are man-made organizations.  They don’t encourage exploration or expansion of the inner self. Some people don’t want to go to confession. Others practice a gay or lesbian lifestyle or believe in other liberal agendas that may be excluded by some religions.

Those people do not take pleasure in participating in a religion that requires the subjugation of oneself to a church leader who passes judgment and sets expectation.  The precepts of most religions require you to accept certain teachings blindly, without question.

However, the key to succeeding in a 12-step recovery program lies in that little phrase at the end of Step 3: It refers to God “as you understand him.”  What that really means is that you are ready to turn yourself away from the self-destructive practices of using alcohol or drugs and instead turn toward a higher power—a new spirituality—that will bring enlightenment and happiness into your life. It doesn’t matter whether your higher power is a supreme being or something else, like a commitment to earth stewardship or a devotion to meditation and healthful living.

Realizing that you can embrace recovery without committing yourself to a strict theological approach is quite possible. It’s a joyous idea! What you really will do is focus not on religion but on spirituality.

Instead of forcing you to accept the stern doctrines of an organized religion, your spirituality will allow you to embrace an inner peace. Instead of accepting creeds etched in stone dictated by church leaders, spirituality allows you to ask questions and formulate your own theories.

Instead of fearing the punishments proscribed by church leaders and bearing heavy guilt for your past sins, you can learn to forgive yourself and move forward. You can learn to forgive the others in your life who have hurt you, and when you cannot change something you can learn to move forward from it. 

So let’s take a good look at the first four steps: 

• Step 1: You are powerless over your addiction: Well, if it’s true, admit it, God or no God. Are your relationships with other people damaged? Have you jeopardized your job and your ability to provide clothing, food, and shelter for yourself and your family? Has your substance abuse brought you legal problems? Has your addiction at times made you physically ill?
• Step 2: A power greater than yourself can restore you to sanity. You owe it to yourself to evaluate your perceptions of religion. If you don’t like religion, why not? How was it practiced in your household when you were growing up? Do you think that scientific energy drives the universe? If so, how can you synergize with the world around you?
• Step 3: You will turn yourself over to the will of God as you understand him. There is not a God in any known religion who wants you to obey him mindlessly. If you do embrace the idea of a supreme being, think of Him-Her-It as a being that wants you to do what you believe is the right thing. Once you embrace the thinking, the recovery program, and the 12-step group, you can focus on using your intellect to learn.  You can begin to work on recognizing your relationship with your addiction, your need for treatment, and the triggers that spur you on to substance abuse.
• Step 4: The searching and fearless inventory. The first three steps all lead to this one. No matter whether you believe in God or if you deny his existence, you reach the point at Step 4 when you have to turn your probing inspections inward at yourself. What kind of character do you have? Are you a good person more than a bad person? What are your strengths and weaknesses?

Recovery by way of development of your inner spirituality can certainly work when you don’t hold a conviction to religious beliefs. What spirituality means in real practice is an attention to yourself: Enhance your inner self with meditation. Expand your mind through journaling. Focus on outward practices such as environmental causes or mentorship in an area where you have strengths.

You may do well in a recovery program that helps you explore those inner needs and characteristics. Yoga can help you become a more calm and focused person. Holistic treatments, acupuncture, and artistic therapies let you develop self-confidence and emotional healing. Even a guilty pleasure such as massage helps to relieve discomfort and reduce stress.

Learn to treat your body better as you begin your spiritual recovery from addiction. Drink healthful foods. Read the nutritional panels on the packages of your favorite healthy foods when you shop. Find an exercise program that suits you, whether it involves free weights, a machine circuit, cardio classes, or swimming. If you once enjoyed reading, drawing, singing, or another creative pastime, then take it up again. Only when you embrace your own complete harmony with the world around you will you be able to travel down the road to recovery, whether you travel with God or without him.

Vista Taos Renewal Center’s therapeutic efforts are grounded the Twelve-Step  model.  For more information on the residential treatment program contact them 1.800.245.8267.

So, do you know anyone, or are acquainted with someone who has a drug and/or alcohol addiction? Does their addiction involve opiates? What drug were they using and for how long? Are you willing to get a group of people together for an intervention, so that this person can go to a rehab, especially one that is known to work very well? If so, then you have come to the right place.

Vista Taos Renewal Center is more than just a regular drug rehab in Albuquerque. It is a powerful form of recovery that an addict will be able to incorporate into his or her life forever. Vista Taos is a private rehabilitation center with a minimum 30 day stay. Do the research for yourself, and you will find that this is a place that has everything an addict needs to relax and learn to stay sober. They will teach you how to continue using the tools learned to win the victory over the war on drugs that is going on in their lives.

The number one most difficult addiction to overcome is opiate addiction. There are many different forms of opiates that addicts use besides heroin. They even use opiates such as methadone and suboxone to treat opiate addiction since it is so difficult to overcome. The following news report proves this difficulty. It also shows how the war being waged has been lost between government’s regulations on medications, the addicts who were previously addicted to this medication, and the companies who are selling it legally, even though what they are doing appears to be similar to a heroin street peddler.

Did you know that OxyContin and the way it was used by addicts in the past has now changed? This is a very recent change. The title of the news story is: "Big Pharma's OxyContin Addicts Being Forced to Heroin: War on Drugs is Complete Failure." That should say it all. Are you the least bit surprised? Neither are we.

Since BigPharm decided to make OxyContin different so that the medication could no longer be snorted or shot up as it could previously, many addicts had turned to heroin to fill that need. OxyContin was the strongest prescription opiate, and therefore, somewhat "safer" to use instead of heroin, since it was an approved pharmaceutical. Safer from the persepctive of knowing what was in the drug.  Now that they have changed OxyContin so that people would stop using it in these other ways, those same people had to do the unthinkable to achieve similar result: Using Heroin, a cheaper and widely available alternative. This is not an attempt to condone using OxyContin as the news story describes.

If the government allows pill factories for the sake of Big Pharma's income, then why change a medication that was once making them lots of money?  Heroin is not only worse, but it can be easily overdosed on. OxyContin doesn't have any unknown substances in it, it is a pure pharmaceutical, albeit highly addictive substance and typically prescribed by a physician or pain management clinic.  Abusing OxyContin, other prescription based opioid or heroin or using them illicitly wreaks havoc in the lives of many individuals.   If you need help winning this war within yourself, please fill out the Vista Taos Admissions Inquiry Form, and a staff member will get in touch with you or simply call for more information.