Lasting Recovery: A Guide to Recovery from Addiction

By Dr. Deborah A. Berberich PhD

ARE YOU READY FOR A LASTING RECOVERY ?

LASTING RECOVERY is designed to help people who have tried to stay clean but find themselves relapsing again and again. Even a stay at an expensive and lengthy rehabilitation program is a great start but when faced with the daily struggles of every day life too many people find themselves slipping back into relapse. A fundamental key to gaining and maintaining sobriety is to understand the core reasons underlying your addiction. In addition to clarifying the connection between addiction and mental health, this book provides insight into how to achieve and maintain your sobriety and provides, important strategies and skills to help you stay clean for life!

Understand the core reasons of addiction
Developing strategies and coping skills
Learn preventive strategies and healthy lifestyle habits
Develop insight to achieve a lasting recovery

DR. DEBORAH BERBERICH, PHD, Author of Out of the
Rabbit Hole, Breaking the Cycle of Addiction, is a clinical psychologist specializing in depression, bipolar, anxiety and addictive disorders. Dr. Berberich has worked in a wide range of settings: Hospitals, rehabilitation, prison, community mental health and private practice; founder of the Center for Adolescent Addiction Recovery, a non-profit in Orange County, CA. Many recovery models fail to take into account the underlying reasons of addiction and relapse. For a successful and lasting recovery, treatment must address what lead to addiction in the first place and what maintains it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 13, 2020
• ISBN: 9781664119246

Book preview

Copyright © 2020 by Dr. Deborah A. Berberich, PhD.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 11/27/2020

Xlibris

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Contents

Forward

UNDERSTANDING HOW AND WHY

Part 1   Emotional Pain and Addiction

Prognosis

Dangerous Trends

Part 2   The Science of Addiction

CAGE Questionnaire

How Addiction Happens

The Pleasure Principle

Chemical Messengers

Part 3   Gateway drugs

Nicotine

Vaping

Alcohol

Cannabis

Medical Cannabis and CBD

Part 4   Into the Abyss

Opiates and Heroin

Prescription Drugs - Benzodiazepines

Club drugs and Hallucinogens

Stimulants

JOURNEY INTO LASTING RECOVERY

Part 5   Committing to Sobriety

Inventory

Learn your ABCs

Automatic Thoughts

Limiting Beliefs

Emotional support

Challenges to Sobriety

Stress

Basic Needs

Learning from Relapse

Hope Springs Eternal

Part 6   Guide to Healing

Lifestyle Balance

Prioritize your goals

Part 7   Healing Your Body

Beginning your journey

Nutritional needs

Physical well-being

The Importance of Sleep

Cognitive therapy

Sleep hygiene

Relaxation exercise

INTEGRATION

Part 8   Emotional Healing

Learning to let go

The Importance of Spiritual beliefs

Spirituality and Recovery

Family, Friendship and Emotional Support

Improving Communication

Talk Therapy

Extreme Emotions

Anger

Anxiety

Depression

Drug Counseling and Support Groups

Medication and the Healing Process

MASTERY

Part 9   Skills for Your Recovery Journey

Life Skills

Cravings

Creating structure

Meditation

Breathe meditation and relaxation

Mindfulness

Art as Therapy

The Need to Play

Grounding

DEEPENING

Part 10 Journaling

Personal Strengths

Mood

Health

Thoughts

Affirmations

Track Your Changes

Things I Love about Being Clean and Sober

Things I Hated About Using

Dangerous People, Places and Things (External Triggers)

Internal Triggers

Triggers and Cravings

Safe Havens, Family and Friends

Innocence Reborn

In Search of Self

Self-Forgiveness

MATURATION

The Way Forward

Ideas to help get through difficult days

Your first 30 Days - Clean and Sober!

90 Days and Beyond

JUST BE

Appendix A   Self-Monitoring Check In

Appendix B   Warning Signs of Relapse

Appendix C   Indicators of a Substance Use Disorder (SUD)

Appendix D   Additional References

Appendix E   Author Contact Information

john.jpg

In memory of John

Who lives among the stars…

Always look forward, never look back.

Regrets are the quicksand around our ankles.

FORWARD

M ANY, WHO STRUGGLE with addiction, have gotten clean but later relapsed without understanding what went wrong. People often think their relapse was due to one or two things, not attending enough meetings, not being serious or ready, or having too much stress. While all these factors likely contributed, the reasons behind addiction and relapse are complex and require a more comprehensive explanation to be helpful in understanding what went wrong.

Getting clean is only the first step in the recovery process. Understanding what preceded and maintained addiction is essential for long lasting sobriety. In order to achieve sustainable recovery and health, it is important to understand underlying issues and emotional pain obscured by alcohol or drug use. No matter how many good intentions and warm feelings you have from completing a treatment program, without true insight into the core reasons for addiction, recovery is unlikely to last.

A very important factor often overlooked by the medical and recovery communities, is the powerful connection between addiction and mental health. In many ways, addiction is a symptom or indicator of underlying emotional pain and mental health issues. The failure to understand this entangled relationship is the primary reason treating addiction without simultaneously addressing pre-existing mental health symptoms is unlikely to achieve lasting success. The danger of not addressing root causes of addiction, is that every relapse has a profoundly negative impact on morale and can pull an individual deeper into a state of despair.

People suffering from depression or anxiety discover drugs or alcohol provide temporary pleasure, and an immediate escape from painful aspects of their reality. Over time however, any relief or satisfaction provided by drugs or alcohol diminishes, replaced by psychological and physical withdrawals and a never-ending obsession with the next drink or fix.

Neural plasticity, also known as neuroplasticity is the ability of the nervous system to change its activity in response to internal or external stimuli by reorganizing its structure, functions, or connections.¹ Addiction is a direct result of the brain’s neural plasticity; its natural capacity to adapt in an effort to maintain homeostasis or balance, taken hostage and corrupted by the introduction of toxic substances into the brain. In this way, addiction is never intentional but is a natural consequence of repeatedly using drugs and alcohol to relieve emotional pain: Addiction has no socioeconomic boundaries - it can happen to anyone.

In early recovery, the brain is still healing, emotions are unstable, and it does not take much for someone to become overwhelmed. Understanding the physiological and emotional aspects underlying addiction and recovery is instrumental to navigate successfully through the firestorm of early recovery. For people suffering from addiction, using drugs or alcohol becomes a deeply programmed and compulsive response during times of stress.

This book lays out essential components in the recovery process. Addiction involves more than hanging out with the wrong crowd, making bad choices or a chemical imbalance in your brain. Research has demonstrated that addiction is the complete hijacking of your brain with an unintended corruption of its natural processes, influencing how you think, feel and behave. Achieving lasting recovery requires a serious and total commitment to yourself: a fundamental and integrated approach addressing your physical and emotional needs, identifying obstacles and self-sabotaging tendencies, and acquiring new skills with an improved understanding and appreciation for your hidden strengths and unique qualities.

Recovery requires time for the mind and the body to heal; taking care of your body is as important in recovery as changing the way you think and feel. A strong motivation to stay clean is important, but it is only the first step. Learning new approaches to living without drugs and alcohol, acquiring cognitive strategies and a new way of looking at yourself and the world are essential to achieve lasting recovery. Lasting Recovery provides the knowledge, guidance, strategies, and coping skills to help you navigate through unexpected and difficult obstacles and live your life to the fullest potential!

UNDERSTANDING

HOW AND WHY

PART 1

Emotional Pain and Addiction

1.psd

The Coyote symbolizes adaptability,

humor, and ability to recognize one’s

own mistakes; important during dark

times and protective against a spiritual

death from long-term addiction.

M ANY OF US have experienced feeling sad, having the blues, struggling with anxiety, irritability and anger. Most people are able to rebound from these negative emotions, but some cannot. For them, these emotions are often internally generated and not necessarily fully reflective of external events.

There is a strong genetic connection between mental and addictive disorders. In fact, there is little distinction between substance dependency and other mental disorders. (p 58)² Due to a combination of genetics, environment, trauma or other extenuating factors some people have a greater predisposition to experience intense and painful negative emotions that are difficult to overcome and can lead to developing more chronic mental health disorders.

Despite many experimenting with drugs or alcohol especially in their adolescence, not all of these individuals will develop an addictive disorder. The same genetic predisposition that causes depression and chronic anxiety can place someone at greater risk for becoming dependent on a substance. People suffering from chronic depression or anxiety due to a chemical unbalance³ often find immediate relief using drugs or alcohol. Over time, any pleasure or perceived benefit from using drugs or alcohol diminishes and eventually is mostly an effort to avoid the pain of withdrawals.

Stigma surrounds addiction and mental health issues. All too often, people view addiction as an indication of poor character or mental weakness. This has created a shame-based barrier that often interferes with countless people asking for help. Despite good intentions, people in the health care and recovery community by their actions, have often supported these myths. Due to this stigma, medical professionals commonly dismiss complaints from people suffering from addiction as drug seeking while in the recovery community discourage the same people from seeking medical help for emotional pain; insisting they work on their moral character instead. The result is often a complete demoralization and sense of isolation, resulting in discouragement from getting help and eventually turning back to drugs or alcohol.

The seed of addiction typically finds its roots in our youth. Adolescence is often a difficult period of time when young people transition to adults and because of hormonal changes experience new and powerful emotions. For a variety of reasons, not everyone is able to develop adequate social or coping skills. Combining these factors with current or developing mental health disorders such as anxiety, depression or bipolar disorder, can result in feeling so awful they may at times want to crawl out of their skin.

Those with low self-esteem or social anxiety often feel alienated from their peers and discover from experimentation that certain substances reduce their anxiety and appear to help them fit in. The use of mind-altering substances (including alcohol) can provide an immediate perception of relief. In this way, these substances provide positive and negative reinforcement as they remove or numb-out emotional pain and provide temporary pleasure. The ultimate cost for this momentary escape, comes later and at a very high price.

When experiencing stress, people use different types of coping strategies to feel better. Healthy strategies can include socializing with family or friends, sports, hobbies, watching movies, listening to music, reading, journaling or any number of activities. If stress becomes overwhelming, people without healthy coping skills, look for a quick fix. Risky behavior, over-eating, drinking alcohol, or other substance abuse can provide an immediate