Canada Drug Rehab

Geoff Thompson, MA, CCC

Geoff Thompson, Program Director for Sunshine Coast Health Centre, discusses the term “confirmation bias” and what psychologists have learned about the different ways individuals will intake & process information.

By Geoff Thompson - MA, CCC

Program Director

Recovery demands three connections: with yourself (self-awareness), with others, and with something that makes you feel alive and energized and vital (e.g. volunteering). We’ve talked about these connections in previous blog postings.

One of the questions clients ask is if one connection is more important than others. It’s interesting that many in active addiction have very good self-awareness (though many also struggle with this). Some of the finest literary writers produced very good books while in active addiction. Think of John O’Brien’s novel, Leaving Las Vegas. O’Brien was an alcoholic and his book provides good insight into the nature of addiction. He was fully aware of what addiction is, what it cost him, why he drank. But even self-awareness didn’t help O’Brien. He took his life while in addictive alcoholism. So, connecting with self may not be the most important connection.

According to a remarkable amount of research, the one connection that addicts seem to struggle with the most is the connection with others. Relationships. Even John O’Brien wrote about this struggle to connect with others in Leaving Las Vegas. In fact, the importance of connecting with others is the main theme of the book. And, of course, Eugene O’Neill, the Nobel-Prize winning addict-writer, recognized that it was his feeling of separation from others that was the cause of his drinking. His greatest works are about why connection with others is the key to being clean and sober. In O’Neill’s own struggles to recover, it was through rebuilding connections with his wife and parents that led him to abstinence.

You should know that psychology now promotes relationships as one of the most important factors of life. In the old days, we used to focus on the individual only, trying to understand human beings by studying them in isolation. Today, however, more and more psychologists are developing theories and models that say that the way to understand human beings is through their need to exist in relationships.

So, if we had to choose one type of connection, it would not be a bad idea to choose connection with others.

For those suffering from addiction, the big barrier to connecting with others is Harry in the Bubble—or, from the 12-step interpretation, self-centeredness. Perhaps the most horrifying thing about addiction is that it isolates the addict. This was Eugene O’Neill’s argument, and the reason for his addiction: he never felt comfortable around people (including his parents, and his first two wives and the kids he had with them). Extreme isolation. Extreme loneliness. No sense of belonging.

The reason why Harry lives in the Bubble is due directly to the addiction. Harry is doing something that society, his friends, his boss, is family, his lover, his kids say is ‘bad’. He’s spending enormous amounts of money, told that he is a reject of society, risks his physical health, loses jobs, causes extreme stress in his family, runs into trouble with the law. To continue using the substance he has to come up with all sorts of tactics. Isolation, lies to attain money for the substance, manipulation of family and friends and bosses, and so on. If Harry were not good at these tactics, he wouldn’t be a very successful addict.

The problem is that these tactics push people away. In active addiction, the addict interprets others mainly according to the principle: can they help me get and use the substance, are they neutral, or can they hinder me from getting and using the substance? A family dinner can be a place of suffering if the addict wants to get loaded; the family prevent him from using. Even being with your kids can be a problem; they might catch you out. Bosses are certainly dangerous because they can fire you—or send you to treatment. People avoid you in public; how many people want to sit next to you on the bus if you’re loaded?

In this article we’ll look at how Harry can break out of his Bubble and connect with others.

Part One — Remember the Lessons from Living at Sunshine Coast

There is a reason why Sunshine Coast Health Center is a residential treatment center. Living with others 24 hours a day and 7 days a week may not be too attractive to most new clients, but it has great therapeutic value for overcoming addiction.

For those who in active addiction learned to push others away and isolate, they have to learn new methods to live comfortably. Harry shows up in his Bubble at the center, but now his old tactics of isolating and pushing people away don’t work very well.

Perhaps Harry is in a foul mood. Likely, he has no problem letting others know he is angry, even though all the other clients are suffering with their own issues. He has no problem taking his anger out on someone else or yelling or punching a wall. Perhaps Harry is on the phone in the phone booth. He raises his voice to his lover because he is angry at the lover, even though another client in the next phone booth is having a conversation with his six-year-old. The fact that there is another client in the other phone booth does not even register with Harry. Perhaps Harry does not care about keeping his room clean and tidy. The fact that this is expected of him at Sunshine Coast does not matter to him. Why should it? He has not paid attention to policies or laws or family requests for many years. Even if his roommate complains at Harry’s mess, it often doesn’t matter to Harry because he is in his Bubble. When you live in a Bubble, nothing outside the bubble really matters.

If Harry continues to act this way, he’ll soon discover that other clients want little to do with him. If he doesn’t change— doesn’t learn to connect with the other clients— he’ll likely be miserable in treatment. Rather than change, he’ll probably start inventing all sorts of nonsense to get himself out: other clients are jerks, counsellors are useless, and so on. But almost always, Harry learns to connect. The same requirement is demanded of the clients around Harry. They have to learn to connect with him. If they don’t, they’ll run screaming out the front gate.

Clients at Sunshine Coast learn to pay attention to others and what others are feeling, especially in small group. They discover that they share a great deal with others, that they are accepted warts and all.

In short, they begin to connect with others by seeing them as suffering human beings. All this effort helps Harry to connect with other clients, and other clients figure out how to connect with Harry.

Part Two — The Secret to Connecting with Others

The great thinker Martin Buber gave us the key to good relationships. Buber said that we have to treat others as valuable and worthwhile human beings, what he called the “I-Thou” relationship.

Treating another person as worthwhile and important usually takes practice. How many times have you seen one person treat another with disrespect, which then leads to an angry reaction from the person insulted? The justification is, of course, ‘well, he started it’. If you are an alumni of Sunshine Coast, you may have been reminded by your counsellor that simply because someone treats you disrespectfully is not a reason to treat them disrespectfully. You are still the author of how you react. But this is a tough one.

The blessing of learning to connect with others using ‘I-Thou’ is that you will feel better. Life will be more rewarding. You lose the feeling that you are an outcast, that you are different than others. You gain a sense of belonging, of fitting in, of being part of.

These benefits are precisely why connecting with others is so important for recovery. The great psychiatrist Viktor Frankl said that the reason addicts use substances is because they have little connection with others. Because of this, life has little personal meaning. But those who connect with others at a deep level discover that life is exciting and meaningful.

Part Three — Dating

Connecting with an intimate partner is another type of relationship. The key is to have two healthy equals come together in a relationship.

Because most in early recovery are filled with guilt and shame, they may not think that they are worth much. One client told us the reason he dated certain women in bars is because he didn’t think a healthy woman would want to be around him.

Cathy Patterson-Sterling, Director of Family Services at Sunshine Coast, offers an example of a doomed dating relationship: Rescuing a damsel in distress. It is interesting how many clients and alumni seek out someone to rescue. They tell us that they are doing ‘good’, helping the less fortunate. But if we operate according to principle of equality in relationships, we can see that rescuing the damsel is not a partnership among equals.

Similar to rescuing the damsel is the notorious practice at 12-step meetings of ‘thirteenth stepping’, another doomed connection. A person new in the fellowship is vulnerable. Another member sees this and acts as if he or she (yes, it goes both ways) can help the vulnerable member. Of course, the older AA member is simply using the vulnerable person to satisfy his or her lust or loneliness. Using another person for your benefit is hardly a relationship of equals.

Another example is that some in recovery go on dates, and they don’t even really like the person. To use a heterosexual example, they date a beautiful woman and like to be seen in public with her. Other guys stare at his date, which makes the fellow feel good about himself. This, too, is using another person for their benefit.

Some use the ‘victim’ role to attract dates. Being needy is attractive to those who need someone to rescue. Obviously, this is not a good basis for a relationship.

Part Four — Connecting with Others Helps Connect with Yourself

It is one of those things about human beings that how they make sense of themselves has a lot to do with how others treat them.

This is one of the main dynamics behind group therapy. How you treat others in the group—how you connect with them—will likely determine how they treat you. Members of a group learn quickly that if you don’t show up on time for group, interrupt others, focus only when the topic shifts to something you are interested in, and so on, then you will not form good connections with others. When other group members see your behavior, they conclude that you have no interest in them and so won’t bother trying pursuing a connection.

If other people continue to avoid making connections with the person, he’ll likely be more convinced than ever that he is unworthy of caring. And so, he’ll just keep behaving as he does. It’s a vicious circle.

On the other hand, if you approach others with the attitude that they are important, you generally find that you are well treated. And based on this constant feedback, you will likely come to believe that you are a good person, decent person. And, of course, being a good person will likely help you to continue to treat others well.

Dr. Ken Hart, one of Canada’s foremost addiction researchers, reports new research on overcoming shame. Studies have found that the experience of having someone forgive you actually helps you to forgive yourself. And forgiving yourself is one of the key factors in overcoming feelings of shame. In this example, you make sense of yourself based in great measure by how another treats you. This is why helping out in the community often makes someone feel better. To use an extreme example, let’s say an alcoholic killed a child while driving intoxicated. We’ve discovered that one way to help alleviate guilt is for the person to volunteer with kids in the community or create a foundation to help underprivileged kids or some other activity. Because of this effort, the alcoholic will get feedback from others, likely positive. This feedback often helps the alcoholic in the process to forgive himself.

Geoff Thompson, MA, CCC

Geoff Thompson, Program Director for Sunshine Coast Health Centre, pulls together 4 key concepts for “living the good life.”

Geoff Thompson, MA, CCC

Geoff Thompson, Program Director for Sunshine Coast Health Centre, discusses the nature of suffering and how to make sense of bad things happening to good people.

Geoff Thompson, MA, CCC

Geoff Thompson, Program Director for Sunshine Coast Health Centre, talks about finding happiness through asking life what it demands of you, rather than demanding that life treat you a in a certain way.

By Geoff Thompson, MA RCC
Program Director
Sunshine Coast Health Center

The main thing about alcohol and drugs is that they alter our states of consciousness. As obvious as this is, it is amazing that few people bother even talking about it.

What we read and hear about is that people use because of depression, anger, problems in the family, problems at work, trauma, and so on. In reality, there are many ways of dealing with these problems. The vast majority people don’t turn to drugs for relief. In fact, they cannot imagine that getting drunk or loaded regularly is even a reasonable possibility.

When we do addiction research, we discover that addicts use drugs when then are sad…but they also use drugs when they are happy. They use drugs when they are angry…but they also use when they are not angry. They use drugs when they are depressed…but they also use drugs when they are not depressed. And so on. Lots of people who suffer from addiction grew up in a chaotic family, and lots of people who suffer from addiction grew up in a stable family. We also know from research that those with addiction problems struggle with boredom and loneliness and the feeling that life just isn’t all that interesting or exciting without the substance and the lifestyle that goes with it.

We seem to talk about everything except the obvious: some people take substances because they like the feeling they get from being intoxicated. Whatever this feeling is, it is more appealing than being clean and sober.

Most addiction treatment programs do not talk about the drug experience. They argue that talking about the high promotes drug use. Others don’t talk about it because, frankly, they are not familiar with what the experts have reported. Still others think that it is just plain deviant. But at Sunshine Coast Health Center, we believe that it provides a clue into why intoxication is so appealing for the addict. It offers a clue to the drug’s power, beyond just calling it a disease. 

So what is this altered state of consciousness? What makes it appealing? This month we’ll have a look at what the experts and addicts tell us about the experience of intoxication.

This is very important information for recovery. Understanding the appeal of intoxication helps us understand what recovery is all about.

Part One — William James and Making Sense of Mysteries

Alumni of Sunshine Coast Health Center may recall workshops discussion on William James’ book, The Varieties of Religious Experience, which had a profound influence on Bill Wilson, the driving force behind the creation of Alcoholics Anonymous. 

James was one of the most influential thinkers in the last one hundred years. He was fascinated by how the human mind works, including different states of consciousness. He even studied various drug-induced altered states, convinced that such knowledge would help us understand what it meant to be human. 

Intoxication by sniffing nitrous oxide (laughing gas) provided James with one example of why drugs are so powerful. When someone is high on laughing gas, says James, the person gets a “tremendously exciting sense of an intense metaphysical experience.” What he means by this is that the person seems to find answers to the mysteries of life, the big complicated questions. How do we explain good and evil? What is the meaning of my life? Intoxicated, the person with spontaneity and ease sees “depth beneath depth” of insight. “Normal consciousness offers no parallel.” In fact as the high goes away, the person “is left staring vacantly.”

About alcohol, he talks of a sense of “reconciliation [of seeming opposites]…which seems silly to lookers-on” but which is a key part of its temptation. He describes, what he calls, this reconciliation of opposites from personal experience. While intoxicated, James says that he wrote down opposites—God and devil, good and evil, life and death, ecstasy and horror. He said that they came together with “infinite rationality,” that he could see the logic that unified them.

Twenty years later, James would write that the power of alcohol is its power to make the imbiber feel that he has touched a higher reality. Grass is greener, jokes are funnier, and even total strangers can be instant friends.

James was fully aware that sober people would dismiss any idea that a drunk could find any profound meaning while intoxicated. But James was serious about this idea. The altered state of consciousness allowed the drunk to be conscious of a reality that sober people were blind to.

James had no doubt why nitrous oxide and alcohol had such great appeal. Imagine the feeling of firmly understanding some of the mysteries of the universe, of seeing some of the hidden ways in which you, me, and the world are connected. Sobriety, in comparison, can be rather lifeless and boring.

Part Two — Freedom to be Yourself

Here are some things that addicts said to researchers about what it’s like to be high on crack cocaine:

“I felt like Superman. I got to move mountains.”

“It was the feeling that I had been searching for.”

“It’s not like the personal joy of climbing a mountain…and you finally make it to the top. It’s not like finishing a…marathon…you got that super high, that rush or whatever. The high from crack is higher, more intense than those feelings.”

“It’s like the world world, life is beautiful. I feel great. I have a lot of ideas. My mind just opens tremendously. My mind is like really fast and I think better. I feel good. I feel life is wonderful. I can do anything.”

These are quite amazing statements. The researcher, Joaquin Trujillo from the US Department of State, was interested in understanding what the appeal of a crack cocaine high is. He concluded that crack gave the user the feeling that he or she could be human.

What he meant by this is that the addict had the freedom to be him/herself. They described this feeling of being free from shame, free from the pressures of responsibility. Some described this freedom of being “numb” to negative and uncomfortable feelings.

At Sunshine Coast we often talk about being true to the self (so does Alcoholics Anonymous). This freedom to be oneself, to feel comfortable in your own skin, to feel comfortable in the world, is what many people tell us is the appeal of drugs. 

Part Three — Connecting with the Universe

Feeling at one with the universe—this sounds like some bad Hollywood movie about the 1960s, with everyone talking about cosmic consciousness.

Psychologist Jonathan Diamond describes our desire for drugs this way: it is “not only to escape pain that humanity turns to drugs, it is for communion with God.” And this idea was, of course, Bill Wilson’s brilliant insight into why alcoholics drank — and became the baseline for Alcoholics Anonymous.

And it is also the conclusion that the Government of Canada arrived at in its famous 1971 Royal Commission on the Use of Non-Medical Drugs in Canada. Here’s a paragraph from the interim report:

“Modern drug use would definitely seem to be related…to the collapse of religious values…. [T]here is definitely the sense of identification with something larger, something to which one belongs as part of the human race.”

Even if this statement did not come from the federal government, it’s a remarkable conclusion on why people use drugs.

Furthermore, former clients of Sunshine Coast know from their time with us that this is one of the key conclusions that the Nobel-Prize winning addict-playwright, Eugene O’Neill, also came to.

Being at one with the universe means that you feel connected. You don’t feel as if you are an outcast. You have that wonderful feeling of belonging. And if you have the feeling that you belong, then you must also have the feeling that you are important because this is where you are meant to be.

Part Four — Sunshine Coast Clients

in this article we’ve been examining how scholars have looked at the experience of being intoxicated. Each example provided in this article showed that addiction is powerful because of the positive feelings that drugs provide.

At some point during treatment at Sunshine Coast, clients are asked to recall a time when they were high or drunk. Then clients are asked what they got from the drug experience. Of course, a typical answer was, “nothing!”, however, staff learned to be skeptical of such a response because one of the truths about human beings is that everyone does everything for a reason.

When we talk deeply to clients about the drug experience, we always find that drug use was not merely escaping pain. There was some big payoff. Some typical things we hear from clients are:

“This is the way I was meant to feel.”

“It gave me a break from always having to do things for other people. Got rid of all the stress and worry, so I could do what I wanted.”

“I could think about things that fascinated me.”

“I loved how fast I could think…I could make sense of things.”

“I loved listening to music stoned. It filled me up.”

Conclusion

One of the keys to recovery is to have these experiences that make life worth living, but without the drugs. And that takes time and practice. There can be no sitting back, expecting that life will somehow magically come alive; people in recovery have to work at it.

The thing for people in recovery to remember is that all this is and was inside you from the start. You just needed the drugs to bring it out. Now, in recovery, you have to find a more natural way. But, as people with good recovery will tell you, it gets better.

By Cathy Patterson-Sterling, MA, RCC
Director of Family Services
Sunshine Coast Health Center

PART FOUR OF FOUR

The Transition From Addiction Treatment To Adulthood

Some parents are concerned because when their adult children complete treatment, they have no resources. For example, many adult children do not have jobs, living accommodations, or assets. In such situations, it is not recommended that parents have their adult children move back home with them because it is very easy to slip back into the cycle of rescuing, managing, and over-functioning. Furthermore, if parents are going to provide support or a step-down transition out of treatment then there should be an objective agreement drafted with accountability conditions. Parents need to be careful that they are respecting the adulthood of their children and do not use agreements as a way to further manage their children. These agreements would be worded in a format similar to a tenancy contract. Also parents need to first consider their emotional as well as financial limits before they move to the stage of negotiating a contract of support with their adult children. The following steps below are very helpful in this process.

Steps involved in creating a transitional support agreement:

Step #1. The parents have a conversation with each other to discuss the reality of how much they are prepared to spend emotionally and financially to support their adult child to transition out of treatment. The parameters of emotional and financial support are discussed between the parents.

Step #2. The adult child explores options around what they will do post-treatment (ie. living accommodations, job, etc). Adult child also examines how they can choose a plan whereby they are able to express their adulthood as well as independence while also meeting the requirements included in the plan.

Step #3. The adult child and parents meet with or without a counsellor to discuss different options around transitional support after treatment such as options for living, working, and so on. The adult child may also consider the results of a career assessment in their examination of options.

Step #4. Parents share the the limits of the support they are willing to provide emotionally and financially. Accountability measures may be discussed as well as an examination of what will occur if the adult child does not maintain recovery and has a relapse. For example, financial support may cease or there is an expectation the adult child will return to intensive counselling and/or residential treatment. Individual circumstances may vary widely for each family.

Step #5. The parents and the adult child examine how they can be respectful of each other’s adulthood on both sides. What will the relationship look like in recovery? What type of support does the adult child need in recovery?

Managing the “Worry Monster” During the Transition To Adulthood

One of the greatest challenges for parents of adult children is managing the “worry monster.”  Even if adult children are doing well post-recovery, parents can easily be consumed by their anxiety about the future. There are three common emotions that can cause parents to enter back into a rescuing cycle and take back the gift of adulthood that they are offering to their adult children. These emotions include:

Fear- Some parents worry that their adult children cannot succeed and that bad things will happen. As a result, such parents fall back into patterns of over-functioning, rescuing, and managing. Parents can worry that their adult children are around “bad influences” and in an attempt to clear away bad friends or other negative factors, they end up returning to managing their children’s lives.

Guilt- Some parents feel badly for choices they have made earlier in life like divorcing or working long hours. Perhaps such parents were not able to give their children all the advantages needed while growing up. As a result, parents may try to compensate now and out of guilt they will undermine the progress of independence which is necessary for their children’s adulthood.  For example, parents may, out of guilt, make their adult children’s lives easier by paying off debts and not allowing their adult children to be responsible or accountable.

Parents need to remember that guilt is an indulgent activity that selfishly meets their own needs while undermining the progress of their adult child’s independence. We can only change our current, not past, actions. Furthermore, we may be overestimating the impact of our past mistakes and, instead, transferring all of our unresolved emotional issues into guilt. This guilt is actually one of our own emotional areas for growth and may have nothing to do with our children.

Pity- Some parents have a deficit-focused view of their adult children. For example, there are parents who believe their children are “special” or incapable of being adults because they always make bad decisions. Secretly, parents may even pity their children because these individuals have ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder), Generalized Anxiety Disorders, or are challenged in some way. In such cases, parents may position themselves as being the strong high-functioning people in the relationships and they would lose their own identities if they were not in a position of helping their adult children who they presume are weak.  The challenge in these situations is for parents to “re-write” their stories of who they believe their children are in life and to move from a deficit-focus to noticing all the strengths and abilities in these adult children. Remember what we pay attention to grows!

If parents experience this roadblock and start to undermine their adult children’s independence then they may wish to explore in their own healing journey of who they are outside of their children’s challenges. Sometimes parents who end up bonding in crisis can enmesh their identities with their children so addiction then becomes a catalyst for people on both sides to grow as well as positively transform out of this crisis.

Conclusion

The parenting journey is one of the most valuable and rewarding experiences in life, requiring great faith and tremendous courage. We applaud you in your healing!

Geoff Thompson, MA, CCC

Geoff Thompson, Program Director for Sunshine Coast Health Centre, discusses taking a step back to reflect on where you are at in life and being aware of self-determination.

Cathy Patterson-Sterling, Ma, RCC

 
Cathy Patterson-Sterling, Director of Family Services for the Sunshine Coast Health Centre, shares ways to employ healthy emotional detachment so you don’t feel obligated to look after everyone around you.

By Geoff Thompson - MA, CCC
Program Director
Sunshine Coast Health Center

One of the beneficial things to do in recovery is occasionally to pause and reflect on how your life is going. Many in recovery are busy, doing this and that, and never take time to think about their progress, how far they have come from where they were.

With this in mind, this article will pause and reflect on the second anniversary that Sunshine Coast has been offering the online support program for its alumni. We’ve mentioned dozens of recovery topics from relapse prevention techniques to dealing with family members to discovering spirituality.

With more than 100 topics covered, what are the major themes that the online program has pursued? What are the most important, according to our alumni and research? Which topics seem to have the greatest impact?  

To be honest, we don’t know for sure. But pooling all the information, here are four. We’re not sure if these are the top four, but they’re close. 

We know that addicts suffer horribly because their do things in their lives that do not match what they truly value and what they truly believe. What has been controlling them is the substance. And we often find that those in early recovery are still being controlled by outside forces: family, financial crises, and so on. The secret to this dilemma is written on the AA chip: “To thine own self be true.”

Of course, being true to yourself doesn’t mean that you get to do anything that you feel like doing. You live in a world over which you have little control. This is our second topic: How do you take control of your life in a world that dictates everything from how fast you can drive your car to the fact that you will die. No matter how much you may want to play basketball in the NBA, if you’re 5’2” it’s not going to happen. That’s just the way the world is.

Our third topic reminds you that the key to happiness is to live a personally meaningful life. If you are living a personally meaningful life, then the byproduct will be that you are happy. You don’t even have to work at being happy; it just comes naturally.

The fourth topic is about suffering. Sadly, many people think that living the good life means not suffering. All those advertisements telling you that suffering is not necessary and can be avoided are wrong. If happiness depended on lack of suffering, then no one would be happy. Everybody suffers. So what’s the trick to dealing with suffering?

The fifth topic is on putting it all together.

Theme One—You are the author of your life

You are the author of your life. This is also backed up by research on recovery. In fact, it is likely the most important factor in your recovery, although in psychology we use terms such as “intrinsic motivation” or “internal locus of control.” Basically, being the author of your life means that it’s your job to figure out how to live your life.

You have one life to live, so how do you want to live it? That’s the bottom-line question that faces every human being. There will be no thunder-bolts coming down from the heavens to save you; you have to make choices.

You have lots of options. You can, for instance, become one of the crowd. There’s great benefit in this. You’ll be accepted, and you’ll have less conflict in life. But, of course, you likely won’t feel very good. In previous articles, we talked about the great psychologist, Rollo May, who said being one of the crowd was the single greatest reason why people suffered in the 20th century. People agreed to be part of the “herd” because they had such a desperate need to feel ‘part of’ that they were willing to give up what they valued and believed. Eugene O’Neill called them the “spiritual middle-class: how petty their dreams must have been.”

Similarly, you can live your life by avoiding things that make you uncomfortable. If you’re worried about being hurt by someone close to you, then you don’t have to get close to anyone. If you’re filled with worries about finances, you can choose to stay at your job even if you really don’t like it. If being around family makes you uncomfortable, you don’t have to deal with them.

Another option: You can choose to be a victim of life. ‘If only I hadn’t had such a lousy upbringing….’ Or ‘My family should stop treating me as a kid’. Or ‘It’s unfair that I got this disease….’

The choice is yours.

Theme Two: Ask Life what it demands of you

Viktor Frankl told us that unhappy people go about the universe demanding that others or things be a certain way. ‘My parents should be fully supportive of me in my recovery’. ‘My life would be so much better if my boss weren’t such a jerk’. ‘I’d fall in love if only I could meet a rich supermodel who would adore me’. ‘I’d be happy if only I had a million dollars’. And so on…

The problem with this approach is that people and things just do what they do, regardless of what you want. The only thing that gets accomplished by demanding things from life is that you get isolated and miserable. Studies of people with cancer, for instance, have shown that those who do not accept the reality of their illness will suffer more than those who do. As strange as this may seem to you, many people who have learned they are HIV+ have said that the diagnosis shocked them into realizing how precious life is.

Bill W. said that a key to recovery was to “Live life on life’s terms.” Frankl’s version of this was “Ask life what it demands of you.” This is the opposite of demanding that others or things be a certain way.

Here’s just one small example:Many clients at Sunshine Coast tell us they have problems making decisions because they don’t want to lose out. “I’ll have a couple of lovers around; that way, if one dumps me, I have a backup.” “I don’t know what to do because I’m afraid of making a bad choice.” People who operate like this have not yet figured out reality. It’s simply part of the rules of life that whatever choice you make, you will lose out. If you choose one lover over another, you lose one. If you choose school over work, you lose the paycheque. If you work on Saturdays, you may miss your son’s soccer game. This is reality.

(BTW, not making a choice is a choice. When you don’t take control and choose, reality eventually steps in and makes the choice for you.)

Theme Three: Happiness means living a personally meaningful life

This is, of course, Viktor Frankl’s theory of human happiness. As we mentioned last month, psychology is torn between whether the key is to live a hedonistic life (do what makes you feel good) or to live a meaningful life. At Sunshine Coast, we go with Frankl.

We often ask questions to Sunshine Coast clients to help them begin the process of figuring out what is meaningful to them. Why would you bother going through the irritation of cleaning up? What is it about your life that you are willing to fight for it? What makes you want to get up in the morning with energy and passion? Of course, most clients struggle with these questions, but they are fundamental to recovery.

As we’ve mentioned many times to our clients, happiness is what recovery is really about — which means that living a meaningful life is what recovery is all about. So many people run into trouble because they believe that the goal of recovery is abstinence or going to three AA meetings each week or eating right, and so on. These goals hardly equal living a meaningful life. You have to keep your eye on what makes you feel fulfilled, contented, alive. The big picture in your life. 

Theme Four: The problem of suffering

Suffering is one of those things that people have been trying to make sense of for millennia, and we’ve touched on this idea in several online programs. At Sunshine Coast, we help clients find ways to eliminate unnecessary suffering due to their addictions, but we also try to help them make sense of their suffering in a new way.

Shifting how you look at suffering is important for recovery. Modern research is showing that your life will improve if you can find meaning in suffering. It is through suffering that people often transform and discover how to live a fulfilling and vital life. In fact, it is usually because of suffering that we change how we live.

The first part of transforming suffering is to accept it. One of those truisms in life is that sh*t happens. Remember that old saying (about 2100 years old, actually): It’s not about what happens to you, it’s about how you deal with it. For the rest of your life, there will be lots of things happening to you that are not so pleasant or unexpected and really irritating. You may be hurt by a lover, find yourself in a ridiculous lawsuit because of a disgruntled person, be the victim of a scam, break your leg while skiing, find that someone has broken a promise to you, realize that someone lied to you, and on and on.

The second part of transforming suffering is to rise above it. Psychologist Paul Wong who developed the therapy model we use at Sunshine Coast, and who is suffering from cancer, told us last summer: “I’m thankful that I’ve suffered so much in my life.” Suffering had taught him to stick to his values regardless of outside pressure. It taught him how beautiful life could be. It taught him that he could be a role model for others who suffered but who did not know how to handle suffering. And so on. Paul has not avoided suffering—he’s risen above it.

Theme Five—Living the good life

Here’s just one of all the fellows who went through Sunshine Coast: After his fourth time hitting bottom, Harry (not his real name) decided that he had to do something with his life. In his first time at Sunshine Coast (third treatment center), Harry, a senior citizen whose wife passed away recently, was in rough physical shape. He learned how not to live his life. After treatment, he went to AA but found it boring and had no feeling that he really belonged there. He lived along and didn’t have much contact with his kids. The only real contact was with his alcoholic neighbor. Six months later, he relapsed.

When he came back to Sunshine Coast for his second time, he figured out that he needed a reason not to quit drinking. So he put together an impressive plan for how to live a full life, in spite of his physical ailments, age, and loss of his wife. We hear from Harry every once in a while—he now has a couple of years of sobriety and tells us that he is doing well.

What had happened? I would suggest that Harry finally realized that if he wanted any sort of life, he’d have to make it happen for himself. He had to fight for his life, which meant that he had to believe that he was worth fighting for. He used his creative intelligence to figure out how he could live in a way that made him feel satisfied, and he put all the pieces together. He returned to AA, but this time found a home group where he felt he fit in. He started to volunteer at a place that he felt he could contribute his talents. He made a schedule to meet with his kids. 

Not that everything was easy or worked out for Harry. When he screwed up, he learned from it. He fought through the cravings, knowing that he was quite capable of this. He didn’t say ‘F-it’ and give up when he was having a bad day. He didn’t blame others or his health or for his misery. He had a mission to live a better life.