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The Spiritual Element of Recovery

 

The Spiritual Element of Recovery 

In many programs, that you would go to, to engage in recovery from addiction, there’s a spiritual element to that program. So we have a spiritual program or something like this. And the most common spiritual traditions that they drawn are these Eastern traditions, Buddhism, the yoga, the mindfulness, meditation, these kinds of things. And honestly, I don’t think one can put into words the benefits of those practices.

 

 

Spiritual Psychology

There’s another spiritual tradition that’s more Western that I think is underutilized, which is spiritual psychology and it has to do with how the psyche works and it has to do with virtues. It’s sort of this mix of Greek thought, and philosophy and psychology.

 

That element is crucial because one of the things we’re addressing when we’re looking at recovery is who we are in the moral sphere. Because when you’re in your addiction, you feel demoralized and often ashamed of how you behave.

 

One of the things to try and figure out is how do I get in contact with my, let’s call it authentic self? And how can I be a better person? Which is a huge antidote against shame. If I feel like I’m being a good person over a period of time consistently, I usually don’t feel that a shame might take a while to get there. But we have to understand what it means to be a good person and that’s challenging. It’s a really complex philosophical issue and something that spiritual psychology looks at a lot.

 

 

The Ego- Self

In the moral sphere, the way that I think about that, is to think about a person as having a lower self, or you could call it -my great teacher, Dr. Rabbi Mordecai Finley calls it the ego-self- which is the, it’s a perfectly healthy part of the self for quick, unimportant decisions.

 

It’s the part of me that’s driving the car. That’s in chit chat on the elevator, that’s all ego-self. “Oh, would you like me to push this floor for you? Let me open the door.” You know, etiquette and basic memorized, mechanized ways of responding in the world. Ego self is great at that. 

 

However, we needed to function. I don’t want to be looking at a doorknob thinking what do I do here? How do I go through this door? What does this mean, right? Ego-self is great with that kind of interaction that we have. 

 

 

The ego-self is terrible, a complex interpersonal reaction. 

And any deep relational interaction is complex. It’s going to be reactive, impulsive.So, one of the core parts of spiritual psychology is this question of being able to identify when I’m in my ego self and when that’s appropriate. And when I’m in my higher self.

The really tricky part about addiction is that you become confused about the difference between those two ways of thinking and you use inconsistent rational thought to rationalize and justify ego desires, if that makes sense. 

 

An ego thought does not stand up to scrutiny. 

If you ask your ego deep questions, it cannot give you deep answer. It doesn’t have deep answers. To figure out how to respond in accordance with the situation so that you can continue to build on the most important thing.

 

 

 

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The Physical Aspects of Recovery

One of the things I don’t talk about as much–but it’s so important–is the physical aspects of treating addiction. 

 

Now this doesn’t necessarily pertain to people who are already “fitness freaks”. There’s a whole group of people that come into treatment and their primary coping tool is the gym and eating well. For those people, they’re not gonna get the same kind of relief from the gym beyond what they’ve already got. They’ve already dealt with the nutritional and physical aspects of their neurophysiology. 

 

But there’s another huge group of people who have never paid attention to their body. And sometimes it shows.

Huge Amounts of Information Are Stored in the Body

And we know that traumas are stored in the body. Memories are stored in the body. We know you can tell a lot about how a person is doing based on their body language, energy, posture, and eye contact. 

 

In order to have a full recovery, you have to take care of the body. Meaning: you have to be mindful and intentional about what you’re bringing into your body, what you’re eating, and what you’re drinking. 

 

And you have to be mindful and intentional of the physical activity you’re engaging in to help the body reach close to a peak performance.

Of Course, Exercise Is Healthy, But Did You Know…

There are meditative exercises that exist. I think particularly swimming, biking, and running.  Real rhythmic, physical activities, that open up different emotional spaces. When we’re in a deep depression emotions get locked in. 

 

I’ve told a story about when I picked up bike riding. On my first long bike ride, I just broke out in tears. There was so much emotion that was stored in my body. Until my body was moving in a rhythmic way, I couldn’t get to it. 

 

One of the big ways to relieve that stress and anxiety is to start to take care of your body more. The way to do that well is to find an exercise routine that actually works for you. I do biking, it’s really hard for me to lift weights in the morning, and frankly I don’t enjoy it. And I don’t like gyms. I like to be outside. So, biking is great for me. 

 

I wake up early in the morning and I jump on a bicycle. And it’s an automatic warm up; I kind of ease into that exercise. And, for me, it’s great because I’m kind of like, rusty in the morning. Biking, to me, brings this rhythmic, meditative thinking that just blows the thoughts and anxieties right out of my mind.

 

Of course, you have to find the exercise that’s right for you

 

The physical components of recovery cannot be understated. It’s not my area of expertise. There are people who know much more about it than me, but it’s definitely worth talking about.

 

 

 

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The Desire to Move Forward

When I’m working as an addiction or spiritual counselor, clients want to climb the ladder of treatment. They want to move forward in their lives, which is understandable. We all want that direction. 

 

And that idea of moving forward in treatment–that’s a therapeutic issue. I don’t mean that as an evasion. Our conception of what it means to move forward is a therapeutic issue. 

 

How do I answer clients when they ask, “When is it time to go? When am I ready to leave?”

 

I used to say, “When you’re willing to stay.” 

 

Considering Your Desire to Finish Treatment

 

My answer wasn’t cruel or a joke. I answered the question sincerely. 

 

I wanted them to ponder:

  • What happens when you come into treatment?
  • What is this urge to move out? 
  • What do you think is at the end of this journey?
  • Is there an illusion that when you leave treatment you get your freedom back? 

 

Many expect leaving treatment restores the freedom to do, “What I want, when I want, and how I want.” That it’s some kind of promised land. That life is going to feel better–everything’s back to normal. 

 

But your life wasn’t normal before you got there. You had an addiction problem and were suffering. And, in fact, when you leave treatment, life is more complex and difficult with less support. 

 

So it’s actually harder. 

 

I had a counselor that told me–when I was in treatment–the only thing that should change when you leave is your address. And what he meant by that was all of the tools and support that you’ve created while in addiction treatment–the kinds of choices you make and the things you have and haven’t been doing–all of that should stay the same. 

 

Treatment is the First Step of Your Recovery

 

Don’t think because you move forward in treatment that it’s going to relieve your stress and anxiety. That, actually, may be what’s driving this idea of moving forward. 

 

We all want to move forward in our lives, which is a complicated thing to even define. There’s a stress and anxiety that exists inside us all at times. If you’re active in addiction, stress and anxiety has a powerful pull. Yet we think, “If I can just get through these obstacles and move forward that will relieve the stress and anxiety.” 

 

But actually what relieves the stress and anxiety is dealing with the underlying conditions of the emotions. What relieves the stress and anxiety in my interpersonal relationships is not getting away from them. Then I’m just guilty because I’m not around. Right? 

 

I have to work through the emotions. And that’s what we’re actually doing in treatment. So it’s really a reframe. You’ve got to reframe your idea of moving forward. You’ve got to reframe your idea of stress and anxiety. 

 

Another thing I used to say: that feeling you have–that restlessness and boredom–that’s your ism. That underlying cluster of feelings exists inside of you and drives you to use drugs and alcohol. So every time you have that feeling, it’s a signal for you something is up. That is the ism you have to address.

 

 

 

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Are We Defining Treatment Success the Wrong Way?

Let’s face it, the media has an impact on our opinions and how we view the world. Unfortunately, seeing the world through the eyes of the media isn’t always…well, reality.

 

Take substance abuse treatment. Popular culture believes a person successfully completing treatment will stay away from drugs or alcohol for the rest of his or her life. As a result, life gets better. Sure this idea of success is ideal, but…

 

It’s not always that black and white.

 

Let’s say someone completes treatment and slips up some. Maybe they go out for a couple of drinks or have a weak moment with their drug of choice. But then they used what they learned in treatment to get back on track and not fall into the cycle of addiction.

 

Is this a success or failure?

 

Sure, there was relapse. But there was also a personal recovery taking place afterward. Ultimately, their quality of life did not suffer.

 

So treatment success may not fit into a neat little box of assumptions. Every individual comes to treatment with a unique set of circumstances. Is measuring success in a standard “popular” way counterproductive or even setting one up for failure?

 

Sometimes the right environment for the right amount of time can be the difference between success stories and failures. Recovery Integrity offers a long-term, all male program in Los Angeles. With a success rate of around 45%–much higher than the industry standard.

 

 

 

 

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The Reality of Treatment Success Rates

Coming to treatment has always been a hard threshold to cross – but more so now… Working in treatment for a long time, I’ve experienced greater consumer wariness.

 

People are more hesitant to send their loved ones to treatment and people who are looking for treatment are more hesitant to come. I think one of the reasons is the discourse about addiction, treatment and recovery has hit the mainstream, and one of the things that has come out is that the success rate of treatment is like, 15%.

 

But why are success rates so low? Several reasons:

 

Poor treatment. Treatment that’s not set up well & doesn’t understand the various personalities of the population they’re working with and their underlying conditions and problems. Like a bad mechanic.

 

Shady treatment that just isn’t trustworthy. Meaning their intention wasn’t to figure out how to help people recover. Their intention was to make money. That type of intention can be disasterous.

 

The nature of addiction and recovery. The nature of addiction is… it’s chronic. It is not a problem that can be solved with an event. It’s something that has to be worked with over time.

 

A good analogy to understand why treatment success rates are low is to think about something like the gym. My guess is you’re going to see like ten, fifteen percent success on those goals of fitness of people who signed up for memberships. Right?

Recovery is the same way. Recovery is similar to a muscle you have to exercise consistently. Lots of people will sign up for something that they won’t follow through with. It’s the really hard part of treatment and recovery.

It’s this mysterious question of the will, why some people have the will to change certain parts of their lives and other people don’t, and honestly it’s not a place where we have good answers.

Many times we just wait for people to be ready to change, but if you have a loved one or a spouse, or kid who is – shooting heroin – you really don’t feel like you have the luxury to wait around for them to change.

So people intervene, and people are in different stages of readiness for change, and there’s not an easy solution for that.

 

 

 

 

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Dogma in AA: Trusting in the Spirit of Reality

Dogma is not actually something I would want to get rid of within Alcoholics Anonymous.

 

I would also say dogma is not something that I want to get rid of in alcoholics anonymous. On some level, what it means to be a person in recovery, who’s engaged in traditional 12 steps is to have some sense of acceptance, that you are not in charge of the world.

 

And it’s sort of like trusting the spirit of reality and they call it God’s will, right. It’s a little bit more loaded of a term, I’ll just call it the spirit of reality. Meaning, I have to accept what is. Right?

 

I could fight it, but I’m going to lose, because – what is. And so if what is, is there are dogmatic personalities in alcoholics anonymous, who am I to fight that?

 

Am I in charge of how people should be in meetings? And the answer is no, I’d be a hypocrite. Right? Am I dogmatically against people who are dogmatic? Well, no.

 

There’s another reason why I wouldn’t get rid of dogma in alcoholics anonymous. It’s helped a lot of people. There’s a, sort of a spectrum of meetings, there are meetings, a late-night Hollywood meeting, it’s like a comedy show fiasco. It’s totally insane and foul and people yelling. A bunch of jesters all in one space acting out. There’s no order. It’s total chaos. Great Energy. I thought I sober was gonna be boring, this meeting is wild!

 

And then you have very rigid (you have to wear a tie) and other groups that have developed their own culture which is much stricter, much more dogmatic, much more rule-bound, and all are helpful for a lot of people.

 

That kind of container and that rule of structure and not having to question everything, and just being able to take direction feels really safe, and it feels good and it helps them build lives.

 

So there is dogma in the personalities in alcoholics anonymous. It’s not a bad thing, and if the traditional 12-step is something that’s going to help you, there are ways for you to belong that work for you.

 

 

 

 

 

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AA tries NOT to be dogmatic

Alcoholics Anonymous

Although somewhat known for dogma – actually has gone out of the way to NOT be dogmatic.

 

Everything is languaged from a place of suggestion as opposed to declarative statements for how you are supposed to be.

 

When you see it in the literature of Alcoholics Anonymous, you notice that these were people who were not only NOT particularly dogmatic, but they were also sensitive to the fact that people would be sensitive to dogma.

 

I am half African-American, and when I read the core text, the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, I’m shocked that the word “negro” isn’t in there.

 

It’s 1936, pre-civil-rights-movement. It says nothing about who can come and who can’t…

 

So there is dogma in the 12-steps, it’s not my cup of tea, but it largely has to do with the personalities that exist in certain meetings within the fellowship.

 

 

  

 

 

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How to Deal with Dogma in Traditional 12-Step Recovery

The One major, legitimate critique of traditional 12-step recovery that I hear a lot (and agree with) Dogma.

 

Which is basically some authority prescribing rules or structure, usually rigid or fixed rules, to a system.

 

You find that in AA, and for some people that’s a big turn off

I don’t like that, I’m a questioner, a doubter, I’m curious… and it doesn’t work well with me or a lot of people.

 

So how do you deal with this? You can choose not to participate, but maybe 12-step or traditional recovery is a huge part of what is going to help you change.

 

What people need is some clarity. The program itself is actively not dogmatic. It’s not hierarchical, there is nobody in charge. In order to be dogmatic, really, there has to be someone prescribing the rules.

 

People project dogma because they experience dogmatic personalities in Alcoholics Anonymous, and that makes sense. Often dogma comes from pain and brokenness. In response to my difficulty, I might create a whole crazy rule structure to how I have to be… …and if I go too far down that road, I might create a whole crazy rule structure about how you have to be.

 

 

  

 

 

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dual diagnosis treatment for mental health and addiction
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Dual Diagnosis vs Multidimensionality

Some time ago, I had the opportunity to work in the Skid Row area of downtown Los Angeles. In those days (the early ’90s) the residents of the area were divided between need “mental health services” or those needing “addiction services.”  This distinction was usually the result of some odd government funding rules or just the general ignorance of the time. It must have been extremely frustrating for clients to walk back and forth between programs as both programs had strict entrance criteria. Invariably, the client would give up and end up using and just sleeping on the streets. 

 

The Dual Diagnosis revolution came about as both traditional mental health, and substance abuse programs began to realize that clients didn’t fit into these neat boxes. In my mind, this was obvious. Any Introduction to Psychology course will instruct you on understanding the complexity of human behavior. More often than not, people need help in a variety of areas. 

 

Mental health disorders and substance abuse issues are only a small part of the recovery plan Share on X

 

Services such as financial and legal planning, helping the family, and assisting clients in finding good-paying jobs and housing. More importantly, the staff needed to have a greater level of compassion and understanding as clients ranged in age, culture, and background. 

 

More recently, the Diagnostic Manual of Mental Disorders-V (DSM-V) (the psychiatric diagnostic manual) instituted new guidelines for diagnosis along a dynamic spectrum of issues (i.e., health, financial, relationship and emotional issues). This strategy of diagnosis avoided the stale one-word diagnosis (e.g. alcohol abuse) and painted instead of a richer and more clinically useful multidimensional picture.

 

The American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM, 2013) has developed a multidimensional assessment model that provides both clients and staff a client-friendly treatment model. The assessment model includes everything from treating withdrawal symptoms to assess the client’s risks of relapse. The ASAM Placement has also allowed a common means of communication between clinicians, recovery professionals, and third-party payors.

 

Unfortunately, rather than focus on treatment efficacy, many programs seem to offer a menu of attractive services, some of which have shown little value in establishing and maintaining the client’s sobriety. Share on X

 

However, most programs use traditional treatment models. Unfortunately, most of these models of treatment reflect the treatment the staff received in their respective recovery programs.  Rather than focus on treatment efficacy, many programs seem to offer a menu of attractive services, some of which have shown little value in establishing and maintaining the client’s sobriety. It’s almost impossible to do a Google search on substance abuse issues without going through countless slick webpages offering expertise and a pleasant rehabilitation process. 

 

The relatively recent focus on Dual Diagnosis has opened the recovery community to an earnest attempt to provide a more simplistic but helpful understanding of clients who suffer from substance abuse and mental health issues. Although both issues are indeed mental disorders, the development of the Dual Diagnosis model has started a much-needed paradigm shift for both clients and treatment professionals. Although the multidimensional approach is growing in the recovery field, it is still challenging to have the staff and client to see just how complicated this perspective is.  Typically, a simple diagnosis like “he’s just an alcoholic” or “he’s a recently divorced drug addict” is used to describe a rather complex individual in a complicated situation. 

 

Along with this development, some insurance companies have become more “savvy” in how they evaluate treatment progress and thus pay for treatment. Some have demanded that the client be discharged to a lower level of care or burdening the client and the family with the additional costs of treatment. I have seen clients lose their treatment benefits and sadly return home only to repeat the cycle of addiction. Along with more effective treatment models, funding agencies need to support our client’s in their recovery as a medical necessity and not just auxiliary service. 

 

In my own recovery, the most helpful experiences were those in which compassionate staff helped me develop a sense of hope and regain a more balanced perspective on life in general. I learned to develop a greater acceptance of my higher power and trust in myself and my support system. These and other dynamics such as compassion, humor and the ability to have fun without drugs, remain outside traditional addiction medicine, but in many ways are just as important (or more). 

 

My own personal experiences at Recover Integrity have shown just how a program can be both a treatment program, providing complex dual diagnosis treatment, and a place of healing and renewal of hope Share on X

 

My own personal experiences at  Recover Integrity have shown just how a program can be both a treatment program, providing complex dual diagnosis treatment,  and a place of healing and renewal of hope. This humanistic perspective perfectly emboldens my own work as a clinician and as an administrator of the program. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

If you think a loved one would benefit from a dual-diagnosis treatment plan, please reach out to us for a free 15-min consultation. We are here for you.

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    The Rebel Side of Alcoholics Anonymous

    What to expect in this episode:

     

    1. People suffering from addiction often feel very rebellious inside
    2. The most radical thing about AA is that it’s completely detached from the market
    3. Alcoholics Anonymous is rebellious, it rejects traditional hierarchy & is free

    Alcoholics Anonymous is for Rebels 

     

    The other thing about Alcoholics Anonymous; addicts and alcoholics often feel rebellious inside.

     

    There’s a rebel piece that grows inside of us during the teenage years and sometimes we have a hard time growing out of.

     

    (…Maybe we shouldn’t grow out of it.)

     

    I would say Alcoholics Anonymous is very rebellious.

    Alcoholics Anonymous is completely disconnected from the market place

     

    When I say its free, that’s a big deal, it also is completely disconnected from the market place. Its not only that it doesn’t cost any money to go there. There are non profits that you can go to that don’t cost money; but it actually has little to no relationship to the market place at all other than people putting a dollar in a basket to pay some cheap rent at a particular building. 

     

    SO it is totally disconnected from our economic system, and I would invite anybody to name any other institution that’s completely disconnected from our market economy. I think that’s important. 

     

    There are no commercials or advertising for it, somehow it’s just its own temple, or sacred space. It hasn’t been invaded by a lot of economic forces that we are all at the whim of. So I think there is something special about that. 

    Alcoholics Anonymous Hierarchy

     

    The other thing about AA is that it’s not hierarchical, not that there is no hierarchy, it just a very flat hierarchy.

     

    There’s nobody in charge; when you go to a meeting, there is someone leading the meeting, that rotates every 6 months based on a democratic process usually, that people vote on. 

     

    You might ask, “Who is in charge of these millions of people in Alcoholics Anonymous?” nobody knows, no one is in charge. It is people coming together to help each other in a way that has now worked for 80 years. It’s incredible to have that kind of flat hierarchy and it’s worked now through 3-4 generations of people.

     

    That’s deep, religion is not like that, corporations are not like that, and my family is not even like that… well sometimes it’s like that… 

     

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