Month: August 2018

You’re 12 years old and your mom asks you to clean your room…

Blah. Of course, most 12 year olds hate all chores, but cleaning your room might just be one of the worst. It seems like such a daunting task and you are just going to mess it up again anyways, right?

Can’t you just close the door so that nobody will see? I mean after all, it is your room.

But as your mom pleads with you to clean it, she also reminds you “to be thankful that you have your own room to clean.”

Did you ever have this experience happen as a child?

It seemed like anytime I didn’t want to do something, my parents always came back with reminding me that I had whatever it was that needed to be tended to.

This is kind of the same concept with recovery.

 

When you start thinking about the fact that you might have to make new friends. That you will have to find other hobbies, and healthy ones at that. When you start to think about the fact that you can no longer have drugs or alcohol. That you will have to go to group therapy or some other form of recovery session.

It all just starts to sound like a chore, right? Almost like it is a punishment for wanting to get clean. Extra work always seems like punishment. Change often seems like punishment.

But this is when you need to do a 180 degree turn with your point of view. And yes, we are going to sound like your mom for a minute…

The opportunity to get clean at all is far from punishment – in fact, it is a gift.

Not everyone survives their addiction. Not everyone has the willpower to get help. Not everyone is surrounded by people who love them enough to lead them to the proper resources.

In the midst of it all, it can be hard to see the brighter side of it all. But just think about how lucky you are to have the drive, the resources, and the people you have to give you the gift of opportunity to recover.

Recovery is a gift, not a punishment.

While it might be extra work, it might mean changes, it is all worth it in the end. You will come out stronger. You will come out with a new look on life. You will come out with a new challenge conquered.

It is the typical vacation scene:

You have your toes in the sand and of course, you also have a cold drink in your hand.

Vacation and alcohol are like two peas in a pod. When people decide it is time to settle down and relax, they typically like to do so with a beer in their hand – or some other form of alcoholic drink. It seems to have become known as the chill factor in most people’s lives.

Oftentimes when people take a vacation, it is not odd for them to drink the entire time. Vacation is about doing things you don’t normally get to do, and drinking at noon on a Tuesday often falls under that category.

So when you finally decide it is time to become sober and you are back to traveling – what do you do?

How are you supposed to relax without a beer in your hand? What are you supposed to do at night after a long day touring a new city?

It seems almost as if nobody has an answer other than hit the bar.

But there is so much more to vacation, so much more to life, than having a drink.

Enjoy the view.

Just take it all in. Live in the moment. Don’t go tour that museum with a slight buzz. Don’t get wasted halfway through the dinner cruise and forget what you even ate. Don’t pass out every night in the hotel bed and forget to enjoy how comfortable it is. Don’t sleep in every single day to rid yourself of a hangover and forget to watch the sunrise over the ocean.

When you cutout the drinking, you can enjoy and remember so much more. And if you aren’t spending a few hours at the bar, you will have so much more time to enjoy this new found, incredible view.

Find a different attraction.

Oftentimes I think it is hard for people to do something other than drink because it is an attraction. It is an activity. So what do you do instead?

Find something.

Maybe you want to hit up every one of the most touristy gift shops in town. Or look up restaurants in that area that have been on television. Seek out the best hidden spots in town that only the locals know about.

Don’t make your vacation revolve around drinking, find something else.

Traveling sober is actually one of the most rewarding things ever, especially as you have a new found appreciation for life and your surroundings.

Life is hard.

Can we all agree on that?

So many decisions, so much pressure, so much sadness.

Of course there are countless great things about life, but there is no denying that life is hard. And unfortunately, our surroundings can make it even harder on some of us than others.

When you are the child of an addict, you might feel like you are one of those people who have a much harder life than most.

Maybe your parent(s) lashes out on you because of it, maybe you never see them, maybe you don’t have anyone to confide in, or countless other things.

Being the child of an addict is a unique situation…

But, it is not your fault.

Use it as a learning experience.

There are few things that should make you want to steer clear of addiction more than having a front row seat to it for most or all of your life. You can see how addiction effects every aspect of your life, and even more importantly, the life of all of those around you who didn’t choose to be an addict and didn’t bring that life upon themselves – yet, they are still a victim of it.

Use their poor example of everything you don’t want to be.

Don’t apologize.

We often try to find something to blame, or someone and that someone is usually ourselves. But even if your parents did not become an addict until you were born or well into your childhood, it is not your job to apologize. They have had their own struggles and made their own decisions in life.

You are the child, not the adult.

Offer to get them help.

If you really feel like you need to do your part, the best thing you can do is to offer to get them the help they so desperately need. It will likely mean more to them coming from someone they love and that is the best thing you can do for them in terms of their journey to recovery.

It is not your job to get them better, but you can offer them the resources they need to do so.

Know when enough is enough.

Sadly, there may come a time when you just have to separate yourself. You need to focus on saving yourself from the same unfortunate fate, so know when enough is enough. Know when it is time to do what is best for you.

Being an addict is hard, and being the child of an addict is just as hard.

We’ve all seen the question plastered on nearly every job application:

Are you a convicted felon?

Have you committed a crime?

There are different ways it can be worded, but the bottom line is they want to hear about your past. They want to know if you have had a run-in with the law. And ultimately, they might judge you on it.

They might be wondering…

Will they steal again?

Will they be a reliable employee?

Will they represent our company well?

There is a lot of stigma that comes with being a convicted felon, or even just having gone to jail in general. And unfortunately, stigma surrounds a lot of things – including addiction.

Stigma, by definition from the dictionary, is a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person. And it isn’t something that just goes away with your addiction. You will likely still come across the stigma around addiction because you were still once an addict.

Don’t let this discourage you though.

Stigma is like fear – you just have to look it in the face and say, “well, now I have a reason to prove you wrong.”

The stigma is often that people who have suffered from addiction in the past are weak or have failed morally. Oftentimes, people assume an addict chooses to be an addict.

But you know first hand this is wrong.

The key is to push yourself. Harder, and harder, and harder. The only way to change someone’s mind is to prove them wrong .

Of course, you can start by educating them a bit and showing them the statistics of addiction, quotes from doctors that shatter that stigma that addicts choose to be addicts, but at the end of the day the best thing you can do is simply use this as motivation.

Use this stigma to push yourself even further and to show everyone just how different you actually are. How reliable you actually are. How an addict can actually turn their life around.

And not only are you helping break the stigma for yourself, but you are also helping break the stigma for other addicts.

There will always be stigma and judgment surrounding us, rather it is for an addiction, something we are wearing, or just the way we speak. People are not going to dismiss all stigma and they are not going to be completely free of judgment. It is human nature.

But you can use this as fuel to keep improving yourself. You’ve got this!

One of my favorite things to do as a child was to color in coloring books. I’m not sure if it is because I wanted to foster my inner desire to be artistic, or if my very detailed self just loved having to stay within the lines and being able to control what color I used and what picture I chose.

Regardless, coloring was always kind of a form of therapy for me. I remember as a child, when my dad would get home from work we would lay on the floor every single night and color in our respective coloring books. It was something special that the two of us did. And now looking back, he really enjoyed {and needed} that cool down period from work, I really enjoyed the structure and the stress relief it gave me from a day full of being a kid, and of course we valued that time together.

So why is it that we don’t still do this?

We often associate coloring just with being a kid, but this is far from true. Coloring is now working its way into the adult world and might actually be something useful for you in your recovery.

No, I’m not talking about resurrecting your childhood coloring book – although you could if you wanted to. But what I really mean is you should grab one – or a few – of the adult coloring books. You can order these online and even find them in some bookstores.

Adult coloring books are far, far more detailed than your average childrens’ coloring book and they are absolutely therapeutic. They are so detailed that you can color one single page for hours. I have even started a page and not been able to finish it before in one sitting.

The magical experience is that it is so detailed and such a large picture, you actually find yourself putting serious thought into the colors, the picture, and the overarching end product. You will find yourself putting so much thought into this in fact, you will forget about everything else.

I will often turn on some soft music or a television show in the background and just color until I can’t color anymore.

Really, you should try it.

So if you are looking for a healthy and stress relieving activity to help you with your addiction recovery, go grab yourself a coloring book.

Share your experience with us in the comments.