Drug Rehab Center

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

If you are in early recovery, you may be familiar with the social pressure that comes along whenever we see others drinking or partying. This could be at a wedding, during the Grey Cup or Super Bowl, or the Christmas season. Sadly, some people in recovery talk themselves into joining the party. They seem to forget what they learned in treatment or at a 12-step program.

But we know from psychology it’s not really a matter of forgetting or ‘being an addict’ or ‘stinkin’ thinkin’’. In psychology we call this “confirmation bias.” A few years back, there was a shift in psychology known as the “cognitive revolution.” What this meant was that we began to get quite good at figuring out how individuals process information—how your brain works. One of the things that we discovered is that the brain is not like a computer.

Information goes into your brain and gets processed. That’s true. But we learned that the brain is not particularly logical. You have a natural tendency to pay more attention to and overvalue things that confirm how you make sense of the world, and you tend to dismiss or undervalue those things that contradict it. This is ‘confirmation bias’.

Here are two examples of confirmation bias that might affect you. Maybe a family member picked up on one single thing you did—such as miss an AA meeting or have a slip—and then let you know that your recovery is all a sham. They see the single incident as confirming what they already think about how well you are doing. Another example: Perhaps in recovery you got angry at your family for an incident when you felt they were trying to control you, just as you thought they did when you were in active addiction. They may have treated you as the author of your life 50 times in a row, but you jumped all over that one incident because it seemed to confirm how you make sense of their attitude toward you.

Confirmation bias works both ways because all human beings do it. And it can lead us into all sorts of difficulties. One of the more public examples that psychologists have pointed out is the decision to invade Iraq after 9/11. Although it later became obvious that there was no evidence of weapons of mass destruction, because of confirmation bias many in the Bush Administration pursued information that seemed to confirm their preconceived ideas and discounted evidence that there were no weapons…

The real trick to deal with confirmation bias is to see it in yourself. That’s a lot tougher than seeing it in others. But since everyone has it—it’s a human thing—then you have it, too.

Confirmation bias is complicated, but two of its dynamics are known as ‘defensive motivation’ and ‘accuracy motivation’. Defensive motivation means that the person becomes very skeptical of information that contradicts his attitude, beliefs, or actions. This is usually because the information threatens him in some way. Let’s say that you are skeptical of information that says if you hang out in bars they you will likely be lured back into addiction. You might dismiss the idea of keeping out of a bar or away from a drinking party because you believe it’s the holidays and that’s where all the fun is; in fact, if you don’t go to the bar or drinking party, then you will miss out.

Accuracy motivation means that a person sees some value in the information. As one researcher described it, the person has a tendency to process information in an “objective, open-minded fashion that fosters uncovering the truth.” You may believe that the bar is a dangerous place, because you get caught up in the music, sexual interests, and camaraderie. If you believe this is dangerous for you, then you will pay more attention to information that tells you that you are right. You don’t need to drink to be in the festive spirit at a social gathering.

In this article we’ll look at confirmation bias and your recovery. With the wedding season and summer holidays coming, this topic is very important. So we’ll provide a few things you can do to deal with it.

Part One: Defensive motivation: Wrestling with your addiction

Cognitive psychology—the psychology of how we process information—has taught us that confirmation bias appears when we confront information that is threatening to us. We tend to take a defensive stand, becoming more skeptical. In psychology, we call this “defensive motivation.”

In a typical experiment, psychologists ask participants to write down what they are passionate about. A normal topic is capital punishment. Then the experimenters present studies for and against the idea that capital punishment deters criminal behavior. Inevitably, the participants are skeptical about the study that disagree with their stance but fully endorse the study that agrees with them.

Here’s an example of defensive motivation from the world of drug use. Although there are many reasons why those in early recovery wrestle with their recovery, a common reason is that they try to pin their addiction to their drug of choice. If you believe that it’s okay to have a couple of beers because your drug of choice was cocaine, then you will likely be skeptical of any information that says a drug is a drug is a drug. Or you will likely remember information about someone’s uncle who was an alcoholic but who now drinks with no ill effects on his life. If you are an alumni of Sunshine Coast, all that scientific information you learned at the Drugs & Your Brain workshop won’t make much of an impression on you, because of confirmation bias.

Logically, of course if you pin your addiction to your drug of choice, then you fly in the face of all those scientists. If you were being very logical, you’d have to say, ‘I’m right, and all those research scientists at Harvard and Johns Hopkins universities are wrong’. But people are not particularly logical, so they pretend the science doesn’t exist or, at least, doesn’t apply to them.

On the other hand, if you are firmly convinced that all drugs will hurt an addict, then you will likely pay more attention to articles and narratives that promote this; and you will likely shake your head and smile when someone says that it’s okay to drink because their drug of choice was cocaine.

Part Two: A solution to wrestling with your addiction

If you are debating with yourself on whether to join in the drinking festivities or be one of the sober ones, then here are some ideas that might help you choose the latter. These tactics are merely tricks to disrupt confirmation bias—the tendency to grasp hold of information that confirms your preconceived ideas.

Tip #1 – Get involved with a recovery support group – AA and NA have many activities throughout the year, particularly during the holiday season. In larger cities, they run meetings 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They usually provide Christmas dinners at the local Alano club or recovery center. Many groups have service activities that you can join, such as helping out those less fortunate. Most recovery centers have dances and music and other social events.

Tip #2 – Be grateful – If you were a client at Sunshine Coast during the past year, you will remember the power of being grateful. Psychology has confirmed that being grateful for what you have—your sobriety—will help you feel better. The 12-step program has a saying that those who are grateful do not relapse. The reason for this saying is that those who recover through AA or NA tend to think that their sobriety was a gift from their higher power.

Tip #3 – Make a decision to not drink for the holidays – This is a remarkably powerful tactic because it takes the pressure off.

Tip #4 – Remember the racehorse – This is psychologist Paul Wong’s saying: “Everyone has a racehorse and a donkey. If you don’t pay attention to the racehorse, you’re stuck with the donkey.” If you don’t pay attention to your goals and dreams, then the little things (immediate boredom, immediate loneliness) will take on a power that they don’t have in reality.

Part Three: Accuracy motivation: Remembering what you want

One of the interesting dynamics of confirmation bias is that people are more open to reality if they see some positive outcome in the information, even if it disagrees with them. During the holidays, it’s important to remember what you want in life.

Clients come to Sunshine Coast because the lives they have been living are not working out for them.

If you were a client in the new program, you learned that your suffering was due to the fact that your addiction did not allow you to be true to yourself, disconnected you from family and friends, and disconnected you from any sense of meaning and purpose. If you were a client under the old program, you discovered that the suffering from addiction came from the addict’s self-centeredness.

In either case, you were hardly living a live that was full and vital and satisfying. Your life was likely, as NA says, “meaningless, monotonous and boring.” In fact, people come into recovery because they begin questioning how they make sense of their lives.

So, they might be more willing to listen to Drugs & Your Brain, Medical Aspects, Relapse Prevention, and other workshops. They might be less skeptical when they hear that Viktor Frankl defines addiction as a response to living a life that has little personal meaning.

They might be willing to take Frankl’s advice that means “that being human is always directed, and pointing, to something or someone other than oneself: to a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter, a cause to serve or a person to love. Only to the extent that someone is living out this self-transcendence of human existence, is he truly human or does he become his true self.”

Part Four: Accuracy motivation: Overcoming barriers to the truth

Most people in early recovery have barriers that get in the way of allowing them to take an objective look at the facts. In 12-step programs, these barriers have been called “stinkin’ thinkin’” or “old behaviors” or “character defects” and so on. In psychology we assign them different names: “unhealthy coping skills” or “ego-driven life” and a bunch more.

It is fundamentally important for those in early recovery to deal with personal barriers to their recovery. We have lots of information from researchers and from those who have good recovery on what the individual has to do to recover. And we know that when a person is selective about what his recovery will demand, he usually runs into trouble. As we’ve remarked many times, one of the most common things we hear from alumni who have slipped is that they did not follow their aftercare plans. They decided, against all evidence, that they really didn’t need a support network or that they could go back to their old environment, and so on.

There are lots of barriers to being objective about information. Some examples: playing the victim of others (I can’t be the author of my life because my family won’t let me), living life lamenting the past (“what if” or “if only”), wallowing in self-pity (I don’t deserve a good life, so none of the scientific research applies to me), I can’t handle cravings (I have no self-control), I can still drink because cocaine was my drug of choice (neuroscience doesn’t apply to me), I can’t handle curveballs in life because that’s just who I am (even though the information tells me that this is a learned coping skill, in my case it’s my personality), and so on and so on.

Addiction physician Dr. Donald Hedges believes that fear is the primary motivator of addictive behavior and the greatest barrier in recovery. Many agree with him: fear of financial insecurity, fear of success, fear of responsibility, and so on. At Sunshine Coast we would say that the greatest fear of someone in early recovery is the fear of change. If you are motivated by fear, then you will likely be skeptical of information that might truly help you.

Conclusion

Confirmation bias, confirming preconceived ideas and discounting accurate information that goes against those beliefs, is powerful. This is because change is difficult. And, if you are a Sunshine Coast alumni, you learned that changing the way you make sense of yourself and how you fit in the world around you is very difficult. But recovery demands change.

Geoff Thompson, MA, CCC

Geoff Thompson, Program Director for Sunshine Coast Health Centre, talks about Ernest Hemingway’s catch phrase, “… grace under pressure” and facing struggles in life heroically rather than as a victim.

Cathy Patterson-Sterling, MA, RCC

Cathy Patterson-Sterling, Director of Family Services for Sunshine Coast Health Centre, discusses your options for setting boundaries if a loved one is being unreasonably insecure or jealous.

By Daniel Jordan
General Manager
Sunshine Coast Health Center

Earlier this week, I had a thoroughly enjoyable discussion with Paul Murray, a private-practice psychologist based out of West Vancouver, British Columbia. Our discussion covered a lot of ground but one topic that I found particularly engaging was the notion of powerlessness. Both Paul and I marvelled at how two people declaring powerlessness over their addiction may have two very different treatment outcomes based on fundamentally opposing underlying intentions: one may reflect a preference for the status quo while the other could be ready to turn over a new leaf.

How Powerlessness Became Synonomous with Addiction

Obviously, this idea of powerlessness is not something that Paul and I invented. As friends of Bill W. will tell you, powerlessness lies at the heart of the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and it’s first step: We admitted we were powerless over our addiction – that our lives had become unmanageable. Al-Anon has also consoled family members for years by telling them that they, too, are powerless over alcohol.

Over the years, however, Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12 Step programs have had their fair share of critics with powerlessness frequently at the heart of the dispute. For example, SOS, has created an alternative self-help group for “… those people who find that the ideas of reliance on a Higher Power or God, “powerlessness” and the emphasis on character defects to be an obstacle to recovery.”

The addiction treatment community has long since argued for and against the notion that individuals with addictions are ’powerless’. Powerlessness proponents tend to be traditional 12 Step treatment programs, physicians, and psychiatrists while those opposed tend to be psychologists, scholars, and mental health practitioners. The ongoing debate between these opposing camps has only hampered efforts by moderates to find common ground.

Furthermore, the debate over powerlessness and addiction is more than just a trivial concern judging by the vitriol one hears expressed on talk-back radio programs.

Defining Powerlessness

Let’s consider five different ways that powerlessness is understood in relation to addiction:

1) Powerlessness is a Choice

Recently, a book by Harvard psychologist Gene M. Heyman (*), Addiction: A Disorder of Choice, has suggested that individuals choose to be powerless. Dr. Heyman argues that addiction is voluntary rather than compulsory, and that addicts respond to incentives just like most other people. According to Dr. Heyman, interviews with drug users in recovery shows that quitting was preceded by such factors such as finances, family, career, and health.

People who suffer from diseases such as Alzheimer’s or schizophrenia, however, will rarely find improvement in their condition due to good intentions, even when followed by concrete steps. In other words, human beings are only truly powerless when faced with ‘real’ diseases.

One important difference between Dr. Heyman and other opponents to the concept of powerlessness, however, is that while Dr. Heyman believes that to remain powerless over an addiction is a choice, noone chooses to become an addict. As our Program Director, Geoff Thompson, often reminds our clients, children rarely tell their parents ”when I grow up, I want to be a drug addict.”

(*) Note: For more information, see Interview with Gene M. Heyman.

2) Powerlessness is a Lack of Willpower

Society often believes that, with a little bit of willpower, people can simply stop using drugs or alcohol or reduce their consumption to socially acceptable levels. This mistaken belief, however, is actually a failure to distinguish between the separate, progressive stages of compulsive use of chemicals or processes: abuse and addiction. As Carlton K. Erickson points out in his book, The Science of Addiction: From Neurobiology to Treatment, addiction is a failure to stop using in spite of negative consequences. Abusers of alcohol or drugs, most notably college students, will often stop excessive consumption when they are in a new environment where getting high or drunk is no longer encouraged, or when they experience negative consequences. For individuals with addictions, however, drinking or drug use will continue even after job loss, divorce, or illness.

Even for people who don’t struggle with addiction, however,  it is arguable whether simply trying harder is an effective method for attaining any worthy goal. Most who have tried to lose weight or have implored their children to improve their grades know that trying harder may work, but only temporarily. Without an effective strategy and implementation plan, willpower is not enough.

3) Powerlessness is the Same as Helplessness

Helplessness can be understood as the tendency for some addicted individuals to assign blame to external forces and avoid taking personal responsibility. So, when someone says “I am powerless to stop my addiction” they could be actually saying, for example, “my drinking wouldn’t be a problem if only my wife would get off my case.” This lack of accountability is typically obvious to everyone but the individual with the addiction, including those of us working in the field.

However, while it may be easy to spot helplessness in another person, determining the root cause of why someone is so incapable of taking action is far more challenging. For example, helplessness could be a response to childhood trauma, a phobia or depression. Taped recordings of AA Founder Bill Wilson suggest that he understood the link between helplessness and addiction. Following the sudden death of his childhood sweetheart, Bertha Banford, Bill Wilson concluded that “He knew now …. His need, his loving, didn’t matter a good goddam. His wanting, his hunger and desire, meant nothing to the terrible ongoing forces of creation and he would never forget this truth which he saw and accepted that night.” * Helplessness, as illustrated by Bill Wilson’s recollection, may not simply be a result of laziness but a reflexive survival mechanism in respsponse to painful past experience.

(*) Source: Thomsen, Robert (1975) Bill W.

4) Powerlessness is a Symptom of a Disease

The disease concept of addiction found an early advocate in the recovery movement with Dr. William Duncan Southworth, physician to AA founder Bill Wilson. By providing a physiological explanation for why alcoholics are powerless over their use of alcohol and through his close affiliation with Bill Wilson, Dr. Southworth helped shift the balance of power in addiction from organized religion to medicine. 

Dr. Southworth’s observation that alcoholism cycles between mental obsession and physical lack of control (or powerlessness) has stood the test of time. Defined this way, powerlessness is a common criterion used in the assessment of addiction. For example, Sunshine Coast Health Center recommends an addiction test, called the 3 Cs of Addiction: compulsion, control, and consequences. * What the 3 Cs test calls compulsion and control, Dr. Southworth calls, respectively, mental obsession and physical allergy. While the term ‘allergy’ may be arguable, alcoholics do appear to be physically powerless to stop drinking once the obsession to drink overpowers their decision not to drink.

(*) Note: see the Helplessness section above for information on the 3rd C – consequences.

5) Accepting Powerlessness is Critical to Lasting Recovery

First of all we had to quit playing God.
~ Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 62

This last example of powerlessness has been intentionally left to last since, unlike the first four definitions, this last definition will conclude this blog article on a hopeful note. Fortunately, many individuals have successfully come to terms with their addiction and have gone on to lead fulfilling lives in recovery. At Sunshine Coast Health Center, clients learn spiritual principles that often prove helpful as basic action guidelines in recovery. One spiritual principle, acceptance, seems particularly effective and is closely tied to the notion of powerlessness.

In his book, Not-God: A History of Alcoholics Anonymous, Ernest Kurtz suggests that “from the alcoholic’s acceptance of personal limitation [read powerlessness] – arises the beginning of healing and wholeness.” Furthermore, this message of “not-God” is, for Ernest Kurtz, an “affirmation of one’s connectedness with other alcoholics.” At Sunshine Coast Health Center, we wholly endorse the notion of connectedness, however, would extend it further to include family members, co-workers, and friends.

Conclusion

In the early days of Sunshine Coast Health Center, I will always remember how insistent one of our first clinicians was on the importance of making sure clients understand, at a gut level, Step One . As far as he was concerned, without a firm understanding of powerlessness, it is difficult, if not impossible, to properly work the remaining 11 Steps. However, I have learned over the years that words can often have multiple meanings and can trigger certain emotions depending on the perspective of the listener. By avoiding rigid absolutes, Sunshine Coast Health Center believes that it’s integrated approach allows clients to embrace multiple perspectives and, therefore, to appreciate the complexity that is inherent in any meaningful discussion on addiction.

Geoff Thompson, MA, CCC

Geoff Thompson, Program Director for Sunshine Coast Health Centre, discusses internalizing the negative stigma of addiction and overcoming the need to defend yourself.

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

On Valentine’s Day, Sunshine Coast Health Center sponsored Dr. Wayne Dyer’s new movie, Ambition to Meaning, for the Powell River community, with the proceeds going to the local food bank.

The movie is about the benefits of living one’s life according to what one believes—living life from the inside out. Dyer’s main point is that in the “afternoon” of our lives we have to start living according to who we are, and not according to what society tells us to do. We spend the “morning” of our life being ambitious — we get a job, buy things, get married, and so on. As we get older, our job is to start living a personally meaningful life, a life that matches who we are. As Dyer puts it, we have to shift from “ambition” to “meaning.”

Dyer’s message is similar to the new program at Sunshine Coast. The difference is that we are closer to the ideas of the great psychologist, Viktor Frankl. Frankl would agree with Dyer, except that he emphasizes that this drive for meaning is part of us from the beginning. We merely distract ourselves with “ambition.”

Looking at life from the inside out is the same as being true to yourself. Each of us is unique, and each of us has to live according to what makes us unique.

Those of you in 12-step programs probably realize that this idea fits beautifully with Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. The 12-step program tells us that our essential problem is not substance abuse, but that we allow our egos to run our lives. According to AA and NA, our ego controls us. This is not good. Those who live by the demands of the ego have several mistaken beliefs. First, they judge their worth by the amount of stuff they have; second, they believe they are what they do; third, their self-esteem is based on what others think of them.

Dyer’s version is similar to the 12-steps: Ego equals ambitious living; the “authentic self” equals meaningful living. So, according to Dyer and the 12-steps, we have to stop allowing the ego to control us and live a life that appeals to who we really are.  

Unhappy people, such as addicts, let their ambition control them. In the Wayne Dyer movie, a woman reduces her life to being a mother. A man reduces his life to making money. A filmmaker reduces his life to being a director. But people are so much more than what they do and so much more than their role or money or reputation. In the movie, these three characters are not fulfilled.

In this article we’ll explore Wayne Dyer’s idea that we have to stop living by the ego (ambition) and start being true to ourselves (meaning). We have to start living life from the inside out, instead of from the outside in.

An External Orientation (Ambition)

An “external orientation” is a term used in psychology. What it means is that some people live their lives outside of themselves. Just about everything they think and do is based on what others tell them. In the Wayne Dyer movie, these are all the unhappy characters — those controlled by their egos.

Sunshine Coast clients struggle mightily to look into themselves — at least at the beginning. When a client is angry we ask him, ‘What is it about YOU that makes you angry?’ Most clients don’t like this; they prefer to look outside themselves: ‘I’m angry because Harry said he’d buy me a magazine and he didn’t’; I’m angry because my parents still don’t trust me’. One client even told us that he came to Sunshine Coast to give his parents “time to get their act together”! These are clients who are externally oriented.

Here are two real-life examples supplied by the alumni: Tom believes that the more money he has, the more successful he is. He works at his job because he gets a hefty pay-cheque—not because he likes the work. His family pressures him to make lots of money because his son wants expensive hockey equipment, and his partner likes to buy jewelry.

Harry and his partner are struggling. He’s been clean and sober for a year, but she still blames him for all the problems in their marriage. She is suspicious of an AA meeting that Harry likes to attend because Harry talked about a woman there with whom he had coffee after the meeting. To keep the peace with his wife, Harry no longer attends that AA meeting. He also makes sure he gets back home right after work so that she does not have an excuse to accuse him of anything.

Tom and Harry live life according to what they think others demand of them. In psychology, we say that they are “externally oriented.” They look to others or to things to make them feel okay. They look at life from the outside in, with predictable results: they choose to be victims.

An Internal Orientation (Meaning)

Alumni who are doing well have looked inside themselves for answers. They’ve figured out that they had the answers all along. When they are angry, they look into themselves for the cause of the anger. They do things because they believe in what they do, not because someone else wants them to do it. Happy alumni tell us, for example, that they attend AA because it helps them in their recovery (an internal orientation). Struggling alumni tell us that they attend AA because this makes their families happy (an external orientation).

Remember that saying on the AA chip: “To thine own self be true.”

But we have to be realistic about life, too. There are lots of things we cannot control. I may have wanted to be a NHL hockey player, but I don’t have the physical ability to do so. The actor Christopher Reeve likely had the desire to throw a football with his son, but as a quadriplegic, did not have the physical ability. I may want to be vacationing on a beach in Rio, but I have to pay the bills. I may wish that people were always polite and thoughtful, but I know that this is simply not true. I may want to win the lottery, but I also know that my chances of being dealt a royal flush in the first hand of a poker game is nine times more likely to occur.

Life limits all of us. Even so, happy people have developed an internal orientation; they look at life from the inside out.

Developing an Internal Orientation

If you’ve been following along, you’ve probably figured out that letting society or advertising or other people tell you how to live your life is a recipe for unhappiness.

The most important tool is this: Look into yourself. You actually have all the answers.

Wayne Dyer’s version is to pay attention to what makes you feel alive. One must be cautious here, however, since feeling alive is NOT craving an adrenalin rush. Don’t confuse feeling alive with the urge for superficial excitement. In Dyer’s movie, he shows a housewife who feels that something is missing in her life. It dawns on her that she used to love painting when she was in college but had given it up when she married and had kids. Picking up the artist’s brush again fills the hole in her life. Another fellow in the movie focused on making money until he realized that love for his wife and his marriage was more important than material success.

The housewife and the businessman had to look into themselves to find what made them feel alive and vital and whole.

Looking into yourself is the key, but you also have to be alert to any barriers that YOU have erected against this. Have you chosen to be a victim? Have you chosen to believe what advertisers tell you that to have a good life you need lots of material things? Have you chosen to keep wearing a mask around others? Have you forgotten Rule 62 and think that you have some magical power to control others? Here’s a common one: lots of clients truly want a good relationship with their parents. But before even talking with them, they expect a fight. So, they usually act in a way (prepare for a fight) that will never allow get what they want! To thine own self be true can be tough.

If you’re wondering how you will know when you’ve learned to look into yourself for answers — what Wayne Dyer calls living a meaningful life — there is an easy way. Your gut will tell you. When your actions match your beliefs, you will ‘feel’ it’s right.

Lessons from the 12-Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous

The 12-step program has tactics to help you develop an “internal orientation” and find happiness. According to the steps, addicts live their lives according to the demands of their egos. The ego has an external orientation; it deals with the outside world and is concerned with itself and its image and not with others.

Bill W.’s psychoanalyst, Harry Tiebout, described the addict as follows: “The so-called typical alcoholic is a narcissistic egocentric core, dominated by feelings of omnipotence, intent on maintaining at all costs its inner integrity.” Put in everyday terms, Tiebout is saying that the addict is self-centered, arrogant, and filled with pride.

The steps are one way to overcome these traits. The solution to self-centeredness is, first, finding a higher power. Tiebout recognized that if the addict truly believed in a HP, then he could not logically think himself the center of the universe. Secondly, helping others. If the addict helped his fellow suffering addict, he would learn that others were equally as important as he was.

The solution to arrogance and pride is humility and surrender. So, as you can see, this is one reason why the “spiritual principles” are so important in the steps.

The ‘I am’ Experience

Living life from the inside means that you must be convinced that you exist as a person in your own right. This may seem obvious, but most addicts have not figured this out. In fact, many unhappy people have not figured this out. The famous therapist, Rollo May, had a knack for helping someone when other therapists failed. According to May, this was because he first helped his patients develop an awareness that they were unique, living human beings.

Rollo May gives an example of a woman who was overwhelmed with shame because she was an illegitimate child. The woman went to several therapists who explained to her that she lived a shame-based life and this stunted her growth, gave her techniques to get rid of shame, and so on. None of this worked.

According to May, these strategies didn’t help because she lacked a sense that she was a human being. This is a bit tricky to understand. Being aware that she is a living person does not mean she knows ‘who’ she is; it doesn’t mean that she has dealt with her issues. It means that regardless of what she struggles with she is still an individual. 

One day, she figured it out. Despite the fact that she was illegitimate, she realized that she was still a person. And that’s what counted. Only when she figured this out could she begin to overcome her ‘issues’ and live a great life.

We’ve noticed at Sunshine Coast that those who are successful in recovery have developed this sense that they exist. One client told us that it “just hit me.” Despite all his struggles, despite not knowing ‘who’ he is, he realized that he was a living, breathing human being. After this realization, he was more accepting of others, he started thinking seriously about what kind of job he wanted. He started thinking about what made him feel truly satisfied, and so on. He even started smiling.

Rollo May calls this the “I am” experience. A light-bulb goes on. Suddenly, the person realizes that he is, at bottom, a person. The famous philosopher Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am.” Rollo May answers, “I am, therefore I think.”

By Daniel Jordan, General Manager
Sunshine Coast Health Center

For the past few weeks, I have been putting together a new corporate brochure that highlights the main features of our program, facility, and staff. We still have some of the old brochures left but since we added a whole new wing and swimming pool to the building and landscaped the yard, the brochures didn’t really put our best foot forward. More than just the physical changes to our facility, however, a new brochure was also necessary to reflect that we are now staffed with a psychiatrist, masters level therapists, and a kinesiologist.

Most of these changes to the corporate brochure were pretty straightforward and it didn’t hurt that we had some great new photos to enhance the presentation. However, when it came to changing the “Our Philosophy” section, that took some work. For those of you who have ever had to figure out your company’s philosophy or mission statement, you will know that it is no easy task. It’s actually a very personal experience since your company philosophy is really meant to tell the world what you value as a human being and why you are in your chosen profession.

OUR PHILOSOPHY at Sunshine Coast Health Center

So, after some soul searching and a lot of discussion with staff and various stakeholders, this is OUR PHILOSOPHY:

At Sunshine Coast Health Center, we believe that it is not enough simply to treat the ‘addiction.’ Instead, a client’s experience with us facilitates ongoing personal transformation, the goal being healthy, thoughtful men who are inspired to live with a renewed sense of vitality and purpose. Our therapy program prepares clients and their families for a deeper, more fulfilling life.

Sunshine Coast Health Center focuses on providing the most effective, evidence-based treatment, exceeding expectations by paying close attention to four key therapeutic principles:

Respect: We treat others as we would wish to be treated. This respect is the foundation of our program and pervades everything we do, how we conduct ourselves and how we interact with each other.

Gratitude: We feel privileged that clients and their families put their trust in us.

Empathy: We support our clients through the good times and the bad, free from judgment.

Humility: No matter how proficient we are at treating addiction, we know that the client is always the expert in his own recovery.

OUR PHILOSOPHY Now Reflects Our Values

Basically, our corporate philosophy now reflects the values of ownership. Respect, humility, gratitude, and empathy rose to the top in terms of importance. This process of prioritizing virtues was actually quite fascinating. For example, why not courage? How about creativity? In the end, it came down to the most salient values we share in common with our clients. In other words, any value that staff and management practice on a daily basis will also benefit our clients, but some more than others.

The Biggest Change Reflected in OUR PHILOSOPHY: Our Approach to the Client

One of the biggest changes we made in our philosophy was our approach to the client. This change is especially notable in the first sentence (see above). Nowadays, we don’t actually treat ‘addiction’ or an ‘addict.’ We treat a unique human being who happens to suffer from addiction. This is no small change. Treating an ‘addict’ or an ‘addiction’ can be an extremely dehumanizing process where, by virtue of being addicted, treatment programs can mistakenly assume that their clients suffer from;

-Narcissism
-Denial
-Addictive personality

or is a liar and a manipulator, is incapable of making any healthy choices, etc., etc.
 
The Inclusion of ‘Personal Transformation’ in Our Philosophy

Personal transformation is a term we have intentionally included in our corporate philosophy. From my experience, most treatment centers don’t spend a lot of time talking about transformation since it is more spiritual than psychological in nature. However, ownership at Sunshine Coast has always had an interest in the idea of enlightment, even going so far (in our own imperfect way) as making it a way of life. Since getting involved in addiction treatment, ownership has been inspired to pay more attention to self-development and spirituality. After all, the process of recovery for our clients often needs to be a total, rather than incremental, shift.

Conclusion

So there you have it. Admittedly, it’s nice to be able to move on to other projects now that the new corporate brochure is finally going to print. In the short term, we can hand out some nice new shiny brochures but I’m sure that we will be back making a new version in another few years. I have a feeling, however, that the OUR PHILOSOPHY section may not change so fast. I guess time will tell.

Geoff Thompson – MA, CCC

Geoff Thompson, Program Director at Sunshine Coast Health Center, talks about practicing the traits of positive change (including gratitude, humility, forgiveness and tolerance) so that they become second nature to you.