Category Archives: Addiction Recovery Posts

posts about addiction and the recovery process

Top 10 relapse prevention strategies

Posted on January 21, 2012 by Michael

How can you prevent releapse?

The Top 10 relapse prevention strategies

Guest post by Dr. Henry Steinberger Dr. Steinberger, Psychologist, MSSW, PhD , APA-CPP,

Fellow of the Albert Ellis Institute for Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy since 1991, holds the Certificate of Proficiency in the Treatment of Alcohol and Other Psychoactive Substance Use Disorders from the College of Professional Psychology of the APA. Dr. Steinberger is the editor of The SMART Recovery Handbook and maintains a private psychotherapy practice in Madison WI.

Relapse prevention is essential in recovery from chemical and behavioral addictions. Why? Addiction has been found to reoccur more often when steps are not taken to cope with the cravings, urges, peer pressures, situational cues, bodily discomforts, neuro-biological changes, and other factors which pave the way for slips and relapses. Therefore, we regard relapse as a “normal” (though distinctly undesirable) possibility on the road to recovery. When you choose to view a relapse as a mistake, grist for the mill, a learning opportunity and a discrete single event rather than viewing it as a total failure and as evidence predictive of failures, then your chances for success increase greatly.

“The person, who really thinks, learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes.” – John Dewey

Top 10 relapse prevention strategies

1. Learn to willingly accept your mind – The first step to preventing relapse is to understand and accept your mind. The presence of whatever your mind produces such as thoughts, beliefs, images, memories, feelings, or sensations is temporary. Even if you don’t like them, if you understand that the ideas your mind creates will change, you do not need to act on what your mind is thinking. This goes for urges and cravings. Note how they simply come and go. They may seem like a problem, but avoiding them through addictive behavior appears as the real problem in the long run. Consider learning and practicing “Mindfulness” to increase your ability to “sit with” or “ride out” urges without acting on them.

2. Get psychological and medical help when needed – When needed, seek and get psychological and medical help for psychiatric illnesses and to learn better ways of coping with life events. Treatment options for addiction are not limited to psychotherapy or support groups. Consider using medications like Disulfiram (Antabuse®), Naltrexone (ReVia®), Acamprosate (Campral®), etc., as a sign of positive action and never as a mark of failure or inadequacy. Take your medications as prescribed.

3. Stimulus control – Begin to understand and practice stimulus control. Change the “activating events,” cues or “triggers” which can be changed. Accept those which can’t be changed. They can cue you, but they don’t rule you.

4. PIG Awareness – Live with awareness of the PIG (Problem of Immediate Gratification). Learn about the PIG concept and of natural penalties for slips, lapses and relapses. Carry, review and update a Cost-Benefit Analysis or list of reasons for sticking to your change plan.

5. AID’s Awareness – Beware of Apparently Irrelevant Decisions (AID’s) that lead to high risk situations and using. Recovery requires living with greater awareness or mindfulness.

6. Beware of the “Abstinence Violation Effect” (the use of a small slip as an excuse for a major relapse). Carry your how-to-cope reminder instructions. Remember: “One ‘swallow’ does not make a summer, nor a relapse.”

7. Find valued directions for your life – Develop a balanced life with healthy indulgences and activities that can substitute for unhealthy and undesirable addictive behaviors is a good start. But in the long run we each need to decide what is really important to be doing and commit ourselves to acting on those values, taking us in our own valued life directions.

8. Take better care of you – TLC stands for Therapeutic Lifestyle Change . Staying clean from drugs and alcohol or abstaining from unwanted behaviors like gambling, compulsive over spending or sex is part of living a balanced life. Ample evidence exists that you can improve your mental health through exercise, better diet and nutrition (including Omega-3 found in fish oils), getting out in nature, developing and maintaining good human relationships, engaging in recreation and vital absorbing activities, relaxation, meditation, and altruistic involvements like volunteering service in one’s community.

9. Learn and apply any recovery program such as the program featured in the end notes of this blog – Read, study, learn and apply what you learn. If you don’t help yourself, who is going to help you? Self-help requires determination and work on your part. That’s why it’s called self-help.

10. Reward yourself – Be sure to celebrate successes and reward yourself for successful abstinence, compliance with treatment and follow up.

Dr. Steinberger, licensed psychologist since 1987, Fellow of the Albert Ellis Institute for Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy since 1991, holds the Certificate of Proficiency in the Treatment of Alcohol and Other Psychoactive Substance Use Disorders from the College of Professional Psychology of the APA, and uses Acceptance & Commitment Therapy in his private practice, Henry Steinberger PhD LLC. This blog was reprinted from on the Smart Recovery Blog:http://www.addictionblog.org on January 5, 2012.

End Notes:

1) The ideas summarized as: Willing Acceptance and Mindfulness, mentioned in item 1, and finding valued life directions, also mentioned in item 7, can be found in the self-help literature of Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT). You can learn more with a web search.

2) The PIG and Abstinence Violation Effect were suggested and researched by the late Alan Marlatt

3) Apparently Irrelevant Decisions and Absence Violation Effect are discussed in The SMART Recovery Handbook (Henry Steinberger, editor, 2004) and the SMART Recovery website

4) Finding valued life directions can be found in the self-help literature of Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT). You can learn more with a web search.

5) The extensive research supporting Therapeutic Lifestyle Change, mentioned in item 8, is summarized in an article by Roger Walsh (“Lifestyle and Mental Health” in American Psychologist, Oct. 2011

6) Other non twelve step programs of recovery: www.RacingforRecovery.com., www.smartrecovery.com, www.rationalrecovery.com, www.womenforsobriety.com, www.super-health.net

“Gift of Desperation or G.O.D.” A guest blog by Janet Surrey, PhD

Posted on January 8, 2012 by Michael

Janet Surrey is a clinical psychologist and lecturer at the Harvard Medical School, she is a founding scholar and board member at the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute at the Wellesley Centers for Women at Wellesley College, in Massachusetts. Dr. Surrey is a co-author of Women’s Growth in Connection and the Psychology of Peacemaking. She is co-editor of Mothering Against the Odds: Diverse Voices of Contemporary Mothers. Along with her husband, Stephen Bergman and Samuel Shem, she has co-authored the book “We Have to Talk: Healing Dialogues between Men and Women”. Dr. Surrey is the author of numerous articles and papers. She has written and spoken widely on many topics, including gender issues, mother-daughter relationships, addictions, couples therapy, empathy, adoption, and peacemaking.

Janet was interviewed by Christopher Kennedy Lawford for Mr Lawford’s book “Moment of Clarity”. In this book Janet describes her moment of clarity and calls it her “gift of desperation” or G.O.D.

Who knows why those moments come when they do? Or why they come at all? It’s a mystery. I remember seeing this with an anorexic I was treating. She’d look in the mirror a billion times and saw herself as fat, and suddenly she looked in the mirror and saw she was thin, and everything changed. I’ll never forget that. I saw before me the mystery of that moment when something important gets reorganized, and it’s not under our control. It’s just a complete mystery, and it’s transformative. And it’s also truth.

That’s the gift of desperation. Where you are is so bad, you have nothing left to loose, so why not try recovery? People tell that it will be hard, but you can get through it. People try by their human example to show you that you can lose and you gain things beyond your wildest dreams.

When someone needs help, I tell them my story. I try to get them to talk with someone. If not me, then someone else. And I try to carry the message in a quiet way. It doesn’t always work, so I have to be very humble and not push. I have to find the right way to share and try to be sensitive, but not to expect much. Just trust you don’t know where the seeds are going.

And if it helps, I tell people not to worry about “God.” I mean I have so much trouble with the word God. So I think of it as G.O.D., the gift of desperation, because desperation brings us to the point where we can relate to the universe in a different way. It pushes us out of ourselves, makes us ask for help in a really fundamental way. Ask for help, and have something answer you. I don’t believe it’s a being, but I think you experience the aliveness of the universe in that moment.

Reprinted from: Christopher Kennedy Lawford’s 2009 book, Moments of Clarity, published by Harper Collins Books, NYC, NY, this excerpt is found on page 97

Posted in Addiction Recovery Posts | Tagged addiction, alcoholics, anorexic, Christopher Kennedy Lawford, Gift of Desperation, Janet Surrey, Melissa Killeen, MKRecoveryCoaching.com, Moment of Clarity, PhD, recovery | Comments Off

Using the Power of Kundalini Yoga as a Resource for Recovery from Addiction Part 2

Posted on December 23, 2011 by Michael

By Fred Haas

Fred has is an engineer, a spiritualist and a recovery coach in Texas. For more information on Kundalini Yoga as a Resource for Recovery from Addiction please contact Fred Haas at: Fred.Haas@sbcglobal.net

This blog presents information about the use of kundalini yoga as a resource for recovery from addiction. Kundalini yoga can be part of the core strategy in a recovery plan or it can be an added tool to supplement and enhance 12-step recovery. Last week the first part of this article provided background information on kundalini, kundalini yoga, and kundalini yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan. This week the second part of an article that provides information on kundalini yoga and addiction recovery, kundalini yoga meditation, kundalini yoga kriyas and additional resources for further exploration of the topic.

Kundalini Yoga and Addiction Recovery
Kundalini Yoga began as a treatment modality when 3HO (Healthy, Happy, Holy Organization founded by Yogi Bhajan) ashram staff members in Washington, D.C. took in two heroin addicts and fed them. As an experiment they offered them recovery services. The heroin addicts were kept in a controlled environment for two weeks and put on a program that centered on Kundalini Yoga and meditation. Both men experienced an amazing transformation.

Super-health, the country’s first alternative health center for the treatment of addictions in Tucson, Arizona was created from this experience. Super-health developed into a systematized program with customized treatment plans for behavioral addictions including stress, substance abuse and other unhealthy habits and emotional disorders. The program included three Kundalini Yoga and meditation classes each day, providing a specific detoxification and rehabilitation diet complete with fresh juices, a vitamin and herbal regime, therapeutic massages, Humanology sessions (applied psychology from the perspective of Kundalini Yoga) and individual, family and spiritual counseling.

Super-health earned the prestigious western medical accolade of accreditation from JCAHO, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations in 1978 and eventually received its highest commendation. Super-health distinguished itself as being in the top 10% of all treatment programs throughout the United States in 1978.

From these pioneering efforts of the Kundalini yoga community, yoga and meditation are becoming progressively incorporated into mainstream treatment facilities. It is increasingly more common for yoga and meditation to be integrated into treatment programs in hospitals, sober living houses and county treatment centers. From the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage, California to programs in prisons, yoga classes are presented as either electives or mandatory therapeutic experiences. Kundalini Yoga advances the spiritual quest that Alcoholics Anonymous finds integral to recovery so it serves as a good supplement to the 12 steps.

In 2004, a life long goal of Yogi Bhajan, that his teachings to be brought back to India, became a reality. The Punjab government invited Super-health to conduct a 90 day pilot project for drug users in Amritsar, India. In October of that year, with a team of professional volunteers, the program opened to serve ten clients. The experience profoundly changed their lives.

Kundalini Yoga Meditation
In addition to the general benefits associated with meditation (remain calm and centered, peace of mind, self discipline, increased self esteem, greater awareness and higher consciousness), each Kundalini yoga meditation creates a specific effect. Examples of specific effects that are created by kundalini yoga meditations that help people in recovery include a meditation to shield us from negativity or a meditation to free us from guilt, blame, shame, resentment and bitterness.

The “Medical Meditation for Habituation” (also called the Meditation to break addiction) is one of the best meditations to specifically promote rehabilitation from drug dependence. This is a quote from the book Sadhana Guidelines for Kundalini Yoga by Gurucharan Singh that serves as the commentary for this meditation.

“The pressure exerted by the thumbs triggers a rhythmic reflex current into the central brain. This current activates the brain area directly underneath the stem of the pineal gland. It is an imbalance in this area that makes mental and physical addictions seemingly unbreakable.

In modern culture, the imbalance is pandemic. If we are not addicted to smoking, eating, drinking or drugs, then we are addicted subconsciously to acceptance, advancement, rejection, emotional love, etc. All these lead us to insecure and neurotic behavior patterns.

The imbalance in this pineal area upsets the radiance of the pineal gland itself. It is this pulsating radiance that regulates the pituitary gland. Since the pituitary regulates the rest of the glandular system, the entire body and mind go out of balance. This meditation corrects the problem. It is excellent for everyone but particularly effective for rehabilitation efforts in drug dependence, mental illness, and phobic conditions.”
The effects of meditation are mastered when they are established as part of a daily practice or Sadhana. This develops a life promoting habit. Humans are habitual creatures so we can actually change our destiny by changing our habits. According to yogic science, the human mind works in cycles. We can use various cycles to help replace unwanted patterns of behavior (mental or emotional habits), with new, more positive ones when we commit to a particular meditation or kriya for a specific time. It takes 40 days to change a habit. It takes 90 days to confirm the habit. In 120 days, the new habit is who you are. In 1000 days, you have mastered the new habit.

A duration of practice that lasts 40 days lets the meditation provoke your subconscious (mind) to release any thoughts and emotional patterns that hinder you. A good meditation will break your old patterns, put in a seed for a new pattern, and clear the subconscious.

The length of the meditation has an associated affect. Three (3) minutes affects the Electro -Magnetic field and blood circulation. Eleven (11) minutes affects the nerves and glandular system. Twenty two (22) minutes balances the three minds (Negative, Positive and Neutral) and they begin to work together. Thirty one to thirty three (31-33) minutes affects all the cells, the rhythms of the body, and the layers of the mind’s projections. Sixty two to sixty six (62-66) minutes alters the ‘grey matter’ of the brain – subconscious and outer-projection are integrated. Two and a half (2.5) hours alters the psyche in relation with the surrounding magnetic field to firmly hold the subconscious mind in a new pattern.

Kundalini Yoga Kriya
In kundalini yoga, a kriya is an exercise or group of exercises that have a specific purpose. It is a technique that produces an altered state of consciousness. Practicing a kriya launches a succession of mental and physical changes that affect the body, mind and spirit.

Choosing a kriya to support the recovery process is simplified because each kriya makes a claim to its specific effect. Examples of kriyas that can apply to people in recovery are the kriya for conquering sleep, the kriya for conquering depression, the kriya for liver detox, the kriya to get rid of anger and fear, or the kriya to be rid of internal anger.
Additional Resources for Further Exploration

Resources pertaining to Kundalini Yoga and Recovery:

Book:
• Meditations for Addictive Behavior by Mukta Kaur Khalsa, Ph.D.

Websites:
• http://super-health.net • A reprint from their website: Super-health is on the cutting edge of breaking habits and addictive behavior. It is at the forefront of yogic therapeutic technology that is precise and proven effective. The system addresses alcohol, drugs, smoking, food issues, co-dependency, gambling, work, and computers. It also includes stress, depression, fatigue and anxiety.

• http://www.wholeselfrecovery.com • A reprint from their website: The Whole Self Recovery Program facilitates journeys of healing and rejuvenation that purify, strengthen and merge the body, mind, heart and spirit. Whole Self Recovery offers an alternative to those who seek something other than the traditional recovery program styles as well as something alternative to the most popular 12 step programs. The program immerses the individual in a lifestyle where optimum physical, mental and spiritual health can be achieved and maintained using Kundalini Yoga, Acupuncture, Chiropractics, Ayurveda, Cleansing, Psychology, Addiction Counseling, massage, numerology and other elective therapies.

• http://www.totalhealthrecoveryprogram.com/home.htm • A reprint from their website: Total Health Recovery Program is a world class international holistic drug and alcohol residential-like treatment center and rehab program using master healers and innovative diagnostic and treatment technology to treat drug and alcohol clients. Total Health Recovery Program uses Kundalini Yoga and meditations because it has thousands of exercises available to the practitioner. It is one of the most powerful of all yogas. It is great for releasing stress.

• http://www.kundaliniyoga.org/kyt11.html • Reprint from their website: Food, diet, weight loss, eating disorders, and other addictive substances and behaviors-whatever our specific issue, everyday we are all confronted with what to put in our mouths and how the decisions we make affect our well-being. My approach is to use our addictive tendencies as a path to empowerment. In the process we can claim “the gifts from the garbage.”

Videos:

• Yogi Bhajan – An Effective Approach to Addictive Behavior http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auFInq0nMPc

• Yogi Bhajan -Yogic Approach to Addictive Behavior • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fip6PzUMc4

• Carolyn Cowan – Addiction: Understanding the Addictive Mind • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZbCLwxSL3c&feature=related

• Carolyn Cowan – Kundalini Meditations: Healing Addictions • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyjJ2U-L3CE&feature=related

Article:
• http://www.healthy.net/scr/article.aspx?Id=2350 This article present treating the Chemically Dependent as a Resurrection Process By Sadhu Singh Khalsa LISW, MSW

Books:
• Kundalini Yoga – Guidelines for Sadhana (Daily Practice) by Gurucharan Singh Khalsa
• Kundalini Yoga – Unlock Your Inner Potential Through Life-Changing Exercise by Shakta Kaur Khalsa

Websites:
• http://www.yogibhajan.com Yogi Bhajan’s website: This site presents information about Yogi Bhajan, kundalini yoga, videos, kriyas and meditations.
• http://www.3ho.org Website for the 3HO Foundation: This site presents Information about 3HO, finding teachers, events, information about kundalini yoga and has some kriyas and meditations.
• http://kundaliniresearchinstitute.org Website for the Kundalini Research Institute: This site presents information about teacher training, courses/events and provides some tools for students and teachers.
• http://www.pinklotus.org This website provides a lot of information about Kundalini yoga and it does it in multiple languages.

• http://www.soulanswer.com Reprint from their website: Our Soul Illumines and Heals. What Your Mind Can’t See! Clear Your Mind, Nourish Your Heart, Empower Your Soul! Transform Fear and Pain to Profound Peace. Allow your Heart to be Deeply Nourished and Satisfied And Open to the Incredible Wisdom and Power of your own Unique Soul, your God-Self to become really, really HAPPY!

• http://www.kundaliniyoga.org/ This is the website for Kundalini Yoga. It is the most powerful yoga known, and was brought to the West in 1969 by Yogi Bhajan, it produces results 16 times faster than ordinary yoga. Its power comes from the Kundalini, an enormous reserve of untapped potential within each of us. It is normally depicted as a coiled or sleeping serpent, located in an area towards the base of the spine. By gradually and safely awakening this serpent and employing its power, you will benefit greatly from an elevation in consciousness, promotion of physical well-being and an expansion of awareness. You will feel more relaxed and at ease with yourself. Your life will be transformed into one which is happy, healthy & harmonious.

Thank you for reading this blog, if you would like to contact Fred and speak to him more on Kundalini Yoga, his email is: fred.haas@sbcglobal.net

Posted in Addiction Recovery Posts | Tagged addiction, alcoholism, drug addiction, Fred Haas, kundalni, meditation, Melissa Killeen, Super Health, Yoga | Comments Off