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Should You Put Recovery on Your List of New Year’s Resolutions?

Posted on by Christy Weeks
Future

By Michael Rass

About forty percent of Americans make New Year’s resolutions around this time. They typically resolve to live healthier in the new year or improve their lifestyle in other ways. Popular resolutions include staying fit and healthy, losing weight, enjoying life to the fullest, getting organized, and traveling more.

The good intentions listed above all share the same problem: they are rather vague. That is probably why most people give up on their resolutions by February. Most resolutions are not kept. As Nielsen.com notes, “43 percent of Americans say they plan to lose weight by making healthier food choices, but 76 percent said they did not follow a weight loss or diet program in 2014.”

So, if you have a substance use disorder, should you put recovery on the list? Should fighting a serious disease like addiction be a New Year’s resolution?

Don’t Set Yourself Up for Failure

Yes and no. It’s not a bad idea to have goals for the new year, but they should be SMART—specific, measurable, agreed, realistic and time based. In other words, your resolution should not be “drink less” or “cut back on smoking marijuana,” because those intentions have no time frame and cannot be measured effectively.

Goals are important to achieving recovery but ideally they are objectives agreed with a therapist or sponsor as part of a treatment program. They should not be the vague declarations of intent that New Year’s resolutions tend to be.

Goal-Setting Can Make You Heal Faster

When done right, setting specific goals can be surprisingly effective. In his 2012 book, The Power of Habit, author Charles Duhigg describes a Scottish study that examined the power of goal setting for patients recovering from knee or hip surgery. Mobilization and exercise are very important for these patients but the pain can be so extreme that many skip rehab sessions and refuse to get on their feet. Participants in the study had to set weekly goals, writing down exactly what they were going to do. Patients in a control group did not have to set any goals.

“It seems absurd to think that giving people a few pieces of blank paper might make a difference in how they recover from surgery,” writes Duhigg. “But when the researcher visited the patients three months later, she found a striking difference between the two groups.The patients who had written plans in their booklets had started walking almost twice as fast as the ones who had not. They had started getting in and out of their chairs, unassisted, almost three times as fast.”

Goal-setting is an important tool in addiction treatment as well. The right goals formulated in small achievable steps combined with appropriate therapy can improve clients’ chances of a successful recovery, but they should not just settle for a generic “I want to be sober.” They should formulate specific steps on how to achieve sobriety on a day-to-day basis.

For many people with addiction, pledges like “I will never use drugs again” often seem frighteningly daunting in early recovery. It is mentally easier for them to commit to the much more modest “I will not use today” and have that same goal every day. One patient in the Scottish study had the goal always to take a second step and not sit back down after the excruciatingly painful first step when getting up. Presumably, that was more effective for him than “keep walking.”

New Year’s resolutions like “enjoying life to the fullest” fail because they are too global. You wouldn’t even know at what point you have achieved it.

No Need to Wait

New Year’s resolutions also involve the risk of delay. Drugs and alcohol can kill you, often sooner than later, and waiting for New Year’s Day to come along to get better can be dangerous.

If you are battling a severe substance use disorder, your recovery should start as soon as possible.

Don’t resolve to quit drinking or using drugs next year and then go on a binge before New Year’s Eve. There is absolutely no need to wait until New Year before enjoying sobriety. The time to quit is right now. Get help before it is too late. Your life depends on it.

Avoidance and Attendance: Advocating for Yourself

Posted on by Christy Weeks
Attendance

by Khara Brindle

It’s that time of year. The time where you might feel the urge to disengage from therapy in response to the season, holidays, or stress. The time when you may need an appointment the most in order to support you through trauma, family conflict, isolation, and loneliness. For some, the crises seem to intensify during the holidays. Perhaps you are experiencing depression symptoms due to the winter weather or maybe you are battling loneliness in spending the holidays away from your loved ones. Perhaps you are attempting to navigate the unwanted memories of trauma during your family’s holiday dinner or are experiencing high anxiety because of money stress and holiday shopping. You on your journey to sobriety and anticipate having to navigate holiday parties around family and friends where temptation may lead to relapse. Combine these stressful situations with your ability to cope and you may feel you can engage in therapy fully to receive support, or in some cases, desire to disengage in response to the overwhelming feeling of all that is weighing you down. It can feel like a balancing act to engage your supports when feeling stressed, but rest assured, it can be an empowering experience to engage in through the holiday season in support of your personal and relationship goals.

Avoiding Appointments
The more easily measured type of avoidance when overwhelmed is a change in attendance in your scheduled sessions. Perhaps you find yourself canceling sessions when in the past, you’ve been consistent in attending each week. Or maybe you find yourself cancelling last minute due to feeling like you need to use that time or money for another task? How do you explore your needs when you haven’t been able to justify spending the time or money on your own mental health? Depending on how your therapist structures sessions, you may want to consider advocating for yourself in exploring the following:
• Completing a phone call with your therapist to communicate what is going on in your world and attempt to re-engage in sessions to support managing your stress.
• Engaging in a phone session instead of a face-to-face to explore and address present stressors if you are unable to attend in person.
• Identifying a different appointment time that encourages attendance such as an early morning before work or later evening if appropriate and depending on if your therapist has openings at
those times.
• Identifying biweekly or monthly sessions for the holiday season to account for financial constraints and time management.
• Reviewing your attendance contract with your therapist to explore opportunities and restrictions, such as possibly placing scheduled appointments on hold and resuming at a later time if
appropriate.

Emotionally checking out
The hope is that with ongoing rapport, the conversations with your therapist above can support you with healthy communication and accountability when experiencing increased distress. Your relationship with your therapist, or rapport, becomes even more important when you find yourself engaged by your therapist around a lack of emotional participation in session. Perhaps you begin to notice that you struggle to arrive on time to your scheduled appointments, jumping into sessions with details unrelated to yourself or changing subjects rapidly throughout the scheduled time. Or maybe you remain surface-level in your processing, not dropping down into emotions and deeper meaning in session because you are avoiding the stress or have worries that it will become unbearable when talking about it. With healthy communication, you can name what’s going on for you and process the outcomes with your therapist. Here are some examples of how you might start the conversation:
• In response to running late: “I’m struggling to get here on time and it feels rushed lately, like we have to fit it all in. Can I talk to you more about what that’s like for me?”
• In response to staying surface-level: “I have to admit, it’s easier to talk about the lighter things than the deeper, more stressful stuff. I think I’m worried that if we talk about it, it will just make
me feel worse.”
• To encourage connection: “I feel very disconnected from my body, like my head is fuzzy and floating and I just want to be numb rather than this stressed all the time. Can you help me feel
more like myself?”
• To encourage feedback: “I’m needing something different in our sessions to help me. Can I talk to you more about that?”
• To name fears: “I’m afraid that if we talk about these things, I won’t be able to function or get things done afterwards,” or “I’m reluctant to talk about this now because we won’t have our next
appointment until after the holiday.”

Any of these statements can lead to a supportive conversation with your therapist to further identify and explore your needs. These sessions can prove to be some of the most impactful and fruitful in not only holding space for emotion and processing of stress, but also supporting vulnerability and self-advocacy in exploring how you can engage all of your supports in ways that feel beneficial to you.

Hear me
Vulnerability is hard. Yet for many of us, the power of being seen, heard, and understood makes engaging in vulnerability worthwhile. Your therapist, engaging you from a place of compassion and empathy, can better understand your needs when you speak of them. Your therapist can offer a neutral curiosity with ongoing optimism conveys the message that, together, you can find relief. Whether it be concrete tools for coping or holding space for your emotions, your therapist can create a safety net to address any fear, guilt, or shame you may be harboring in these moments of distress. Engaging in holiday travel, consider your therapy sessions a roadmap to relief! With direction and insight, you can address avoidance and attendance from an authentic, supportive place to best serve you during the hustle and bustle of the holiday season.

“You are as amazing as you let yourself be. Let me repeat that, you are as amazing as you let yourself be.” Elizabeth Alraune

Khara Croswaite Brindle, MA, LPC, ACS, is a Licensed Professional Counselor in the Lowry Neighborhood of Denver, Colorado. She received her Masters Degree in Counseling Psychology from the University of Denver with a focus on community based mental health. Khara has experience working with at-risk youth and families, including collaboration with detention, probation, and the Department of Human Services. Khara enjoys working with young adults experiencing anxiety, depression, trauma, relational conflict, self-esteem challenges, and life transitions.

 

 

Nourishing Your Nervous System In Recovery

Posted on by Christy Weeks
Compass with needle pointing the word well-being. 3D illustration with blur effect. Concept of wellbeing or wellness

By Jolene Park

Jolene Park

As you encounter various experiences, situations, interactions and decisions throughout your day ask yourself this simple question: “Is this nourishing?”

Who are the people that you surround yourself with? Do your friends, family members, co-workers, intimate romantic partners uplift or deplete you? Have you chosen healing mentors, practitioners, healthcare providers who listen and tend to you? What about the environments you place yourself in at work and home? Are they clean, cluttered, and weighed down with stuff literally or metaphorically? What about nature? Do you have a place in nature that you can access and visit easily and frequently?

What about those conversations you have in your own head? Or the conversations you have with others? Are they uplifting, supportive, nourishing? Do you speak up for yourself or do you swallow and suppress your feelings, words, or truth? Do you nourish yourself with quiet time, reflection, rest? Are you in a nourishing work situation and environment? Does your work provide nourishing compensation for your contributions? Do you make nourishing decisions about how you save and spend money?

Do you move, stretch your body in a self-compassionate (nourishing) way? The style of exercise or time spent exercising isn’t as important as how you use exercise. Exercise is not meant to be a self-punishment for something that you ate or drank, instead exercise is meant to boost endorphins and build physical and mental strength. How do you use exercise?
Which foods do you eat on a regular basis? Does the food you choose energize and fortify you? Why do you select the food that you do? Is it delicious, nutrient rich and nourishing? Or is it convenient, processed, and something that you’re eating because you think you should? How often do you cook your own nourishing meals?

Do you connect to something outside of yourself on a regular basis? Prayer, gratitude, forgiveness or other practices? What sustains and anchors you? How about play and pleasure? Or is this an area that’s malnourished and pushed to the back burner? Is pleasure a forbidden, scary thing? If yes, why? And finally, once your cup is full with true nourishment in various forms how do you offer that out to others? This isn’t just about what you’re getting, accumulating, doing, and using, there is a boomerang effect to nourishment as well. Once you have filled up your own cup it’s time to help “feed” and uplift others.

Building a supportive, consistent routine of nourishing practices, habits, relationships, and choices is the true nourishment that sustains and strengthens us.
This is not about being perfect, punishing yourself or being a purist. Instead, this is about bringing ease, fun, and enjoyment (healthy nourishment) to all areas of your life. We live in a time when we have access to more Healthy Discoveries – resources, options, practices and support than ever before. Start now. Make nourishment a part of your daily focus.

To Learn More about Jolene Park and Healthy Discoveries, Visit:
www.healthydiscoveries.com

Conrada “Bunni” Jauregui Shares Her Gift of Recovery

Posted on by Christy Weeks
Gift of Recovery

After being “out there” for many years, running amuck with my addiction, turning my back on “life and my family” it was time to turn my life around and what better time than the holidays. It was the perfect “gift” I could give myself and my family. Holidays were not always festive when I was in my active addiction. I spent little time with my family and more time with friends drinking and using.

My “norm” became a bottomless pit of darkness, I couldn’t see anything but black surrounding me and my addiction was putting me in harm’s way. I needed help. I needed “to change” no matter what. So when the opportunity came up for me to go to treatment, I went willingly.

I entered treatment at Harmony on December 16th a few weeks before the holiday season. I was excited to leave California and go to Colorado. Even though I was “high” when I arrived in Colorado, I remember the beauty of the mountains and the snow and how I felt like I could get better here. I knew that it was going to require sacrifice if I was going to get better, including letting go of Thanksgiving, Christmas and even New Years. This was my time to get well, and my family’s time to rest and know I was someplace safe.

Being in treatment during the holidays wasn’t so bad. Harmony made the experience special. They provided us with presents on Christmas morning, we decorated and I shared my early recovery with new friends.

My family is important to me but I needed to feel and learn that I was most important. Everyone’s road to recovery is different. Making this decision to stay in treatment was a rare opportunity for me to turn my life around. So I surrendered to all my short comings, the time away from my family, and decided to become the most important reason to get sober.

Today, my sobriety is the reason why my life is so rich and vibrant. My willingness to look back at the short-term sacrifice of being in treatment during the holidays contributed to helping me get my family back again. This year, I can celebrate the joy of the season healthy and full of gratitude, knowing that this gift of recovery continues to bless me and all those I love.

As we approach the holiday season and you are reading this testimonial, know that you are worth every bit of happiness “sobriety” offers. Don’t wait until after Thanksgiving, Christmas or the New Year to make this change in your life. Do it now so that you can experience the countless holidays to come that are free from the pain and suffering of addiction. Give that gift of recovery to yourself and to your family. I did and it was the best gift ever!

Recovery during the Holidays. Watch one woman’s story of hope.

Harmony Foundation Responds to the Opioid Epidemic with HOPE

Posted on by Christy Weeks

by Christopher Reveley, MD, and Annie Peters, PhD, LP

The Opioid Epidemic

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), nearly 100 people die from opioid overdose in the United States every day, and 2.6 million Americans struggle with opioid addiction. The prescribing of opioid pain relievers became much more common in the late 1990s, and it soon became evident that these medications were powerfully addictive. Opioid overdose deaths have increased significantly in the years since. Many of those addicted to heroin started with the abuse of prescription opioids.

Overdose along with the spread of HIV, hepatitis C, and withdrawal syndromes in babies born to addicted mothers constitute a nationwide crisis that has overwhelmed the resources of state and local health care delivery services. Recently, the White House identified the opioid epidemic as a national public health emergency.

How is Harmony Responding to Opioid Epidemic?

Harmony Foundation in Estes Park, CO, has been treating addiction for 48 years and has fostered a generation of long-term recovery support for individuals and families. Harmony’s mission is to provide the foundation for sustained recovery from the diseases of drug and alcohol addiction. Harmony staff is committed to continuous improvement and closely monitors a client experience, treatment response, and the research literature on addiction treatment. In the field of opioid addiction research, advances in behavioral treatment, neurobiology, and brain imaging have given treatment programs guidance in developing better services. Harmony now offers HOPE – Harmony’s Opioid Programming Experience. HOPE is offered to all Harmony clients with opioid use disorders. The program involves enhanced medical, counseling, and case management services specifically tailored to meet these clients’ unique needs.

HOPE: Medical and Clinical Approaches

HOPE begins with thorough medical and psychological evaluations. Collaboration with the client, members of the interdisciplinary team and, when appropriate, family and referral sources, determine the most effective treatment plan. All HOPE clients are invited to participate in weekly Opiate Support Groups led by a professional addiction counselor. This group addresses the unique challenges of early opioid recovery, including uncomfortable physical and psychological symptoms, cravings, and strategies to avoid rapid relapse. In this setting, clients support each other and are educated about the process of recovery.

Harmony has provided all clients with medication-assisted treatment (MAT) for many years. This combination of education, counseling, and the use of medication in early recovery is part of the Harmony philosophy. HOPE expands MAT to include medications that alter the physical response to opioids, reduce craving, and give the individual time to heal from the psychological, social, and spiritual wounds of addiction.

HOPE clients may choose to avoid medications altogether or use only sleep and anxiety-reducing medications during the acute withdrawal period. For others, naltrexone, an opioid receptor blocker, can prevent the euphoria of opioid use and help control cravings, thereby changing the client’s drive to use illicit opioids after treatment.

Buprenorphine

This partial opioid agonist, administered in a tapering protocol, may be chosen by the treatment team and client to ease symptoms of severe opioid withdrawal during detoxification. On an individual basis, this medication may be continued during early recovery, most commonly for those with severe and persistent opioid addiction. Care following residential treatment may include ongoing buprenorphine to provide a craving-free foundation for the client as they rebuild damaged interpersonal and work relationships and regain physical and emotional health. The ultimate goal with all treatment approaches is complete abstinence from all opioids.

While some may question how an opioid medication (buprenorphine) can help someone recover from opioid addiction, this treatment approach is supported by organizations such as the World Health Organization, the American Society of Addiction Medicine, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, NIDA, the Veterans’ Administration, NAADAC – the Association for Addiction Professionals, and the National Association of Addiction Treatment Professionals. Due to the number and quality of research studies that have been completed on the use of buprenorphine in treating opioid use disorders, the level of evidence for the effectiveness of buprenorphine treatment is considered to be high (Thomas et al., 2014). Positive outcomes typically include improving retention in treatment and reducing illicit opioid use.

The Harmony care team works closely with clients who choose to include buprenorphine in their treatment strategy. This will typically involve full participation in HOPE and a recommendation for participation in Harmony’s Transitional Care Program (TCP), an intensive, 90 day intensive outpatient program coupled with monitored sober living and medication management by Harmony providers. When clinically indicated or to accommodate client preference, Harmony’s case managers may refer clients to other programs with similar services.

If you or someone you know is struggling with opiate addiction and needs help right away, Harmony is here to help. Call us at 866-686-7867 and one of our admissions specialists can discuss next steps.

References

https://www.drugabuse.gov/drugs-abuse/opioids/opioid-crisis

Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality (CBHSQ), 2016. 2015 National Survey on Drug Use and Health: Detailed Tables. Rockville, MD: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
Thomas, CP, Fullerton, CA, Montejano, L, Lyman, DR, Dougherty, RH, Daniels, HS, Ghose, SS, & Delphin-Rittmon, ME. Medication-assisted treatment with buprenorphine: Assessing the evidence. Psychiatric services, 65(2), 158-170.