Living In Recovery

Since I have started working as a counselor, my primary focus has been on outpatient services. Many of clients have been through residential treatment and step down in my services. I held the bias from my own experience for a long time that there is no point to outpatient. People need to get away from their drugs and get into a safe environment in order to get sober. Counselor mistake #1 - assuming my needs in recovery are the same for everyone else. 

In my last internship, I was in residential. I just didn't click with the position very well. I struggled to deal with the ever changing group dynamics. One day, I had a really strong group, the next day, I got a troublemaker that shutdown the group. One day I had 8 clients, the next day I 14. When I moved to outpatient, I didn't have the same feeling about it. I had people come and go, people who weren't appropriate to be there. But all in all, what I felt about residential - mainly that people need a safe environment to go, I realized our small time in outpatient group was the safe place for my clients. The group dynamic was so strong, they were staying sober and working the program because they didn't want to disappoint each other. Truly a lucky experience.

I am still in outpatient right now. I am back working with men. Men and women are a lot of like but also very different. What I seeking now for my clients is the information to help them actually live in recovery. In residential treatment, you get information overload - 30 hours of group a week giving you information about every aspect addiction, health and addiction, mental health, group therapy, individual therapy. The struggle after leaving this totally "safe" educational environment is putting it to use. Introduce the value of outpatient treatment services. Outpatient is really the art of helping people apply what they are learning in their new life of recovery.

I had my time in residential. Outpatient was difficult for me. It was sort of the realization that if I was going to stay sober, I was going to have to put some serious effort into staying sober. I believe this is why that first year is so difficult. In order to stay in recovery, it's really easy! Just change everything! Well, there are some things that I was not interested in changing. Other things were very difficult to change and I wasn't always in the best mood to try to make that change. The little picture up top is what I ultimately learned - control yourself (aka don't get into pity party mode), alternative (aka make the effort to find an alternative) and delete situations (aka change what isn't working for you). It was rough first year, but there was a big shift when I finally let go and came to terms with the fact that my life wasn't going all that well when I was drinking. I used to fantasize/romanticize my relationship with alcohol in that first year. In my sobriety, I felt lonely a lot of the time. I felt misunderstood. At least when I was drinking, I just wasn't so aware of how lonely or misunderstood I was. I was too busy spinning in circles. 

In was in my aftercare group where I experienced people "living in recovery". There were people who had made it to 6 months of sobriety and sat on the fence about whether or not these were going to make the full commitment to making the rest of the changes to remain sober. I was sitting on that fence for many of month. Fortunately for me I had this accountability feature in place. If I wanted to continue to be a nurse, I was going to have to stay straight. I really really wanted to continue being a nurse. Regardless of the accountability, I was sitting on that fence. In my aftercare group, there was a woman who was 9 months sober. When we were checking in one day, she said "It's finally getting better". "It" in his context is usually referring to sobriety. For her, I think "it" was referencing life. 

When I finally acknowledged that life changes were necessary, it was probably one of the most empowering moments in my recovery. I put down the gloves and decided to at least try. Here is a few examples of how the conversation flipped:

AJ (Alcoholic Julie) vs SJ (Sober Julie)

AJ: Oh my GOD! I can never drink again! That's not fair! I like drinking!

SJ: I am choosing not to drink today. There are more important things today

AJ: What if I fail? What if I don't get better? What if? What if? What if?

SJ: What if I don't try and die from liver failure? What if I don't try and I lose even more things in my life?

AJ: It's too hard.

SJ: You are stronger than you think.

Early recovery is hard because of the conversations in one's head. I would go back and forth and round and round. I would get myself all worked up about the littlest things. Somedays I let the negativity win, but I didn't drink. So it never truly won. The days that I would put some optimism in my life and say, hey, why not give it a try....it was an amazing day. Oddly, my brain tried to convince me that with my one good day, I could go and drink. I meant, really! Let's make an exciting day even more exciting.....says AJ. 

I know what the outpatient clients are struggling with at this phase in recovery. Recovery is new, it's foreign, it;s hard and uncomfortable. Across the board, I think we struggle with wanting life to change instantly. Often times addicts and alcoholics have super high expectations of themselves and of life. Most of us struggle with perfectionism and control. In recovery, our expectations going in were a changed life, a happy life. Talk to an addict/alcoholic in their first 90 days of recovery - that is not exactly what they are experience. It's sure as hell not what I experienced! I actually said out loud to my cats "Well, if I feel this shittty, I should just drink." And I did - that was relapse #1. There were 3 more to follow. My outpatient program was teaching me to find myself again. My outpatient program was teaching me to apply skills in the real world, in my environment. I was pushed to grow my sober recovery network. Afterall, we aren't going to be living in treatment forever. I was given the power to explore my recovery and find out what I needed. 

My first anniversary in recovery was celebrated while I was in DBT therapy. We were in the module about emotion regulation. I remember we were talking about building a life worth living. During that period for me, I was open to trying new things and building a life worth living. I had seen more friends that I had in the 2 years leading up to getting clean. I finally didn't need Tylenol PM to sleep - I could do it on my own. It wasn't all roses, for sure, but "it" got much easier. My head was finally clearing to the point it is now. 

I will be heading out for my TEDx event in a few days. My alcoholism started in college. I was probably a full fledge alcoholic at around 19-20 years old. I am returning to my college this weekend for this presentation. If you would have told me that I was going to suffer from alcoholism for 12 years, become a nurse, get married and divorced, spend a year getting sober, go back to grad school and becoming a substance abuse counselor, then return to college 15 years latter and educate the world a little about addiction - I would have laughed....seriously seriously laughed. At 19, I was never ever going to stop drinking. Life was nothing but a party. 

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