The real blessing here is that you can buy Christmas gifts at all, or even care to do so. This is a miracle in recovery, that we can learn to care about such things again and participate in some of the normal, more human aspects of the holiday. So what if it is too commercialized? That is better than being passed out and miserable on your couch at home after drinking a fifth over the holiday. Be grateful that you can take part in the holiday in a more civilized manner, even if that means being whipped up into a shopping frenzy.

I know that I am grateful for the holidays now that I am sober…it is so much more meaningful now to give and spend time with family.

What you need to do is get out your checklist and do the following if you really want to take your recovery to the next level:

1) Network with other recovering addicts.

2) Focus heavily on learning and education. Stay growth oriented with your life, your skills, etc.

3) Help others. Make it a priority. Doing so helps your recovery big time.

4) Create the life you want through vision and purpose. Find your strengths and use them to help others. This is living a life of creation.

Now go through your checklist and ask yourself: Am I working on these things on a regular basis?

We were so used to passing out from alcohol that we sort of trained our bodies to forget how to actually go to sleep. This is difficult to overcome in recovery and it just takes time in most cases. And of course a lot of addicts are dealing with additional problems on top of this such as sleep apnea. You can experiment with sleeping medications but for the most part they will not help a whole lot. A popular one is Trazadone and you can ask your doctor about it and possibly get a prescription for it. But overall it will help less than you think in the long run and really you just have to slug it out for a while.

Now if you really want to know how to fall asleep faster, then you should start by getting some of the wreckage of your past life cleared away. Some people will do this through the 12 step program and others will do it through therapy. In some cases, you may just work things out verbally with friends and other people that you trust in recovery. You may work through a variety of potential issues in your early recovery, such as:

1) Forgiving others, especially anyone who hurt you in your childhood.

2) Dealing with resentments, especially those that seem to flare up on a regular basis.

3) Any common marriage problems that you may be experiencing.

4) Learning to communicate your emotions so that you do not blow up in anger or react constantly out of fear.

And so on. Really these are the kinds of issues that need to be dealt with eventually in long term recovery, or they will eventually lead you back to a relapse. It takes guts and courage to tackle these issues but if you value your recovery then you will follow through with it.

But I also reach out to addicts and alcoholics online, and also to the friends and family of these addicts through my online websites. I have one flagship website that gets a lot of daily traffic and I am able to reach about 500 new people every single day who are looking for new information about drug and alcohol addiction and recovery. As such I feel some responsibility to carry a strong and meaningful message that can actually help people. What good is it to be all philosophical and preach about the way things should be, when in fact the best route you can go would be to actually try to help people take real action and make real change in their life? It does very little good to talk about ideals when someone has their life in the toilet and really needs a life makeover in a hurry.

For example, I am not real big on AA meetings and I do not typically attend them myself anymore. However, if a newcomer is struggling with sobriety and they are not taking any action at all, then I would agree that meetings are a decent start. They may not be the ultimate answer for everyone and I am not going to push them as being the only solution available, but hey–it is better than nothing. It beats drinking yourself to death.

If you want to get creative and push yourself to do more in your recovery then explore this website further and you will find some ways to do so. This is not a personal development course, instead it is simply a set of ideas about how to become passionate about living your life.

The issue is this: how do we know when we should push ourselves to grow, versus when we should stop struggling and fighting and simply gain some acceptance?

If you study recovery and self help literature in general you will find two conflicting viewpoints regarding this.  On the one hand, you will see advice that you should push yourself to grow at all costs.  On the other hand, you will see advice that acceptance of yourself is the key and you will be happier if you can just learn to accept yourself.

So how do we know which route to go?

Different programs have different emphasis

I believe that the 12 step program has a balance between the two but generally falls on the side of acceptance over personal growth.  Even though the 12 steps have some definite direction as far as personal growth is concerned, the overall message you hear in the fellowship falls more on the side of acceptance.  People are constantly quoting the Big Book where it says “And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today…..”  and so on.

There are also a number of self-help books and philosophies that lean towards acceptance.  This is not necessarily bad or good…just what is.

On the other hand, the Creative Theory of recovery tends to lean towards the personal growth side of things.  The theory holds that personal growth is more important than self acceptance and in fact is the whole key to overcoming complacency in long term recovery.  Overcoming drug and alcohol addiction are seen as a lifelong journey of learning and continuous growth.

One example that instantly comes to mind is a friend of mine in recovery who regularly struggles with his life and all of his problems.  He definitely leans towards the self acceptance side of things and even goes so far as to use acceptance as an excuse for laziness.  What he really needs is to get motivated and take some real action in his life and start making progress towards his goals.  Instead, he preaches acceptance and cannot understand how this is sabotaging his own efforts.

In the end it is all up to your personal philosophy but if you lean towards the acceptance side of things you should be especially cautious of becoming too complacent in recovery.  If on the other hand, you are driven to personal growth on a regular basis then make sure that you do not become too critical of yourself.

Sometimes you just have to throw down the do it yourself wedding invitations and throw your hands up in the air! It’s gonna be alright.

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One of the best ways for finding this critical balance between growth and acceptance is with the guidance of a recovery coach…..

So many newcomers get it wrong in that they believe that overcoming an addiction is an act of elimination.

If they could just quit drinking.  Or smoking.  Or shooting dope.  And so on.

The 12 step program attempts to correct this style of thinking but doesn’t necessarily take the concept far enough.  They shift the focus on to spiritual growth in an attempt to bring about a  personality change great enough to overcome the addiction.

This can work but in my experience it is not the ideal.  The reason it is not ideal is because addiction is not a spiritual problem–it is an holistic problem.  Drug and alcohol addiction affected us in many ways–physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and so on.  Therefore any comprehensive solution must be holistic in nature.  If we want to enjoy the benefits of long term sobriety then we have to approach our addiction as an holistic problem….doing so unlocks the full potential of creative recovery.

What does creative recovery look like?

It is action based.

It is goal-oriented.

It is an holistic, all-encompassing approach that goes beyond spiritual growth.

Even in the 12 step programs, you can find many people who are practicing creative recovery.  These are what we refer to as the “winners” around the tables.  They are actively creating a new life for themselves.  They are not complainers.  Instead they do things.  It’s about action.

If you want to enjoy the benefits of creative recovery then you should explore this website further and consider contacting us.  The benefits of creative recovery are a life lived with passion and purpose–so much more than simply scraping by with abstinence by going to daily meetings!  You can unlock this creation within yourself if you seek it out and take action.

It’s about 10 percent knowledge and 90 percent action.  Addiction help is not complicated but that does not mean it is easy.  Some of us need a little push to get us started with the creative mindset.  If you think that you might benefit from creative recovery then feel free to contact us and we will help you out in any way that we can.

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Interested in trying coaching services?  We recommend Keith Bray.

You can email him at khbray@hopeserenity.ca

or call him at (905) 477-7972

Keith will include one free session of coaching to see if recovery coaching is right for you.

Photo by djsosumi

Drug addiction recovery is all about finding a new way to live. If you are looking for guidance about how to go about overcoming drug addiction then you are in the right place.

Being a newcomer in recovery is an especially delicate time because we tend to be overwhelmed in early recovery and the chance of relapse is so high. It is much easier to revert back to what we know how to do (use drugs) than it is to forge ahead with a new decision and a new way of life.

Now after someone has been clean from drugs and living in recovery for several years this becomes much more automatic and natural to them. But in early recovery, staying clean can be a monumental challenge–even to do it for just one more day. Hence the day-at-a-time philosophy that is toted by so many recovery programs.

If you or someone you know is facing early recovery, what can you do to increase your chances of success? The most useful idea is to benefit from the knowledge of others - use the information given freely from other recovering addicts about what worked for them and what did not.

You don’t have to reinvent the wheel here. Simply use what has worked for others in achieving recovery.

12 step programs offer instant networking and support

The vast majority of the treatment industry is based on the 12 step programs of Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. If you go to a treatment center or drug rehab in order to get clean, chances are very good that you will be exposed to these types of programs as they are basically the standard these days. Yes there are other programs out there but the industry remains at least 95 percent 12 step based. Not only that, but 12 step meetings are widespread and can be found in practically any city or town around the world.

Given this picture of the treatment landscape, it makes sense to use 12 step meetings as a pillar of support in your early recovery. Even if you do not necessarily believe in the 12 step philosophy, the level of support that you can get from this fellowship is really high, because they are so widespread and established. Therefore, I recommend to newcomers to involve themselves with meetings and to try follow the traditional “90 meetings in 90 days” suggestion, just to get a baseline of support for themselves.

It is possible to recover without a 12 step program, but you have to ask yourself where you are going to get peer support from.  We benefit greatly from knowing others who are on the same journey that you are on. This support is critical, especially in early recovery, so take an honest look at where that support will come from if not from 12 step meetings.

Sponsorship or recovery coaching can help

One suggestion that you will hear over and over again if you attend 12 step meetings is that you need to get a sponsor. I would generally agree with this as being good advice, but would also take this a step further and recommend a recovery coach as well.

How does a recovery coach differ from a sponsor? A sponsor is someone who takes you through the 12 steps and helps guide you towards a spiritual experience. A recovery coach is someone who connects you with resources and works with you on your own personal goals that you want to achieve in your life. There is a difference and I would argue that a sponsor is more important for early recovery, while a recovery coach becomes more and more valuable the longer you stay clean. This is because there will be a shift as you progress in recovery: from focusing on daily abstinence from drugs, towards eventually focusing on personal growth and development.

Why the shift? Because recovery is a learning process in which the first lesson is essentially “how to live without drugs and be content with yourself.” This is the initial lesson in recovery and it might only last for a few months to a few years for most people. Now after this first learning process is over then it becomes automatic and the person has established a baseline of clean time and is now living drug-free. So what is the next lesson in recovery?

The next lesson is how to keep what you’ve got. Now that you have learned how to live a clean life, you have to learn how to keep it. This is much more difficult than it sounds and so the real enemy here is fighting complacency. This is what makes a recovery coach so valuable as you progress in recovery. The coach can challenge you to grow and develop as a person in new and unique ways, thus keeping you active and avoiding the threat of relapse. If we stagnate in recovery and stop growing then relapse will eventually take us. Overcoming complacency is all about pushing ourselves to grow further and further in recovery.

The shift to long term recovery: creating your new life

In traditional recovery programs, the focus is on a spiritual transformation in order to allow you to maintain abstinence.

I would challenge you to frame this idea in new terms: your challenge should be to create a new life for yourself in recovery. Yes there is still a spiritual element involved, and spirituality is still a part of your personal growth. But the creative life in recovery goes beyond a one-dimensional solution and takes a more holistic approach.

We are always in the act of creating our life for ourselves, whether we are aware of it or not. So choose to create positive things and choose a path of growth for yourself. This is the key to a lifetime of success and growth in recovery and if you want to stay clean from drugs then you must actively pursue this creative life.

When we first get clean and sober it will be difficult to take a creative approach at first. But this will change over time as we learn how to live without drugs. Eventually we will learn how to live a clean life and the new challenge becomes learning how to maintain that clean life. Doing so requires continuous growth and that is why we focus on the creative life. If you need help with the first lesson (learning how to live clean) then your primary resources are meetings and sponsorship. If you need help maintaining your recovery then your primary resources are the creative approach to recovery and possibly a recovery coach.

What stage of recovery are you in and what are your primary resources?

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Interested in trying coaching services?  We recommend Keith Bray.

You can email him at khbray@hopeserenity.ca

or call him at (905) 477-7972

Keith will include one free session of coaching to see if recovery coaching is right for you.