Find Out How Dangerous Beliefs Can Hinder Your Recovery

Can you imagine how difficult it would be to achieve something if you didn't believe you could. 

Sounds crazy right. How are you suppose to keep trying every day if you don't think it will get you anywhere. How would you stay motivated in the face of adversity if you don't believe it will work out. What's the point, you're just wasting your time. Right? Well to be honest, if you don't believe in your recovery you probably are wasting your time. 

Recovery doesn't just happen by accident.


The key to success in anything starts with the belief you can succeed, anything else is pure luck. I'm not saying if you have doubts you're doomed to fail. Everyone has doubts, it's whether you decide to give in to those doubts or face them and say I CAN DO THIS. When faced with doubts we can either talk ourselves out of going after our goals or we can give ourselves a pep talk. You might not think you can do it at first, but remind yourself of what you've already accomplished.

People just like you succeed every day and so can you. Believing you can achieve recovery will motivate you to keep trying after a relapse and when things get difficult. If you've been having troubles staying in recovery, instead of thinking I can't do this try changing that with I haven't been able to YET, but I will. You can use self-fulfilling prophecies to your advantage or to your demise. It's up to you.

If you choose to believe you can do something your thinking and behavior becomes aligned with that belief. If you believe you can do something you start acting like you can. People who choose to believe are more likely to persevere when their goals get challenging. You find a way to make it happen because you're confident it can happen.

People are making recovery so much more difficult for themselves when they choose to believe they can't stay drug-free or have a happy life in recovery. They're setting themselves up for failure before they even start. After all our mistakes and bad decisions, it's not always easy to believe we can achieve a happy life in recovery. If we believe history has any indication on our future it's easy to think we'll fail, but it doesn't have to be like that.

Your journey to a happy life in recovery will be filled with what might at first glance appear as failures, but that's not really what they are. They're much-needed lessons. If you learned something from the experience it can't be a complete failure. Mistakes are often the best teachers and the lessons they teach you will not only help you achieve this goal but will help you achieve other goals throughout your life.

Choose to believe in yourself. Just because you haven't been able to do something so far doesn't mean you won't be able to eventually. Visualize your life the way you want it, like it's already happening right now. What would you be doing? What would it look like? What would it feel like? Know you'll have a happy life in recovery and you will. Not by magic, but because belief changes our perspective and actions in such a way that's conductive to achieving our goals.

Life is all about learning and most endeavors have a learning curve. Skills like happiness are cultivated over time and effort. When you believe in something you find a way to make it happen because you don't give up until you find a way. Believing you can achieve something leads to strategizing, seeking out solutions and hard work. People achieve incredible things every day because they believe they can and you can be one of them if you want to be.

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Yours truly, 
Chelsie Charmed

PS. Do you think the power of belief is important in recovery? 

      Let me know in the comments.

How You Can Use Your Relapse to Stay in Recovery

I want people to know that a relapse doesn't mean failure. Recovery time has been advertised as one of the most important thing in recovery, but it isn't. Whats important is never giving up and being happy. 

It's not uncommon to feel like giving up after losing all your recovery time, but what I've learned after all this time is each relapse was fundamental to my success in recovery. Its understandable to feel like you failed if you relapse, but if you learned anything at all, it wasnt a failure.

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Are You Avoiding What You Really Want?

Are you settling for less than what you truly want?

You'll never get what you want if you don't first figure out what you want.

I don't mean the small stuff or in the moment instant gratification stuff. I mean what we want out of life, our jobs, our relationships and what we want from ourselves. Like when I finally realized I wanted a successful career and a better future I knew I would have to quit drugs.

5 Reasons Addicts Leave Treatment Early – And How to Prevent It

It is common for addiction patients to leave the rehab program without completing it. In order to live a healthy and happy lifestyle it is important that the patient is able to go through the entire treatment process and is able to continue to abstain from drug abuse after the completion of rehab process.

Reluctance

The patient could be resistant to go to rehab in the first place and may fail to achieve the desired result out of the rehab program if they lack motivation and drive to become healthy.

Solution: It is important to understand that the patient might be experiencing emotional turbulence and may feel that they would be isolated at the rehab center. The individual must be taken into confidence that all the changes are temporary and once the treatment is well on course, he will recover to a healthier life.

5 Simple Tips on How to be Happy in Recovery

Over my 7 years in Recovery I've had many ups and downs. Like everything in our lives, nothing is good, easy or happy all of the time. That would just be weird and not real at all. In Recovery we get better at coping with the struggles and stress in our daily lives because if we don't, a relapse will surely follow. Recovery gets easier with time because we get wiser and stronger with each mistake and struggle we overcome. 

11 Amazing Reasons Why Recovery Month is Important to Me

In the spirit of Recovery Month I decided to dedicate my first September post to why Recovery is important to me.

Recovery is very personal and unique to each persons individual path. There are so many different ways to achieve recovery its difficult to put it all in one box. However, most recovery journeys begin with the desire for a better life and a recovery plan designed to meet our individual needs.

3 Things You Should Consider Before Giving up On an Addict

Cutting off an Addict isn't Always the Best Way to Help them Reach Recovery.

Shocking! I know right, many of us have been told that enabling an addict and not cutting them off prevents them from reaching rock bottom and finally deciding they want to quit. However, I was able to get to a place where I decided I had enough while still having my mom's love and support. When my mother tried cutting me off my addiction got  worse. I know most parents love their children but not all children know there parents love them. Its not always easy convincing us we are loved because we often dont love ourselves but once we believe we our loved and supported no matter what the path to recovery becomes easier to envision. 

Why Only Some People Get Addicted?

Have you ever wondered why you got addicted from experimenting with drugs while some of your friends didn't?

No they're NOT weak. According to a new study we finally have the answer we've all been waiting for and everything we thought we knew about addiction is wrong.

For as long as I can remember we've believed that people can get addicted after using only once and consequently abstinence was the only way to prevent getting addicted. The experiment that supported this theory was the one where a rat was put in a cage alone with a water bottle and a drugged water bottle and almost always became obsessed with the drugged water until it killed itself. However, today there's a lot of evidence against this. The  obvious one for me is that not everyone who is prescribed painkillers gets addicted.

5 Great Ways Pets Can Help With Addiction Recovery

Did you know owning a pet can help with Addiction Recovery?

Around the time I decided I wanted to quit using, I saw an ad giving away free lab/huskie puppies. I usually don't read the newspaper but that day I was bored at my grandmother's house and decided to look at the newspaper when I came across the ad giving away free puppies. Right away I knew I wanted a dog, although at the time I had no idea how significant a role she would have in my recovery. They can do great things for someone in addiction recovery and it might just be that little bit of extra help that keeps them on the path to recovery.


However, I can't stress how important it is to be absolutely sure you can take care of them forever. It's very hard on a dog to get rehomed and they do not deserve to be neglected. I'd suggest adopting with someone who can take over if anything should happen. Whether it be a parent or a significant other make sure they're responsible and stable. Other great options are volunteering at a shelter, fostering for a shelter, or babysitting a friends dog. At least this way you can take care of a dog before you decide if its the right decision for you. There's also plenty of different pets to choose from.

Maggie opening her Christmas gift

 The 5 ways my dog Maggie helped with my addiction recovery:

1. My dog eased my stress and anxiety

Spending time with an animal has shown to reduce stress. This is important to recovery because stress and anxiety are some of the most common triggers that lead to using. Petting Maggie helped my body release tension which eased that feeling of pressure that stress can have. It feels similar to meditation in some ways. I became more relaxed and I was able to think more clearly. 

2. My dog taught me responsibility

Pets depend on us for their survival. If we don't feed them they won't eat. There's a strong bond that forms when we are responsible for someone's survival. Being responsible for Maggies survival brought out strength in me I didn't know we had. I had to think about someone else besides myself and budget money for her food every month.

3. My dog helped me keep a routine

Stability and some kind of routine is important in recovery. It helps create a sense of safety and helps reduce stress. If I didn't take her out to do her business she would do it in the house so I had to have some kind of routine with her as to when I took her out. I wouldn't have been able to train her not to go in the house if I didn't take her out regularly and I couldn't just leave for long periods at a time without her.

4. My dog gave me unconditional love

Animals don't judge or discriminate. They don't care that you were an addict or that you did things you're ashamed of in the past. They don't care how you look or if you're poor all they want is your attention and some food. They will always be happy to see you. Unconditional love like that helped heal things I didn't even know were broken. It helped me start loving myself again.

5. My dog gave me companionship 

Addiction can sometimes make us feel alone, like no one understands us. It was difficult to open up to people but not my dog. She was always there for me. Never too busy for a cuddle or to listen to me talked. She helped me get out of the house and go on walks. She helped me have fun and enjoy the smaller things around me. She was a great dog and I miss her so much.

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Yours truly,

Charmed

Alternative Addiction Recovery Programs

I worked very hard researching for this post and it took me a couple days to finish but as promised I'm ready to explain 2 of the different alternatives I had mentioned in my recent post We Need More Alternatives To 12 Step Programs. They were all great and different in their own way and I think that's important because we are all different. Options are important as I've mentioned in my other post because no one should be denied recovery.

 It would be a shame if someone were to be trapped in the never ending cycle of addiction just because they don't know about the alternatives or don't have the right program (for them) offered to them. I honestly believe that it took me way longer to get sober because the right program wasn't available to me. It would of been so much easier on me and saved a lot of time and heartache if I would of had something like SMART offered to me but I didn't so I had to do it the hard way without a program. 

We need to truly believe in the program we are working to recover, so forcing the wrong program on someone is pointless. Therefore, I hope by giving a brief description and my opinion on the programs will help others in search of recovery get an idea of what might work best for them and what else is out there. This is to help people find the right recovery program. 

I'll start with the SMART Recovery Program which stands for  Self-Management And Recovery Training. This program teaches us self-empowering tools based on scientific research to quit any addictive behaviors. You can find the power point Intro to SMART here. I love this program because its based on Self Empowerment which is something I fully believe in, and all that is needed is a want to stop the addictive behavior that is troubling you. 

None of that you need to abstain from everything, even sometimes your medication from your doctor. Its all about learning the coping skills necessary to address the thoughts and behaviors that lead to using. Theirs nothing religious about the program whatsoever, which makes me more comfortable with my recovery process.

 I like that this program isn't meant to be permanent because they believe people can fully recover so you can stay with the program only as long as you think you need it. SMART lets you build your own recovery with their tools like worksheets, power points and readings which are all based on their 4 point program. And they also have the support needed to help with your recovery thanks to the face-to-face meetings around the world, the daily online meetings, the online message board and the 24/7 chat room which are also all excellent places to learn about the program as well as getting support. SMART offers tools and techniques for each of the 4 points in the program:

1. Building and Maintaining Motivation
2. Coping with Urges
3. Managing Thoughts, Feelings and Behaviors 
4. Living a Balanced Life

I haven't been able to find the free version of the SMART handbook which talk about the 4 points so we have to pay for it at their bookstore but I know if I was an addict I wouldn't have the money to buy anything so I found other great material they offer such as articles and essays, forums and a blog. I found the blog was good for motivation and information on how to change. There is also more stuff once you register like the tool chest and the chat room. 

You can start pretty much with any tool in the tool chest since you create your own recovery with the help of the tools available but many people start by reading the power point for the Cost Benefit tool (CBA) with the cost and benefit worksheet. I also suggest reading the power points such as SMART ABC Tutorial and going to the forums and the chat rooms to get more information and support. I think this program is wonderful and the best for me so I'll probably try it out myself on my addictive habit of drinking caffeine. 

I love that their program works for any addictive behavior like smoking or caffeine. You only need to want to stop any one of your addictive behavior to join the program and you can do it all online, no need to leave home. Although I found it a little confusing at first not knowing exactly where to start. Hopefully this info will make it a little bit easier for you to get started. My finale advice is read all you can, it helps a great deal with motivation and the whole recovery process by giving you useful information.

Next is The Life Ring which is a none religious-secular recovery program that believes that addicts have a sober self  and an addict self who are in conflict with each other and can be easily influenced by other people's sober or addict self which is why meetings are so important. They say meetings empower your sober self so you have to keep attending meetings which means this program is meant to be permanent and can not be done completely online. Life Ring is based on their 3 "S" philosophy, Sobriety, Secularity, and Self-Help.

Sobriety: The basic membership requirement is a desire to remain abstinent from alcohol and “drugs.” They say: "Please look elsewhere for support if your intention is to keep drinking or using, but not so much, or to stop drinking but continue using, or stop using but continue drinking." Their motto is “we do not drink or use, no matter what.” 

Secularity: Life Ring Recovery welcomes people of all faiths and none.  You get to keep whatever religious beliefs you have, and you are under no pressure to acquire any if you don’t. Life Ring supports recovery methods that rely on human efforts rather than on divine intervention.

Self-Help: Self-help in Life Ring means that the key to recovery is the individual’s own motivation and effort. The main purpose of the group process (meetings) is to reinforce the individual’s own inner strivings to stay clean and sober. Life Ring is a permanent workshop where individuals can build their own Personal Recovery Plans.

The Life Ring book that you would really needed to buy so you can start using the program is the workbook called Recovery By Choice. This workbook provides a structure for the recovering person to build an abstinence based recovery plan that matches his or her particular problems and needs. Fortunately, they also have an area online called the Toolbox  with some information on the tools used to get sober that people have shared but there wasn't that much information there so you would indeed need the workbook. 

Thankfully, the Life Ring also have a Blog, Forums and Keepers which are stories of people using the Life Ring. They also provide Online Support such as chat rooms, Group Emails and a social network called Ning. The Life Ring also holds International Meetings which is great because face to face meetings is the most important tool for the Life Ring Recovery Program.

Hope this Helps 
Charmed

PS: If I was misinformed about any of these recovery programs, please let me know, thanks

A Recovering Addicts Insecurities & Self Esteem Issues

Insecurities and Self Esteem Issues can lead to addiction, getting sober doesn't make those insecurities go away, we just learn to deal with it in a different way.

Now what am I suppose to do about these issues ? I just want to be as confident as I use to be. I want that same will power I had to get sober to get my confidence back. I have quite a few insecurities that affect my daily life, I imagine its to be expected with everything that's happened in my life but it doesn't make it any easier to deal with. I notice these insecurities more now that I've been sober for a while and to bring it even more to my attention was the essay I had to do for my psychopathology class. 

In this essay I had to find the diagnosis that best fit me, explain in detail what symptoms I had, what symptoms were absent and how they manifested in my daily life. I believe these insecurities might be one of the reasons I don't open myself up as much as I use too, since being high use to numb them it was easier to talk to people. But now their back in full force which really works against me on the whole making friends issue. It was easier when I was young and high. When I use to think less about what others are thinking. Lately the idea of what others might be thinking or their judgments and criticism has started to consume me.

I'm insecure about not being socially competent, I often think about if I'm saying the right thing, or if I'm boring and what do I have to offer. I'm also insecure about my looks which I've always had an issue with although more now then ever but also as a younger child before my teenage years. In my teenage years it was better since I was thin and I was finally starting to look womanly. 

Nowadays its always on my mind that I've gain 40-50 pounds in the last 3-4 years, I'm not comfortable in my clothes and I just don't feel beautiful anymore from the neck down and even that's seems to be pushing it since my face doesn't look as thin as it use too. I'm really insecure about how I look and I've tried so many different things but progress is so slow and not eating what I want seems like torture. 

My insecurities have effected my self esteem in many ways and has made me more sensitive to judgement and criticism. Sadly, its made me lash out very easily at any kind of judgement or criticism because mostly I'm just hurt. I'm definitely getting better at dealing with it because I try to take the time to think about it rationally but I have to say that sometimes my feelings still get the best of me.

Having insecurities and lashing out when criticized has effected my relationship and my decision to stay in that relationship all to often. Specially being  in a relationship with someone who speaks their mind without filtering the hurtful stuff and their mind sure has a lot of hurtful stuff. There's also the judgments of other people, it either being online or in real life is still hurtful and I'm trying to learn to have thicker skin and not reacting so easily.

I know being insecure is really not attractive which gives me one more thing to make me feel bad about myself. So what I'll end up doing is putting a brave face on to face the world and the people in my life. Fake it till you Make it. But I'm definitely working on feeling better about myself and I want to let other people know that their not alone in their insecurities. And I have to say its always worst in our own minds. I'll get moments were I realize I'm not as damaged as I make myself believe. I have friends I just choose not to go see them as often because, well yes I'm still a little insecure but mostly I'm unsure because I'm no longer use to being around them.

Charmed