Drug Rehab Center

By Geoff Thompson, Ph.D. (cand.), CCC
Program Director at Sunshine Coast Health Center

Much of the clinical program at Sunshine Coast Health Center is based on the theory and research of Dr. Paul Wong. Although Dr. Wong began as an experimental psychologist (training rats to be able to withstand more and more stress, etc.), he became very interested in the work of Viktor Frankl. What appealed to him was Frankl’s idea that the fundamental motivation of all human beings was to live a personally meaningful life. But Frankl did not have a lot of psychology to back up his ideas. Dr. Wong has spent much of his career putting a psychological research basis to Frankl’s ideas.

Dr. Wong’s new book will be published soon. It is the second edition of The Human Quest for Meaning, and it has a lot of chapters from some of the finest psychologists on what it takes to live a personally meaningful life. By the way, the number of chapters and authors should tell you that all this meaning stuff is actually quite complicated. Different authors each provide a piece to the meaning puzzle, providing all sorts of knowledge on big meanings and little meanings, how the stories we tell ourselves can be positive or detrimental, why searching for happiness may backfire when a major problem in life arises (such as trauma), how meaningful living may shift as one gets older, how struggles in life can add to meaningful living, and so on.

In this blog article, we’ll examine five major themes in Dr. Wong’s book. These five themes will help you if you or a loved one is in recovery. Viktor Frankl was convinced that addiction was a response that some people used to deal with a life that had little personal meaning. The symptoms of such a life are typically being bored, not feeling you are in control of your destiny, not having any real direction in your life, feeling different than others, not really being able to make sense of your life, feeling that you don’t belong, and so on. Addiction allows you to exist in such a life.

Many Sunshine Coast clients report that intoxication gets rid of the worries and pressures of the world leaving them with a sense of freedom, feeling stronger and in control, being able to make sense of things…at least temporarily. But as sobriety returns, all the guilt, hurt, loss, confusion, and self-consciousness return. Dr. Wong’s books provides research-based approaches to help people feel this way without drugs.

Part One: Threats to Meaning

Many people with addictions recognize that there are a number of threats to living a meaningful life. Addiction is a common one because the dynamic of addiction serves to take away any meaning the person might once have possessed.

Some of the threats to meaning that clients have told us are reflected in Dr. Wong’s book, which has chapters on trauma, sickness, aging, and death. Some threats, such as trauma, shatter how one makes sense of the world and their place in it. An inability to make sense of traumatic experience is, essentially, the problem of posttraumatic stress disorder. Serious illness often catalyzes the uncomfortable feeling of anxiety, but it can also trigger a desperate search for meaning. Many Sunshine Coast clients have had real-life evidence of how fragile we really are. Aging is a common threat to meaning and has resulted in the so-called mid-life crisis. Many in the addiction field are hardly surprised that the average age of clients is mid to late 30s; even Bill Wilson sobered up at age 39. And death is universally recognized as the greatest source of anxiety; people are the only species who are aware that they will die. This puts great pressure on people on figuring out how to live life to the fullest.

Part Two: PURE

Dr. Wong has a chapter on his PURE model. PURE stands for Purpose, Understanding, Responsibility, and Evaluation/Enjoyment. These four components provide an appreciation for how meaning functions in life. They are so important that if any one of them is missing, then you will not live as good a life as you could be.

Purpose refers to why you are living your life as you are. As you know, the purpose of life for an addict is to get the drugs and get high. But Wong points out that such a purpose won’t lead to happiness, at least not according to his research. Happy people have a more positive purpose than intoxication. They have some higher purpose, which goes beyond themselves, such as being a good father or a member of a community.

Understanding refers to self-awareness and making sense of the world in a way that matches what is actually going on.

Responsibility refers to recognizing that the decisions you make affect the kind of life you live. This includes, of course, the decision to be a victim to life. It’s the idea that you are the author of your life.

Evaluation/Enjoyment refers to two ideas. First, it is important to reflect on your life: Are you happy? What would you have to do to make your life better? And so on. The Enjoyment part is the reason why you live a meaningful life. Meaning and purpose give you a reason to be excited about your life, to feel comfortable, and so on.

Part Three: Subjective and Objective Meaning

Lots of self-help books tell us to be true to ourselves. This is meaning that each of us pursues in life. The only problem with this way of living a meaningful life is that there is a danger of self-centeredness. A purely subjective way of approaching life seems to lead to a conclusion that one could live a meaningful life by being a pedophile or robbing banks or killing people who interfere with personal goals.

It’s important that we understand the time-honored ways of living a meaningful life—the kinds of things we learn from artists, philosophers, and psychological researchers. These thinkers have helped us understand that there are general principles we can follow, or what Dr. Wong calls “objective” meaning.

Combining the subjective and objective meaning is important. This was one of Viktor Frankl’s big points. Frankl was a great believer in the time-honored values that people followed to live a meaningful life. Some examples of such objective meanings are: attach one’s life to something greater than oneself, act virtuously, when in doubt just do the next right thing, use anger positively to help yourself and the world, recognize that to suffer is natural, care for others, and so on.

Part Four: Self-Determination

Several chapters in Dr. Wong’s book describe Self-Determination Theory (SDT). It is obviously important for anyone to feel that he or she is the one making decisions for their lives.

Doctors Edward L. Ryan and Richard M. Deci are generally recognized as the leaders in SDT. According to them, “the meaning-making process is intrinsic to our natures, and responsible for helping individuals create . . a coherent life course . . . As we take in new experiences and make sense of them for ourselves, we experience greater harmony, purpose, and wholeness.” You can see from this quotation that to be self-determining is to live a personally meaningful life.

Of course, being self-determining requires that you discover who you really are. What is valuable and important to you? Two of the things that we’ve discovered in psychology is that people seem to need to connect with others and feel competent. But there are many more.

Part Five: Relationships

December is generally a time we surround ourselves with friends and families. For other cultures, this may be a different time, such as January for Asian peoples, but in Canada and the United States we generally look to December. This is a time for connecting with others, for celebrating with others, for thinking of others and how they have enriched our lives.

Aron and Aron’s chapter in Dr. Wong’s book emphasizes the importance of other people in living a meaningful life. Relationships allow one to expand one’s life by transcending it through other people.

According to Aron and Aron, “caring for others is central to meaning.” At one level, forming positive relationships with others seems is a form of survival. “Social units, whether family or businesses, small towns or whole countries…, tend to survive better if they emphasize cooperation, altruism, sharing, and the general sense that the group is more important than the individual.”

At another level, being connected with something greater than the self seems essential for meaningful living. For some people, this may be a connection with God; for some, it is the AA group; for some, it is a sense of being part of a family or community.

By Daniel Jordan
Director
Sunshine Coast Health Center

“Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more. . . . He became as good a friend . . . and as good a person, as the good old city knew. . . . Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh. . . . His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.”

Excerpt from A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

INTRODUCTION

It’s obviously a huge understatement to describe A Christmas Carol as a popular holiday story. To many of us, the novel’s main character, Ebenezer Scrooge, is as synonomous with Christmas as Santa Claus and Jesus Christ (Wikipedia has a long list of A Christmas Carol adaptations). So how to account for it’s popularity?

Maybe it is the generosity exemplified by Mr. Scrooge toward the tale’s conclusion. After all, Christmas reminds us that while we fret over buying the perfect gifts for friends and family, many people in our communities are happy just to get a hot meal. Perhaps A Christmas Carol is popular because it reminds us that Christmas is much more than just a time to shop – we enjoy the uplifting story of man being charitable to his fellow man.

On the darker side, another possible explanation for the enduring popularity of A Christmas Carol is how justice is served to people of privilege and power when they take advantage of their position in society; millions watched as ‘sweet revenge’ and humiliation were exacted on modern-day Scrooges like Bernie Madoff and Conrad Black.

I would, however, like to suggest that the real fascination with Ebenezer Scrooge is his overnight transformation from a lonely miser to a beloved pillar of the community. It is human nature to wish that we could wake up one morning forever changed (and author Charles Dickens assures the reader with the quote above that the change in Mr. Scrooge was permanent). While A Christmas Carol is not the only story involving transformation it is one of the few stories of intrinsic change as opposed to the external variety such as sudden wealth, fame (A Star is Born), prestige (Cinderella) or beauty (The Ugly Duckling).

ADDICTION TREATMENT AS A TRANSFORMATIONAL EXPERIENCE

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. That’s straight out of our brochure.

So, does that mean that every client leaves Sunshine Coast transformed? No, but that’s what we’re shooting for. We believe that is better to aim high and fall short than to aim low and not be disappointed. We find solace in the famous quote by German Playwright Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: “When we treat man as he is, we make him worse than he is; when we treat him as if he already were what he potentially could be, we make him what he should be.”

In the following video, Viktor Frankl makes a similar point:

Another disclaimer I might add at this point concerns predicting which client will have a transformational experience. The truth is we have no idea but it is obvious to all when it has occurred. There is a new sense of enthusiasm for life and an energy similar to that of Mr. Scrooge.

BILL WILSON’S “HOT FLASH” TRANSFORMATION

According to AA lore, founder Bill Wilson had a transformational experience while undergoing alcoholism treatment in 1934. While lying in bed depressed and despairing, he [Bill Wilson] cried out, “I’ll do anything! Anything at all! If there be a God, let Him show Himself!” Legend has it that, from that point forward, Bill Wilson never drank again.

But does never drinking again equate to transformation? Bill Wilson continued to struggle with depression, was a chain smoker and, according to AA biographer Francis Hartigan, had several romantic affairs during his marriage to Lois Wilson (see Temptation and Reports of Infidelity, Wikipedia). In spite of his personal shortcomings, however, it could be said that noone has done more to help addicts than Bill Wilson. So, perhaps, Bill Wilson did have a transformational experience after all.

CONCLUSION

The gravesite of Charles Dickens located at Westminster Abbey’s Poet’s Corner in London reads: “He was a sympathiser to the poor, the suffering,and the oppressed; and by his death, one of England’s greatest writers is lost to the world.”

It appears from all historical accounts of Charles Dickens, creator of  Ebenezer Scrooge, that he knew true transformation required having meaning and purpose in life and a generous spirit. According to Wikipedia: “At a time when Britain was the major economic and political power of the world, Dickens highlighted the life of the forgotten poor and disadvantaged … his fiction probably demonstrated its greatest prowess in changing public opinion in regard to class inequalities.”

As we go about our Christmas festivities this year, it is perhaps through our kindness to others that we can best exemplify the true spirit of transformation!

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

Geoff highlights a presentation by Dr. Alex Batthyany at the 10th Biennial International Conference on Personal Meaning. The main message of Dr. Batthyany’s presentation was that those who live life with the sole purpose of being happy will find that their goal remains elusive. However, those who join in with life discover that the byproduct of such a pursuit is a sense of belonging and happiness. Dr. Batthyany is an expert on logotherapy developed by the late Dr. Viktor Frankl.

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

Geoff Thompson, MA, CCC

Geoff Thompson, Program Director for Sunshine Coast Health Centre, discusses the fundamental importance of being and feeling connected as opposed to isolated especially in addiction recovery.

Geoff Thompson, MA, CCC

Geoff Thompson, Program Director for Sunshine Coast Health Centre, discusses Viktor Frankl’s theory that happiness is the by-product of a personally meaningful life, and that addiction is a response to a life that is not personally meaningful.

Geoff Thompson, MA, CCC

Geoff Thompson, Program Director for Sunshine Coast Health Centre, discusses why a happy life is not only a pleasure-filled life, but also a meaningful one.

Cathy Patterson Sterling, MA, RCC

Cathy Patterson-Sterling, Director of Family Services for the Sunshine Coast Health Centre, talks about finding meaning and purpose in life to fully enjoy addiction recovery.

Goeff Thompson, MA, CCC

Geoff Thompson, Program Director for Sunshine Coast Health Centre, discusses psychologist Dr. Paul Wong’s belief that happiness is a result of positive relationships with others.

Geoff Thompson, MA, CCC

Geoff Thompson, Program Director for Sunshine Coast Health Centre, shares Victor Frankl’s 3 steps to finding spirituality and meaning in life: Attitude, Experience & Creativity.