Drug Rehab Center

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.

Geoff Thompson, MA, CCC

Geoff Thompson, Program Director for Sunshine Coast Health Centre, discusses one of the keys to spirituality being a sense of hope which goes hand in hand with the importance of hope in addiction recovery.

By Geoff Thompson
Program Director
Sunshine Coast Health Center

Spirituality is a hot topic today. Bookstores are filled with works on ‘Mindfulness’, ‘Purpose-driven life’, Ekert Tolle’s and Wayne Dyer’s bestsellers, and so on. In this blog article, we’ll examine a little more in depth the nature of spirituality.

There is good reason to spend some time thinking about spirituality. If you are involved in the 12-step program, then you know that Bill Wilson considered alcoholism a “spiritual” disorder, which required a “spiritual” solution. If you are a fan of psychology, then you know that cutting-edge research has concluded that good recovery is linked with ‘spirituality’—and poor recovery with a lack of ‘spirituality’.

So, everyone agrees that ‘spirituality’ is very important to live a great life in recovery. The problem is that nobody seems to be able to tell us what exactly this ‘spirituality’ thing is.

In a previous article, we looked at two ideas that seem to have something to do with ‘spirituality’. Alumni talked about their experiences with coincidences that seemed to be more than just accidental (synchronicity), and Joseph Campbell said that when you live the life that is true to you, then you will feel as if “hidden hands” are helping you along. We also chose three common things about ‘spirituality’ that just about everyone agrees with: spirituality is a good thing, it inspires hope for the future, it is a way of living.

In this article, we’ll look at the idea that the power of spirituality is that it allows people to live a personally meaningful life. This won’t surprise alumni who were at Sunshine Coast when we put the new program in place, which emphasizes the importance of meaning and purpose in life.

The new treatment model is called ‘meaning-centered therapy’, developed by Dr. Paul Wong. Wong believes that spirituality can provide a way to live meaningfully. And he’s not alone. As one example, the Association of American Medical Colleges Consensus Conference for Spirituality and Health defined spirituality as “every person’s inherent search for ultimate meaning and purpose in life.” So even the medical doctors are on board with this.

Here’s the basic idea: There is ‘something’ going on in the world beyond what you and I see in everyday life, some sort of benevolent force that provides order to life. If you discover this ‘something’, then you realize very quickly that there is a lot more to life than the limited, narrow-minded view many have in active addiction. By joining with this Force, we find a sense of belonging. We realize that life is valuable and worthwhile. Being spiritual means that we join with the Force.

Suffering as Part of Spirituality

If spirituality is acceptance that there is something ‘bigger’ happening in life, then even the suffering in life must have some sort of meaning. There must be some sort of logic in the experience of suffering.

Psychologist Ken Hart has just completed a very interesting research project on addiction and spirituality. Part of the study was to test Viktor Frankl’s idea that happiness depends on finding meaning in suffering. And Hart’s research data indicated that Frankl was right. Those who found meaning in their drug-induced suffering had a better quality of life than did those who dismissed their suffering as merely a place of pain and misery—that is, suffering was of no value and had no purpose.

Last year, we asked alumni at Sunshine Coast Health Center to tell us their thoughts on their personal experience of hitting bottom. The answers were remarkable. Those who avoided thinking about their suffering or who dismissed the drug days were all struggling in their recovery. But those who told us that they realized that hitting bottom was a necessary step on their journey to happiness were all doing well.

Knowing this, Sunshine Coast counsellors are concerned when they hear a client say: ‘I don’t want to think about the old days; I’m starting a new life’. We worry because psychology tells us that their lives will actually improve if they reflect on their old way of life and make some sense of it.

Here are three ways our alumni have made sense of the old days in active addiction. Some see it as a gift: “I would never have known how amazing life could be if I didn’t hit bottom.” This is the idea that you have to go to Hell to find Heaven. Some see it as part of a meaningful life: “I should have been dead a hundred times; there must be some reason why I’m still on this Earth.” Some see it as a necessary step to wake up to life: “When I hit bottom, I realized that I’d better get on with living.”

At Sunshine Coast, we remind clients that this was what happened to actor Christopher Reeve when he broke his spine, to Viktor Frankl at Auschwitz concentration camp, to many people when they were diagnosed with cancer or HIV, and so on. These people were not victims of their biology or circumstances because they “tapped into their spiritual core,” as Frankl put it.

Those people who have no ‘bigger’ picture of their lives believe that suffering is 100 percent pain. Self-proclaimed spiritual people, such as Frankl, are able to find meaning in suffering—in other words, because of spirituality, suffering is much more than just pain.

Spirituality is Attitude, Experience, Creativity

Frankl helped us understand some of the concrete, daily activities that are part of ‘spirituality’. If it’s true that the essential component of spirituality is that it provides meaning in life, then there are specific things you can do to achieve this. According to Frankl, you need three things: develop a positive attitude, experience what life has to offer, make the world a little better place to live. 

You need a positive attitude. Silly as it may sound, we need to see the cup half-full, not half-empty. We ask our alumni to think back to their time at Sunshine Coast. They may remember all the remarkable people they met, or they may still cringe at all the irritating stuff such as people not doing chores, showing up late, pushing their buttons, and so on. There is no scientific reason why we should choose the good over the bad, but Frankl says that remembering the good stuff is necessary for happiness.

Secondly, we need to experience life. In active addiction, we find that our clients often wandered through the universe with blinders on. The things they paid attention to revolved around the drug: how to get it, how to avoid feeling guilty about using, how keep out of trouble at work and home over the drug use, and so on. It’s really quite a pathetic life when you think about it.

According to Frankl, you have to start taking things from the world. Watching a child smile, going to a football game, listening to their favorite songs, watching a good movie, watching a sunset, etc, are all ways of taking something from the world. We are not the child smiling or the one playing professional football or the musician or the movie director or the sunset. But our lives are enriched by paying attention to these blessings.

Thirdly, we have to give something to the world. If we find a cure for cancer, that’s great. But for most of us this means being a good father, friend, employer/employee, lover, neighbor, citizen, member of a congregation, etc. These are what Frankl called acts of creativity.

If we can put these three things together in a way that is personal, then, according to Frankl, we will be living a personally meaningful life. And the byproduct of this life is happiness. Perhaps attitude, experience, and creativity are three components of what it means to be ‘spiritual’.

Spirituality is Living for more than Yourself

Spirituality is often interpreted as recognizing that all of us are in this thing called ‘life’ together. If we believe in a religious God, then we recognize that everyone is created in His image. In 12-step programs, a common saying is, “God doesn’t make mistakes.” If spirituality is based on some idea of Nature, then we may recognize that we are part of nature. In other words, spirituality offers a sense of belonging to a greater whole. 

If we recognize that we belong to a greater reality, then we might follow psychologist Paul Wong’s advice and “not live life just for ourselves.” Dr. Wong believes that happiness is a result of positive relationships with others. He’s a great believer that happiness depends on living life not only for yourself but for others.

Here’s an example we hear from Sunshine Coast alumni. Those who are thriving in their recovery have figured out how to live for more then themselves. Some are now little-league coaches, some have used their jobs as an opportunity to help their community by setting up Eco projects, some have volunteered at the SPCA or seniors’ home, some have become involved in 12-step volunteer activities, and so on.

A warning. Some alumni seem to have lived their lives only for others. This is also not a good idea. We talk to our alumni who tell us that they are craving drugs again because their family is on their case. Attempting to control the family, they choose their words careful so as not to “give my wife an excuse” to criticize, they go to meetings to “keep the family off my back,” etc. In other words, they give up being true to themselves to appease others. This is definitely not what Dr. Wong means when he says to live life beyond yourself.

Most alumni who are struggling in recovery are usually living life only for themselves. They have pursued a job because it would give them lots of money. Others sit in the house hoping that the phone will ring, others are so wrapped up in a blanket of their own depression or anger that they have little interaction with others, others are too afraid to take risks of setting boundaries or take risks even to challenge their fears.

Spirituality is Making Sense of Life

Aaron Antonovsky recognized that some people are much better able to cope with stress and challenges better than others. Those who did not seem to be resilient often fell ill to disease and suffering. But those who had resilience had fewer health problems and more happiness in life. So he studied what it was about people that made them better able to cope with life’s problems.

He concluded that the key was ‘meaning’. They were able to make sense of their lives in a way that worked for them. Those who were not able to make sense of their lives fell victim to stress and challenge. He called this a Sense of Coherence or SOC. If someone believes his life is predictable, manageable, and worth emotional investment, then Antonovsky says the person has a high SOC. On the other hand, if he finds his life confusing, unpredictable, unmanageable, and not really worth an effort to save it, then Antonovsky says he has a low SOC.

He even developed a test to measure SOC. Interestingly, researchers discovered that SOC and spirituality were closely related. Those who scored high on SOC tests also scored high on spirituality. Those who scored low on SOC tests also scored low on spirituality.

Based on this research it seems reasonable to say that someone who is ‘spiritual’ also makes sense of his life in a way that leads to happiness. He finds life predictable, manageable, and worth living and fighting for.

It should be no surprise that the SOC test has been used extensively in recovery, and research has shown that those who score high on SOC also do well in recovery. Go figure, eh…