For an addict, the early days of recovery are likely to be filled with a mixture of emotions. Sometimes there’s an initial sense of elation, as they feel they’re finally beginning to put their troubles behind them. Life seems a lot simpler without the weight of the using process bearing down on them every day. They’re likely to be in better shape physically, too, especially if they’ve spent some time in a treatment centre, where they’ll have been fed a controlled diet and encouraged to lead a healthier lifestyle.
These early positive feelings are something that therapists call the ‘pink cloud’. Not everybody experiences them, and it’s important to stress that each individual’s recovery follows a different path. Unfortunately, even for those who do experience the pink cloud, it’s likely to be a temporary phenomenon. Sooner or later they start to experience life on life’s own terms again – and that’s when the problems can set in.
When we go into recovery the ‘using process’ of drinking or taking drugs stops. We become abstinent from whatever it was that we were doing that was exacerbating our woes. But the underlying problem of being extremely sensitive to emotional distress continues to exist. We may no longer be aggravating the situation by getting smashed every day, but it’s still there.
As we learned in Chapter 18, once the medicating effect of booze or drugs is taken away we’re left with a whole load of feelings, and these can be extremely difficult to deal with. We may be confronted with things that have been suppressed inside us since early childhood, and if we’re not careful they can drive us nuts.
As a recovering addict, you’re likely to experience mood swings, and sometimes you’ll have no idea what’s causing them. One minute you’re on the pink cloud and the next you’re experiencing dark thunder. The things that trigger these daily changes can be very small: a harsh word from the boss or a perceived slight from a loved one.
When this happens, there’s a big temptation to start using again, and there’s a danger of relapse. In the first instance you may not go straight back to your drug of choice. What can happen is that you do what I’ve previously referred to as ‘rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic’. Instead of reverting to your old behaviour, you seek out new ways of trying to cope with your unease.
This can be the start of a new addictive process or compulsive behaviour that can eventually lead to a full relapse. In my case, when I gave up alcohol I started consuming sugar like there was no tomorrow. What I was doing was simply substituting one addictive process for another. This is one of the main things we need to avoid while we’re in early recovery and attempting to cope with normal life.
The best way of dealing with this is to get help from others. My advice is to make use of a 12-Step fellowship, and to find yourself a sponsor – preferably someone from within the fellowship who has been through the early recovery process, and who therefore understands the issues involved. They can help you navigate your way through the plethora of conflicting and confusing feelings and emotions that you’ll experience.
All sponsors work in slightly different ways, but ideally they’ll be someone who can share their own experiences of coping with the recovery process. In this way they can act as a mentor. They’ve been where you are, and hopefully your ‘limbic WiFi’ will connect with them in a way that’ll help you to understand that you’re not alone.
In addition to a sponsor, if you can afford it, I also recommend that you find a therapist with experience of working with people with addiction. Not all therapists fall into this category, so don’t be afraid to ask if they have. If you’ve been in a treatment centre, the staff there may be able to offer you advice on how to find a therapist. Getting as much help and support as possible is vital in early recovery.
If you’re working through a 12-Step programme (which in my opinion is the most effective way of staying clean) then it’s suggested that you attend regular self-help meetings. In groups like AA it’s recommended that you try to go to 90 meetings in 90 days. This might sound like an arduous task, but there are very good reasons for it, both practical and emotional.
It’s likely that during the active stage of your addiction you spent an awful lot of time abusing your drug of choice. Apart from anything else, this will have added up to a huge amount of time, and in early recovery it’s useful to have something positive to fill this void.
Staying away from your drug of choice might seem relatively easy in itself, but you’ll need something else in your life to help ease the transition to normal behaviour. Going to meetings provides a structure to your day, which is something that’s likely to have been subject to erratic swings in the past. Meetings are easy to find and most self-help fellowships publish booklets that advertise times and dates, broken down area by area.
Attending lots of meetings also means that you’ll get to hear plenty of practical advice about how to cope with a sober lifestyle. Many people find that just being surrounded by fellow addicts is helpful. You’ll find that meetings take place in rooms that are full of love and compassion. Nobody is there to judge, and the limbic connection you’ll feel with your fellow addicts can be hugely beneficial because it reminds you that you’re not alone.
When you’re in early recovery your mental state is very fragile. It’s a very delicate process and the pitfalls that can shatter it are many and varied. One area that’s likely to have potential to cause problems is relationships, both new and old. For this reason, it’s suggested that it’s not a good idea to have a sponsor of the opposite sex (or of the same sex if you’re gay), so avoid this if you can.
This is because your feelings are likely to be all over the place, and there’s a temptation to rush into new relationships as a way of coping. This isn’t a good idea, as these aren’t likely to be built on solid foundations, and you’ll only be setting yourself up for a fall later on. If you’re already in a relationship, don’t be too hasty to end it.
I often hear stories of alcoholics who sober up and the first thing they do is dump their partner. This is because addicts, by their nature, tend to go at things at a million miles an hour and want to fix everything in five minutes flat. But do you really want to throw away on a whim a relationship that may have lasted many years? Of course, it may well be that it’s a bad relationship and that you do need to end it at some point, but when you’re in early recovery you’re likely to be confused about what you really want, so now isn’t the time to make big decisions.
It helps to understand that you don’t need to fix everything straight away. I always counsel caution and advise my therapy clients to avoid anything stressful in their first year of recovery. For example, I certainly wouldn’t recommend changing your job, if you have one. The recovery process can be fraught with stress, and without the booze or drugs to anaesthetize you, it’s likely that you’ll be feeling very raw and vulnerable.
In early recovery, the basic principle to try and live by is this: learn to take it easy. If you go one day at a time, day by day, you’ll build a lasting recovery that’ll eventually enable you to lead a normal life.
Early recovery is a time for self-discovery, and it’s important to keep a close eye on the way you’re feeling. If you suddenly find yourself putting on weight because you’re craving sugar, or you become obsessive about sex, ask yourself whether you’re substituting one addictive process for another. If food or sex were your primary problem, are there other ways in which you’re now acting out your compulsion?
On a practical level, it’s helpful to be aware that there are certain triggers that are likely to contribute to the risk of relapse. If you’re feeling fatigued, uneasy or emotional about something then it may be time to halt and take stock of things. For this reason, in therapy groups we often ask patients to remember the acronym HALT, which is a widely used acronym that stands for:
Hungry
Angry
Lonely
Tired
Each of these words serves as a possible warning that you may soon be triggered back into your addictive behaviour. The times when we are hungry, angry, lonely or tired are when we’re most likely to relapse. So if you’re walking down the street and you feel a bit out of it, then ask yourself if any of these words apply.
If more than one applies, I’d say you’re at risk. If three or more apply, then the alarm bells should be going off loud and clear and you should do something about it. You need to take action before you go off and do something strange that’ll harm your recovery. If need be, ring your sponsor for advice, but here are some other helpful suggestions.
For much of my life I didn’t realize that I was hungry. I associated that empty, gnawing feeling with the need for a drink, so I’d go off and get plastered. A lot of my cravings for alcohol were in fact hunger pangs. One of the things that I now suggest to patients if they get a craving for alcohol is to go and drink a large glass of water.
Nine times out of ten, if you fill your stomach you’ll feel the craving go away. Of course, eating a balanced diet and having regular meals is also very important. It’s likely that in the past your addiction led you to skip meals, or to eat junk food, and these are things to try to avoid. Breakfast is really important, because if you start the day on empty then sure enough, cravings will build up that can be misconstrued as ‘I need a drink’ or ‘I need something else.’ Some people are tempted to skip breakfast because they think it will help them to lose weight, but in fact it can result in weight gain. The body is tricked into thinking there’s a famine, so the next time you eat it stores away the calories as fat.
The best advice I can offer is to eat three meals a day, starting with a decent breakfast. I would also avoid sugar and products containing white flour wherever possible, because, as we saw in earlier chapters, these can become addictive in themselves.
If you’re walking around in a temper all the time, it’s a sure sign that there are complications on the way. If you find yourself feeling angry, ask yourself why. Of course, there may be a specific cause – perhaps someone said something that upset you – but very often these are only surface reasons.
As we explored earlier, with most anger, the underlying core problem is often fear. It’s that nagging voice that seems to come from something sat on your shoulder: Am I going to lose my job? Will I go bankrupt? Is my wife going to divorce me? or Will I get convicted of drink driving and go to prison?
In addition, there are lots of things still likely to be lurking in our Shame Sack that can cause us fear and trepidation. In the absence of drink and drugs, one way that we subconsciously try to deal with fear is by walking around full of anger. The problem in doing this is that we’re laying ourselves open to emotional fireworks. Understanding the real source of our anger can be beneficial because it helps us to work through it, rather than act on it.
If you’re feeling angry I would advise you to have a warm or a cold drink to fill your stomach, and then to leave wherever you are and go for a gentle walk. It also helps if you breathe deeply and slowly, as this has a calming effect. When we shallow breathe it can add to our distress and cause panic attacks. Of course, if you have a sponsor you can call them too.
It’s worth recognizing that many addicts have probably felt an inner sense of loneliness throughout most of their lives and they’ve sought to alleviate it through all sorts of chemicals or processes. When you take those away, the loneliness can come to the forefront again. To some extent you may need to accept this for the time being, and learn to live with it while you’re in recovery.
These feelings are not going to kill you, and if you can learn not to mind them too much it will be helpful. There’s a famous scene in the film Lawrence of Arabia in which Lawrence puts out a burning match with his fingers. When his servant attempts to do the same he winces with the pain and complains that it hurts. ‘Of course it hurts. It’s the not minding that matters,’ explains Lawrence.
To some extent, we have to learn not to mind that we’re going to have negative feelings from time to time. Of course, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t practical steps that you can take if you feel lonely – the most obvious is to call your sponsor. Going to a 12-Step meeting is another obvious remedy, because you’ll always find people there who are willing to listen.
Feeling tired isn’t necessarily about working too hard or not getting enough sleep. It’s also the tendency to go charging off like a lunatic into everything that you do. Try to keep your day simple, and don’t rush around in 50 different directions. I’m terrible in this respect. On my days off, rather than taking things easy, I race from the dry-cleaners to the gym and always attempt to cram too much in instead of just relaxing.
This is why attending meetings is important in early recovery – they help to provide a structure. Although, of course, if you’re hurrying from meeting to meeting this might not be the case. There’s also a temptation during this time to stay up late watching television. I can still remember my sponsor asking me why I felt the need to stay up until 2 a.m. every night.
My advice to anyone in early recovery is to try and get into a healthy routine. Go to bed as soon after 10 p.m. as you can, and try to get up at 7 a.m. Our bodies appreciate the comfort of a regular pattern and the limbic system will respond approvingly.
Many addicts will also find they benefit from medication in early recovery; I estimate that this is true in about 40 per cent of cases. This is because, underneath our addiction, there’s often some form of General Anxiety Disorder mixed in with a little bit of social phobia. This is why lots of alcoholics find themselves very uneasy at social gatherings unless they have a drink to break the ice.
Not every addict needs medication, but some people cannot access good recovery without it. (Conversely, some people may need to have their medication taken away if it formed part of their addiction, so there’s no concrete rule in this respect.) GPs are not always the best people to determine what’s required. If you’ve been in a treatment centre I would ask their advice, or make sure that you speak to a qualified medical professional who has a detailed understanding of addiction.
You’ll almost certainly also find that you need to make a number of alterations to your lifestyle, and this could include changing the way in which you socialize. If you’re used to drinking with a group of friends in a pub then I think it’s a very bad idea to continue going along, even if you’re confident that you can stick to soft drinks.
Ask yourself if the people in the pub are friends with whom you’ve something in common, or just drinking acquaintances. If you do need to attend social gatherings where alcohol or other substances are being consumed then don’t be afraid to leave. It’s not worth the risk of staying if it makes you feel uncomfortable.
Another challenge in early recovery is holidays. I have a friend who went away within a few weeks of getting sober. He flew to a hotel where he’d previously stayed with his wife, but he hated every moment of it because he was back in an environment in which he’d previously drunk himself senseless. Without the booze, the hotel didn’t have the same allure and it made him very jittery. In this respect, he was a bit like one of Pavlov’s famous dogs that salivated at the thought of food.
For an addict, anything that’s associated with their using process can fool them into wanting to go back to their old behaviour. This is what is known as ‘classic conditioning’ and its effect can be very powerful. It occurs when we experience something that automatically triggers a habitual response within us, and it can be a major cause of relapse.
For example, let’s imagine that you’re a drug user who likes to listen to loud rock music whenever you smoke strong weed. The two activities of smoking drugs and listening to rock become a habit that you regularly perform together – something that you do all of the time whenever you get high. You therefore build up a strong association between the music and the drugs.
Now let’s imagine that you’re just out of rehab and newly clean. You’re full of good intentions, but then you decide to go to a club that plays loud rock music. Suddenly, when you hear the music, it subconsciously triggers a strong urge to smoke weed. For you, rock music and drugs have become like salt and pepper: the two go together. My guess is that if you go to the club often enough, there’s a strong possibility that, sooner or later, your demons will return and you’ll start smoking drugs again.
Classic conditioning is something that you need to be aware of, especially in early recovery when you are at your most vulnerable to its effects. We see classic conditioning at play all around us.
Lots of the addicts I meet tell me that it’s customary in their workplace for colleagues to go for a drink together on a Friday after work. In situations like that, you’ll often find that from three or four o’clock onwards everybody in the office is relaxed and in a good mood because they know a pleasurable experience is on the way. Classic conditioning results in people feeling good long before they’ve even knocked off work or had a drink.
When you’re in recovery, there’s a danger you can become swept up in this – with the result that it triggers cravings. The subsequent trip to a bar or a pub can feel like torture, as you’ll sit there sipping a soft drink while everybody else is consuming alcohol. Force of habit means you’ll probably feel desperate for some booze.
This is why it’s important to avoid places and situations in which you would have previously acted out your addictions. Think about where and when you used booze, drugs or other addictive behaviours in the past. The more you can avoid similar situations in the future, the greater your chances of avoiding a relapse.
One of the things you’re likely to encounter during early recovery is a lot of background anxiety. In the past, you’ve been used to medicating this away through your addiction, but now that’s no longer an option it means that you need to seek alternative strategies.
A powerful tool for doing this is to learn the concept of ‘keeping it in the moment’. This means that, instead of letting our washing machine head get into a spin with worries about the past or the future, we concentrate instead on the here and now.
This is a form of ‘mindfulness’ that might seem a little hard to grasp at first. In order to achieve it, we need to be aware of our surroundings and allow ourselves to focus on what we’re doing, rather than what we’re not doing.
This could be as simple as opening your eyes to everything around you when you go for a walk (which is a great way to distract yourself if you’re feeling anxious). When they’re out and about, most addicts are lost in thought and often stare at the pavement. I know I certainly did this. But when I went into recovery I noticed the sound of birds singing for the first time while I was walking in the street. Until then I’d been too absorbed in my own reality to notice what was going on around me.
It’s something you can try the next time you go for a walk (regardless of whether or not you’re an addict). Make a conscious effort to look at the trees or the buildings around you. Look at the clouds high up in the sky and absorb your surroundings through your senses. You’ll find that you soon forget about the little niggling worries you had when you first set off.
This is what’s known as ‘keeping it in the moment’. It’s a feeling of being grounded in the present instead of panicking about the future or worrying about the past.
The benefits of learning to live in the moment can be huge. I have a friend in recovery who told me an interesting story about scuba diving. Years ago, while he was a heavy drinker, he went diving one day with a stinking hangover. He was worried that feeling ill would cause complications, but he found that once he caught sight of the seabed in all its beauty, his hangover disappeared.
Now that he no longer drinks, he finds that scuba diving has the same effect if he’s suffering from anxiety. Within a few moments of getting into the water, all his apprehensive feelings vanish, because he’s so absorbed by his hobby. There are two things happening here. Firstly, by concentrating on his surroundings while diving, my friend is keeping it in the moment. He’s living in the here and now and concentrating on the present instead of letting his anxiety run riot.
Secondly, he’s acting as if he doesn’t have any worries. Learning to act as if you’re functioning healthily (even when you might not feel it) can be a method for transforming the way you feel.
There’s a saying in fellowship circles that if you act ‘as if I am’, the ‘as if’ soon drops away to become ‘I am’. Again, this might seem a bit of a strange concept, but it’s grounded in common sense. You might wake up in the morning and say to yourself, I feel like a drink today, but today I will act as if I am clean and sober.
Chances are that by acting as if you are clean and sober (i.e. staying out of bars and not drinking), you will actually become clean and sober! Of course, this is a bit of an over-simplification, but the point is that we can change the way we feel by the way we act.
In early recovery, it’s beneficial to act in a manner that’s simple and positive. This might be as basic as making sure we get up early enough in the morning to enjoy a cup of tea and breakfast before we go charging off for the rest of the day. Similarly, we need to allow ourselves enough time to get properly washed and dressed, rather than just throwing on our clothes in a rush like we may have done in the past.
I often tell addicts who are in early recovery that if they feel anxious, they should spend an hour or two cleaning their home, as the simple act of housekeeping can be very calming. Paying attention to basic home hygiene and good grooming can play a positive part in recovery. In other words, by acting in a way that’s grounded and calm, we can improve our chances of feeling the same way. It involves learning to be kind to ourselves. This might mean that you need to re-learn how to enjoy the simple things in life, like reading a good book or watching one of your favourite TV shows.
When we are abusing drugs or an addictive process we can become ‘pleasure deaf.’ This occurs when prolonged using makes us more and more tolerant of the high that addiction gives us and raises what is called our ‘hedonic level’. This is the point that we need to hit every time we use drugs in order to feel okay. As we use more and more, this level increases as tolerance builds up.
The problem is that when we stop using our hedonic level doesn’t immediately fall back to its normal place – this can take several months. The effect of this in recovery is that it can be very difficult to find things to do that make us feel content, and it’s one of the reasons that we’re at risk of cross-addictions to other substances or processes.
You can counteract this by trying to allow yourself the odd treat to look forward to. This doesn’t mean a shopping splurge that you can’t afford, or talking part in behaviour with negative consequences. Instead, it means setting aside some quality time to relax.
A useful tip for bringing a bit of structure to your life is to write down what you plan to do the following day. Do this just before you go to bed, and limit yourself to no more than four items. These can be anything from simple things like eating a proper breakfast, to major tasks connected to work or paying household bills. Limiting yourself to four items will help you go to bed in a relaxed frame of mind, and you won’t be projecting about the following day while you’re trying to get to sleep.
If you wake up with an anxious thought about something you need to do, keep a pen and paper by your bedside so you can write it down. That way your brain will be calm because you’ve reassured yourself that you’ll be reminded of it in the morning.
Just four tasks a day adds up to 28 over the course of a week – more than enough to keep your life on an even keel.
Another very useful tool for helping us achieve mindfulness is meditation. This involves sitting calmly and breathing slowly for 20 minutes while you empty your mind by concentrating on one thing – such as the pace of your breathing.
At first you may find it difficult to keep your mind from wandering, but with practice, meditation can become a beneficial way of relaxing. There are numerous good meditation guides available online, and many self-help fellowships also offer help and advice on the subject.
One method that I found very beneficial during my early recovery was to lay on the floor and tense every individual part of my body in sequence before relaxing it – starting with my toes and then working up towards my head and back down my arms. It was also a very good method of getting to sleep, although this isn’t the point of meditation! Instead, it’s about grounding ourselves in the present and achieving a feeling of peacefulness.
If you feel that practising all these strategies would result in you leading a whole new lifestyle, you’d be right. I once heard somebody in a fellowship say that recovery is easy, all you have to do is learn a totally new way of life. If this sounds daunting then it needn’t, because the emphasis is on keeping things simple and taking it one day at a time. Of course, it’s okay to make plans for the future, as long as it doesn’t conflict with our ability to ‘keep it in the moment’.
In many treatment centres (including the One40 Group), therapists find it helpful to work with a patient in order to compile something called a CRP, which stands for Continued Recovery Plan.
The CRP looks at every aspect of their life, including relationships, work, education, spiritual recovery, and practical things like holidays and hobbies. The therapist then works through this with the addict in order to devise a strategy for sober living that can take into account any issues that might arise.
Everybody’s CRP is slightly different, but the emphasis on leading a calm existence is universally beneficial. Many addicts find that the first year of recovery is the most difficult, but it’s reassuring to know that, in most cases, things will start to get easier. No two people’s paths to recovery are the same, but if you keep it simple you’ll have a far better chance of long-term success.
Finally, a word about families. When we’re in an addictive process, our actions can harm not just ourselves but those around us. Other members of the family are often significantly affected. Where this is the case, they may also find it useful to investigate therapy and/or attend a 12-Step fellowship for families, such Al-Anon, Families Anonymous or CODA.