Blog

In recovery, there is a saying about HOW people quit abusing drugs and alcohol and learn to stay sober. Honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness are the three components it takes to build a foundation of recovery. First, it is the essential first step to get honest about your addiction. You have to be the one to realize that your inability to quit using drugs and drinking is a problem. You have to be the one to recognize that your life has become unmanageable and you have become powerless over drugs and alcohol. Admitting your powerlessness is taking your power back. If you aren’t honest with yourself about the extent of your drinking and drug use, you aren’t going to be able to get anything out of treatment, because you don’t think that you have a problem. If you don’t honestly believe you have a problem, you don’t honestly need a solution. You need open-mindedness to be open to the idea of having a problem. The people around you tell you that you have a problem. Friends, family members, coworkers, acquaintances, everyone you meet seems to have something to say about how out of control your drinking and drug use has gotten. When you open your mind to the idea that maybe everyone else is right, you can open your mind to ideas like sobriety and recovery. You can start to question your relationship to drugs and alcohol- is it something you need? Is it something you want? Is it something you would be willing to change? The last part of the equation is willingness. To be willing is to be “ready, eager, or prepared to do something.” Willingness doesn’t always come easily. Sometimes you have to wait for the willingness to be willing to even think about being open-minded to the idea of sobriety. Willingness takes courage. It is courageous to be willing to be honest, willing to be open-minded and willing to be willing to change your life mind, body, and spirit. Emotionally, mentally, psychologically, spiritually, this is what it takes to quit your addiction. Scientifically and physically, it takes more. It takes time and changes in habit to fully quit and addiction. The truth is, the minute you don’t pick up drugs and alcohol again- you quit. Every day thereafter that you don’t pick up drugs and alcohol again, you continue to quit. There are many tools and treatment methods which help you stay quiet, like therapy, nutrition, diet, exercise, meditation, social involvement, and being of service. All of these external activities are support for the internal ones taking place- the ongoing honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness.

Our Facebook pages say a lot about us. That is what they are designed to do. A public profile is like an avatar of ourselves, a virtual representation of what we want people to know. Social media accounts are often criticized for glamorizing the lives of the people behind them. It is a rarity on social media to come across someone who is completely and totally honest with themselves and with others about who they are as well as what really goes on in their lives. One creative artist used an instagram account to post lavish pictures of themselves all over the world. Gaining popularity as an Instagram icon, the user received comments about being lucky to live the life they were living. What few followers were able to recognize was that in every picture, the user had a drink in her hand or there was a bottle of alcohol. Later on after she revealed her motives, the artist explained that the social media frame of her content eliminated the focus on the fact that the girl in the photos had a drinking problem. According to new research conducted on over eleven million Facebook profiles, what we post on social media, in terms of status updates and likes, could indicate if we drink and/or if we do drugs.  UC Berkeley researchers analyzed the Facebook profiles as well as 22 million other status updates from 150,000 people. The software used for the analysis was able to target certain keywords, including expletives, and the kind of things someone “likes” on Facebook. With anywhere between eighty to eighty-six percent accuracy, the study was able to identify risks of substance abuse or those who were already struggling with substance abuse. These findings are significant for a few reasons. First, many addicts and alcoholics believe they are “getting away” with their behavior. When they try to cover up their drinking and using, they truly believe other people don’t notice the changes. While many alcoholics and addicts do successfully cover up their problem, many more fall for the delusion that they are in control of the substances in their lives. Analyzing Facebook profiles could be a tool for early intervention if technologies like the software used can advance more.

Sex addicts in recovery from sex addiction can still continue to have sex in their recovery. Sex addiction recovery does include abstinence. Many treatment programs and twelve step programs advocate abstinence for at least six months. What that abstinence entails, however, is up to the individual in recovery and most often their therapist as well as sponsor. Even with sex addiction, no two people are alike. The sexual behaviors one person used to act out will not necessarily be the same as the ones other person used to act out. Therefore, there is no generalized definition of what abstinence from sex and sex-addictive behaviors should look like. Sex Addicts Anonymous explains, “Most of us have no desire to stop being sexual altogether. It is not sex in and of itself that causes us problems, but the addiction to certain sexual behaviors.” All of sex and any idea of sex might not be the issue in someone’s sex addiction. This approach is unique to sex addiction because sex is a natural part of life. Alcohol is a choice. Drugs are a choice. Even gambling is a luxury. Sex, however, is a form of bonding, reproduction, and human activity for survival. Some people do choose to remain completely abstinent from sexual activity. However, many people to find that not to be sustainable. Unlike alcoholism or drug addiction in which a person truly cannot have just one drink or drug, people with sex addiction can have healthy sexual interactions. What they learn to do through therapy, treatment, and working the steps of twelve step programs like SAA is decide which behaviors are the ones they can participate in and which ones are not. SAA uses a three ring model to illustrate this. An inner circle, a middle circle, and an outer circle, help highlight the sexual behaviors which are manageable and the sexual behaviors which lead to the behaviors of someone’s addiction. The inner circle represents the behaviors which have been decided should absolutely be abstained from. The middle circle is designated for the trigger behaviors, the ones which could be managed but will likely lead to acting out sexually. Lastly, the outer circle includes the healthy behaviors which positively contribute to sex addiction recovery.

Personality disorders can make life unmanageable.The presence of a personality disorder affects more than someone’s personality. It affects the way they see and relate to the world, as well as how the world sees and relates to them.

Mental health disorders are typically misinformed. People do not fully understand the reality of what mental health disorders are, the effect they have on someone’s life, and the severity in which they can occur. Obsessive compulsive disorder is used in popular culture to reference an “obsession” with being organized, clean and making sure everything is perfect. Perfectionism and obsessive compulsive disorder are two different things. Being obsessed with everything being just so is a focus on the outcome, of things being just so. Sometimes people will obsess about the consequences if they lack perfection. Mostly, it's personal irritation because of a commitment to make things just so. The intrusive thoughts which come with obsessive compulsive disorder are not about perfection. They aren’t about personal interest or a desire to make things perfect. Often, the obsessive thinking of OCD is disruptive and shocking. Building up a pressure, the brain resorts to compulsive thinking. If someone with OCD can act on their compulsive behavior, it will make the obsessive, intrusive thinking go away. This is different from wanting to be a perfectionist about an activity in order to let go of the stress of something not being perfect. The thought processes of obsessive compulsive disorder aren’t rational. The relationship between the obsessive thoughts and the compulsive behaviors often don’t match. For example, a perfectionist might obsess about the ribbon tied on a package being crooked. It will drive them to irritability if they don’t fix that ribbon. Someone with obsessive compulsive disorder might believe that if they don’t untie and retie the ribbon five times, they might be the cause of a train accident four states away. That’s different from perfectionism. People who have perfectionist tendencies seem to revel in labeling themselves obsessive compulsive. People call themselves OCD when they aren’t OCD because, simply stated, they aren’t informed about what OCD really is. Today, the conversation regarding mental health and mental illness is growing. With an opening dialogue, the conversation is shifting from misinformation to information, breaking down the stigmas and stereotypes one at a time. Individuals living with real, diagnosed OCD are speaking up against the tide of stereotype and changing the way people talk about mental health.