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How Does Someone Go From Being in a Maximum Security Prison to Being the “Ambassador of Hope”?

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When I first swapped contact info with Andre Norman, he happily informed me that he was on a family Disney cruise. Seconds later, he sent along a selfie to further prove the point. On my phone, I saw the relaxed stranger in his cabin: comfortably stretched out on a couch while casually throwing me a peace sign. Just over his shoulder was a bright green rectangle of ocean. I was momentarily confused. Even though he’s widely referred to as “The Ambassador of Hope,” it still wasn’t quite the Andre Norman I’d expected. Despite knowing that Norman is a sought-after inspirational speaker, it was somewhat impossible to ignore a biography riddled with abuse, crime, gang violence and a decades-long prison sentence in a maximum security prison. “Family Disney Cruise” simply wasn’t a phrase I’d prepared myself for.

It’s not Norman’s past, however, that fascinates and motivates people. Neither is it his decision to transform a deliberately dead-end life into something truly remarkable, either. It’s because Andre Norman is constantly looking ahead with an unparalleled eagerness and optimism. He doesn’t simply believe tomorrow will be brighter than today—he’s absolutely convinced that it will be.  That’s the message Norman tirelessly carries all over the world, including far-flung locations like Trinidad and Liberia. He also lectures on topics such as families in crisis, leadership, addiction and prison re-entry, among others. No matter how desperate circumstances may seem, Norman argues, there’s always hope. In many ways, his Disney Cruise selfie underscores that very fact. Absolutely anything is possible—and Andre Norman is determined to prove it to you.

PAUL FUHR: You had a two-year stay in solitary confinement, where you had an “epiphany” to turn your life around. Could you describe what that epiphany actually was?

ANDRE NORMAN: It had to do with God. I was going to stab some people. But suddenly there was God. I’m like, “Why are you bothering me now when you’ve never been around before? Why are you here now?” But I decided not to stab anybody. I went back to my cell. I thought, “What am I going to do now?” All along, I’d wanted to go to Harvard and everybody thought I was crazy. But I got my GED and taught myself the law. I got out [of prison] in 14 years instead of 28. I eventually worked at Harvard.

PF: That’s amazing. Why the goal of Harvard?

AN: Well, my father told me: “No, you can’t do it. You have your place in life: you’re a criminal. And not only is this your place, but you’re really good at it.” (Laughs) “You’re really good at being a criminal. A really, really good inmate.” It’s an individual choice to be what we are. You can change the choices, but some people are so far down the line that they don’t have the strength, drive or determination to do anything else. They’ve accepted it. They’re trapped in the life that they’ve built, whether it’s a prison, a company, a family, or a lifestyle. It’s so much easier to stay.

PF: You’ve said before that you decided to become the toughest person in prison. You actually made a conscious decision to do that. Since you just mentioned being really good at being a prisoner, when did you start realizing that you’re really good at these other things, like public speaking and inspiring others?

AN: If I’m going to be in something, I want to be in charge. I don’t like people making decisions for me. People made decisions for me all my life and they were always bad. In prison, when somebody died, we’d have a memorial service and people would always go: “Dre, say something.” So I’d say some words and end it with a prayer. That happened three or four times a year. I became the de facto pastor for memorial services. We’d also have annual events for Black History Month. We’d bring in choirs, singers, actresses, speakers, whatever. Someone had to emcee those events.

Emceeing wasn’t easy because, with all of those outside people, the emcee represented [everyone in] the prison. And then you’ve got 800 guys and someone’s going to be upset or feel offended by something you said or did. They’d get trashed, absolutely crushed, after the event was over. No one wanted that job. Well, they ran out of emcees one day so they asked me to do it. I’d never spoke in front of that many people before. I kept doing it. What really got me going, though, was this program that brought kids in from the juvenile detention center to the prison. There’d be six prisoners and one volunteer and we’d all sit in a room and just talk.

PF: And that was the big moment for you?

AN: Yeah. Everyone in the youth program asked me to come see them once I got out. They said, “Most people say they’ll come see us, but they never do.” So when I got out, I showed up at the youth center and I went there, every day, for four hours. I went there to talk, to tell them some stories and to tell them what little bit of success I’ve had. Two or three hour speeches at a time. Kids are a tough crowd, too. (Laughs)

PF: Do you enjoy working with a particular demographic or specific age group over others?

AN: I’ll go from kindergarten to grad school. Little kids just want to be picked up. They need energy. You can speak their language. They don’t know the difference between 25 and 40. They just know whether you’re funny or you’re not. I teach them to ask for help; I teach them to say thank you.

PF: What’s your approach, then, with high schoolers?

AN: In high school, you’re going to be forced to make decisions about sex, about gangs, about drugs. You might be dealing with a parent not being present or somebody being in jail. I tell them that they have to get a dream and to hell with everything else. You ride that dream. I tell them that they’re making a choice right now. I ask how many people have an uncle who sleeps on the couch. Everybody’s hands go up. I ask everyone if they want to be the uncle who sleeps on the couch or the cousin who owns the house. Everyone wants to be the person who owns the house.

PF: Since you’ve started your speaking career, what changes or trends have you noticed among the kids you work with?

AN: The trends are among the parents. Not the kids. It used to be that you had to talk to your kids, but now you don’t have to. You can give your kids technology and walk away. We complain as adults that our kids never put their phones down. Well, you give a kid an iPad at age two and he plays with it every day, all day, and then at sixteen, you want to snatch it from him, it doesn’t work like that. Parents can check out now. Parents are disconnected and the kids are like, “Okay, Mom and Dad are checked out, so let me check out.” When I was young, parents talked to you every damn day. They waited to unload on you. (Laughs)

PF: What’s the most rewarding thing about what you do? What keeps you going?

AN: I get to do for people what I’d always wanted done for me. I’ve worked at Harvard, I’ve worked at London Business School, I’ve worked at the White House, I’ve worked with prime ministers, I’ve worked with presidents, I’ve spoken with top CEOs around the world. But what could I have been if someone had grabbed me in second grade and said, “We’re going to teach this kid how to read and write correctly, how to comprehend, and how to be kind.” What could I have been if I someone had raised me correctly, if someone told me that I didn’t have to beg for food, didn’t have to rob people, didn’t have to fight to get into school?

PF: You’re such a strong, commanding presence that it’s hard to imagine you might actually have day-to-day challenges. What challenges do you encounter?

AN: When the people that I’m going to visit don’t believe I’m the guy who should be coming. For example, I went to St. Louis to this private Catholic school for boys. All the fathers and sons go to this annual event. They listen to the speaker, they clap, and they go home. They decided to bring me in. The year before, it was the manager of the St. Louis Cardinals. The fathers are like, “Wait a minute. We’re all Catholic and St. Louis is a Catholic town. Why is a blank gang member coming in to talk to our kids? Our kids aren’t going to be gang members and they’re definitely not going to be black.” Most speakers come out and do their 40 minutes of speaking, then leave. I showed up and arranged for all the boys to come into another room and I spoke to them for like 45 minutes beforehand. Then I got on stage and did the whole group. After it was over, one of the fathers came up to me and apologized. He said he was one of the biggest advocates against me to speak. It made no sense to him. He read my bio and I didn’t make any sense. But the father said, “I don’t know what you said to my kid in that other room, but he came out a different kid.” Many times, though, I’ll be trying to help someone’s kid and their parents will have all of these questions and doubts about me while their kid suffers.

PF: Well, that ties back to your original comment about parents being half the problem, right?

AN: 80% of the problem. And not in the sense that they’re giving their kids drugs. But if you’re not in the conversation and you’re not paying attention, it can get away from you fast.

PF: With all that you’re doing to give back to others, do you ever stop to appreciate just how far you’ve come in life?

AN: Look, I was the boss in the penitentiary. Not kinda-sorta or halfway. Full-fledged. I know that life and I can go back to that life. But what I do now is who I am. I just want to help somebody. I’m not asking you to put me on your mortgage or to give me the keys to your car. Let me help you. Stop judging. I don’t need you to like me. I don’t need you to want me to live long. I just need to live long enough to help you or your kid.

The Miracle Morning for Addiction Recovery [Excerpt]

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If there’s one word that encompasses what we believe is crucial when it comes to recovery, it’s community.

The great impact community has on addiction and recovery is actually a proven fact. In the late ‘70s, a Canadian psychologist named Bruce K. Alexander decided to test his hypothesis that addiction is caused by environment and a lack of community—as opposed to the availability of drugs. For his experiment, he built an enormous rat colony that was 200 times the size of a typical cage. He gave those lucky rats everything a young (or old) rat could dream of: yummy food, balls to play with, tin cans, wood chips, platforms and running wheels galore. But the best treat of all? They got plenty of exposure to members of the opposite sex, not to mention places where they could get down (that is, mate). In this Rat Park of every rat’s dreams, Alexander placed two dispensers—one that contained morphine and another that was straight-up H20. With those rats happily ensconced in Rat Heaven, he set about placing some less-lucky rats alone in individual cages with access to the same amount of morphine and water, but the only interaction they ever got was with the people who brought them food and water. They couldn’t exercise, play or—well, forget mating…they couldn’t so much as have a brief catch-up with a pal.

Here’s what happened: the rats who were living in isolation got hooked on morphine while those who were luxuriating in Rat Park sampled the morphine only occasionally. In one experiment, the individually caged rats in fact drank nineteen times more morphine than the park dwellers. Take that in, please. Then fantasize about what your personal version of Rat Park might include, because that’s pretty fun. (On our list: Wi-Fi, chocolate, peanut butter and hammocks, to start.)

In another experiment, Alexander offered those sad, solitary caged rats only morphine to drink. After fifty-seven days, they were then transferred to Rat Park, where there was both morphine and water on tap. One might think, since they’d been getting high for almost two months, those rats would stay on drugs. But they didn’t. While they did show original signs of dependence, they eventually opted to forgo the morphine for the water.

Now, this doesn’t mean that if you place an active addict in a luxurious spa, replete with delicious food and hourly massages, that person will suddenly become drug-free. But it does suggest that environment matters—a lot. And it means that having a community is crucial.

As Alexander wrote, “Solitary confinement drives people crazy; if prisoners in solitary have the chance to take mind-numbing drugs, they do.”

Of course, recovery doesn’t end when we put the plug in the jug. This means that a positive social environment isn’t only important when getting off drugs or alcohol. It’s just as important—if not even more important—once we’re in recovery.

Is Everything We Know About Addiction Actually Wrong?

In 2015, a British journalist named Johann Hari hammered home the significance of community with his TED Talk, “Everything You Think You Know About Addiction Is Wrong.”

Although his beliefs—that punishing addicts only worsens addiction—weren’t new, no one had ever articulated them so well. The talk focused not only on Bruce Alexander’s work but also on the “human” version of it—that is, the Vietnam War, where 20 percent of troops were using heroin and 95 percent of them quit afterwards. As Hari put it, humans have “an innate need to bond” and if they don’t have other humans around to bond with, they will latch onto whatever’s there. As Hari put it, “The opposite of addiction isn’t sobriety; it’s connection.”

Joe’s Community

It’s not hyperbole to say that Joe’s entire life is built around having a community. As the creator of the world’s highest-level marketing group, Genius Network, Joe gathers the world’s top entrepreneurs, best-selling authors, and industry innovators for regular meetings. These occasions have not only featured talks by people like Richard Branson, Tony Robbins, Dr. Gabor Mate, John Mackey, Brendon Burchard, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Ariana Huffington, Peter Diamandis, Dan Sullivan, Randi Zuckerberg, JP Sears, Tim Ferriss, John Hagelin, and Steve Forbes, but also provide one of the greatest opportunities for high-level business people to commune.

Joe is currently building Genius Recovery, a community that will do for people in recovery what Genius Network does for entrepreneurs. Made up of a blog, podcast, resources and more, Genius Recovery is connected to Joe’s other recovery project, Artists for Addicts. The philosophy behind Artists for Addicts is to use art as a “force for good” to not only help people who have developed addiction problems but also to increase understanding about what addiction actually is, where it comes from and how to truly heal it. Artists for Addict’s first project is Black Star, a painting created by Artists for Addicts co-founder Jon Butcher as a tribute to famous people lost to addiction. (If you’re interested in purchasing a print of Black Star, go to Artists for Addicts.)

Anna’s Community

For Anna, entering rehab and then 12-step rooms revolutionized her life. She had spent the previous few years holed up in her apartment, with only cats and cocaine for company, and to suddenly be among the living was a revelation in itself. The fact that those people were talking about feelings she’d had but hadn’t known how to articulate, and that they were sharing them in intelligent and occasionally amusing ways, opened her up to connecting with other people in a way she never had. Suddenly, she wasn’t picking her friends based on how willing they were to drive across the border to Mexico to buy sheets of Xanax at a willing Mexican farmacia, but by whether or not they were honest and funny and interested in looking at themselves and growing. Anna had gotten so isolated in her addiction that being easily granted a group of people made facing all the other changes she had to deal with in early sobriety far less terrifying.

While her friends have changed over the years—her “picker” was a bit broken after years of active addiction, so she originally found herself drawn to some less-than-healthy people—maintaining a community has continued to be one of her priorities. After years of isolation during her active addiction, she was actually shocked to discover that she’s a people person. While she relishes time alone, it was in early sobriety that she realized she loved and in fact needed to be around people to stay mentally healthy.

Because she was living in a New York studio apartment for several years when she was writing books, making sure she was part of a community required extra effort. This meant, when she was writing her memoir, Falling for Me, going to coffee shops where she could be around people even if she wasn’t talking to them. This is also when she implemented “Project Study Hall,” which is what she called it when she got together with friends to sit together working side-by-side—taking, of course, regular breaks to chat.

Today, she works out of a shared office space. She also does workouts that involve group bonding (hip hop dance class with a group of people that hang out together outside of class). And although she’s inarguably tone deaf—and there are terrifying Instagram videos out there to prove it—she plans karaoke nights; when she was the editor of a website and had a team under her, she actually called karaoke nights “staff meetings” so that all her employees would attend. Without realizing it, Anna was following Tibetan Buddhist Pema Chodron’s recommendation to “liberate [yourself] from confusion” by doing “non-habitual” things like singing or dancing.

The truth is many addicts and alcoholics have a tendency to isolate when they’re depressed or triggered or tired. While recharging by spending time alone is crucial, there’s a fine line between replenishing energy reserves and having an exclusive and seemingly satisfying relationship with Netflix. It’s therefore important to prioritize being around other people—whether that means joining a hiking club, soccer league, community theater or church choir. It’s even better if you can do it with other people who are in recovery or focused on creating better lives for themselves. This doesn’t mean you need to surround yourself with an army of sober people because otherwise you’re destined to go off the rails, just that addicts can get in their heads, thus it’s best not to spend too much time alone.

Here’s a tip we’ve figured out over the years: if you’re wondering if you’re isolating, you probably are. Think about Rat Park and find your own version of wood chips, platforms, running wheels, tin cans—and, of course, people.

Reprinted with permission from The Miracle Morning for Addiction Recovery: Letting Go of Who You’ve Been for Who You Can Become, copyright 2018, All Rights Reserved. To get an audio version of the book for free, click here

25 Recovery Hashtags You Need to Know

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I apparently just celebrated 10 years of being on Facebook. For six of those years, I was an active alcoholic. And it showed. That’s the thing about social media and addiction: you can try to manicure your life and make it pretty-perfect, but the more you try to make it look good, all you do is draw attention to your issues. I wrote countless paragraphs on friends’ walls. I crafted non-sensical messages to people I hadn’t seen since middle school. I shared random music videos for no reason and fired off movie quotes out into the ether, tagging anyone and everyone in the process. I was sending pings into the universe, hoping for a response. Despite all the noise of social media, there was a sad silence to everything.

I’m in my early forties. My social media skills are limited at best. Uploading cat photos on Instagram? Got it. Connecting with professional strangers on LinkedIn? Sure, why not? Getting overwhelmed by my Twitter feed? Every single day. But back in early recovery, I found myself gravitating toward one thing: the hashtag. Yep. The simple, stupid, silly pound sign—and all the letters after it. (If you want to go Full Nerd, here’s a ridiculously comprehensive oral history of it.) Being online when you’re newly sober—at least for me—was a lot like being shell-shocked from war. At first, I couldn’t stomach Facebook on my MacBook but I could, however, deal with hashtags on my iPhone. Hashtags became as important to me as, back when I was drunk, getting three Likes on a 3 a.m. post about Toad the Wet Sprocket. In fact, they’re still important to me. (Hashtags. Not posts about Toad.)

By searching for recovery-based hashtags, I very quickly discovered that I wasn’t alone. I had zero idea just how vast and interconnected the online recovery community is. I’ve since used hashtags to find podcasts, books, websites, off-the-books AA meetings, wisdom and everything in between—not to mention building true bonds with other sober people thousands of miles away from where I live in Central Ohio. A hashtag can orient me when I’m lost in all the same ways it can reduce something down to nothing. Whether you’re facing your first few days of sobriety or staring down several decades of living clean, a hashtag can be shockingly powerful.

Here’s a list of 25 recovery hashtags (in no particular order) that you can use wherever you’re at in your journey. You might be surprised by where they take you.

  1. #sober
  2. #soberissexy
  3. #sobriety
  4. #soberliving
  5. #soberlife
  6. #today
  7. #addiction
  8. #alcoholism
  9. #onedayatatime
  10. #odat
  11. #sobermovement
  12. #iamnotashamed
  13. #hellosundaymorning
  14. #gohelpsomeone
  15. #justfortoday
  16. #aa
  17. #na
  18. #alcoholicsanonymous
  19. #narcoticsanonymous
  20. #addictionrecovery
  21. #recovery
  22. #recoveryispossible
  23. #waitforthemiracle
  24. #nohangover
  25. #12steps

How I Kicked the Smokes Out of My Sobriety

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Nine months into recovery, I ditched my two packs a day via a dinner intervention, Nicotine Anonymous and a short-lived crush. The revelations that followed were every bit as blinding as when I got sober.

AddictIn early recovery, cigarettes felt as essential to me as breathing. They gave me something to do on my way to meetings, something to do on my way home from meetings and something to do during the smoke breaks during meetings. They gave me a way to bond with all the new people I encountered who scared me in ways I didn’t know how to talk about. They gave me something to do with my hands and mouth. They gave me a way to feel like I still had an edge. It’s no stretch to say that many addicts smoke.

Studies about this topic sometimes report rates as high as 90%. Less known, it seems, are the studies that show that addicts who quit smoking when they first clean up have better chances of staying sober. I’ve only come upon these recently. If someone had mentioned them to me when I was a newcomer, I would have recoiled in horror.

In retrospect, it’s clear why cigarettes seemed the ideal early sobriety tool for me: They made me feel like I was doing something that was bringing me closer to people—while actually bringing me further away, because we were only bonding over a shared desire to take ourselves out of the moment. Because I didn’t know who I was yet, having 20 little buddies in my Camel Lights pack made me feel less alone.

“My cravings were so bad that I took to shoving every bit of sugar I could find in my mouth and chewing on pencils and sucking on hard candies and anything else I could think of.”

Then, when I was nine months sober, I met an older woman who’d been sober, it seemed, forever. She and I were at dinner with a few other sober friends after a meeting. As was routine for me, I went outside several times during the meal to smoke. And one of the times I returned, this woman started—in the most direct and yet gentle way imaginable—to confront me about it.

People had of course raised the topic with me before, but there was something different about her approach. She said things that made a lot of sense—that every time I inhaled on a cigarette, I was telling myself that I hated myself, and that getting sober but still smoking was like switching seats on the Titanic.

“Honey,” she told me, leaning forward on the table, “You’re putting a smoke screen between you and your Higher Power.” It was just the kind of sentiment I would have mocked pre-sobriety, but which made a lot of sense to the person I was becoming. At the end of dinner, she offered to meet me at a Nicotine Anonymous meeting the following evening. “Maybe,” I said, surprising myself.

She added that a sober guy I’d told her I had a crush on would probably be there.

“Okay,” I heard myself respond. “I’ll go.”

I really didn’t intend to quit. I smoked on the way home from dinner, and the next morning and the next day at work. But sometime around 3 pm that day, it occurred to me that it was possible I could really do this—quit. I decided to try not to smoke before the meeting and I made it those few hours.

I don’t remember much about that first Nicotine Anonymous meeting, aside from learning the word “smober”—something that people who don’t want to get mocked should probably never utter. (As a friend of mine says, “I already know I’m not cool; I don’t have to start saying the word smober to prove it.”)

The most significant aspect of that meeting for me—because I still didn’t really believe I was going to quit—was that my crush was there. He and I went for coffee afterwards, where he told me that he’d had sex with his cousin. I got sort of instantly over my crush.

But I didn’t smoke that night. And once I’d made it through, I felt like I could try to make it through the next day and the day after. Amazingly, I haven’t smoked since. That was on July 19, 2000.

This isn’t to say that it was easy. Quitting cigarettes was, for the first month, arguably the hardest thing I’ve ever done. My cravings were so bad that I took to shoving every bit of sugar I could find in my mouth and chewing on pencils and sucking on hard candies and anything else I could think of until it had passed. I would clutch the sides of chairs and tables and think about the things I heard in Nicotine Anonymous meetings—like that the craving would pass in five minutes, whether I smoked or not. I have no idea if that was true but it certainly helped at the time.

My withdrawal was debilitating. I remember walking into a Coffee Bean one of those mornings, attempting to buy a breakfast item of some sort and coming out clutching an egg salad sandwich, feeling like I’d lost control of my mind, my desires and my ability to form words.

I remember not getting picked to share during a Nicotine Anonymous meeting and feeling quite justified in going up to the speaker who hadn’t called on me afterwards and telling her how angry I was about this. The progress I’d made in the nine months since getting sober came to an abrupt halt; I acted out far more and paused far less.

But after a few more months, I realized something shocking: It just wasn’t that bad. I felt so much better being able to breath, my clothes didn’t stink and life just got easier. And there was something incredibly liberating about stepping into reality.

For me to know what cigarettes could do to me and still continue to smoke meant believing, on a certain level, that the rules didn’t apply to me—a delusion I’d operated under much of my life. Stripping that layer of denial away—admitting that smokes would kill me just as they would kill others—gave me a new taste of humility. I rediscovered—even more than I had when getting sober—that I wasn’t special, that I was just like everyone else.

By the time I’d reached the six-month mark, instead of craving cigarettes, I actually felt repulsed by smoking and amazed that I’d done it for as long as I had—13 years in all. My desire to do this thing that I’d needed to do constantly—up to two packs a day at times—was gone. I wasn’t resisting the temptation anymore; there was no temptation to resist.

Most of the sober people I know have eventually come to feel similarly. My friend Damien, who has over a decade of sobriety and quit smoking at eight-and-a-half years, even enjoyed the withdrawal. “It was like getting high,” he says. “The furious rush of my body screaming for nicotine was great. And it made me feel invincible—like, ‘Fuck. If I can do this, I can do anything.’ It just made everything rawer—anger, lust, sugar cravings, the smell of food and my clothing, hugging people. Also I had epic Technicolor dreams.”

While I don’t remember having any brightly colored dreams, I did get similar feelings of invincibility when I quit. But my most important realization probably came when I was sharing in a meeting about how I didn’t think I’d be able to do certain things that scared me—such as driving to interview someone who intimidated me, or talking to certain family members on the phone—without smoking. It was only after I shared that I realized that I was the one who’d decided that these things were so terrifying, and that if I’d been the one to give them the power to scare me, I could also take it away. Sucking down a cigarette didn’t prevent fear; I’d just been pretending that it did.

Still, in early sobriety, when I could barely do my laundry, let alone talk to near-strangers for hours without having something to medicate my extreme lack of self and inability to be in the moment, I don’t think I could have handled that. My friend Danny, who got sober in New York four years ago, feels similarly. Though he says he was never really addicted to cigarettes, he nevertheless smoked “a lot” during his first 90 days. “I think it actually helped me get sober,” he admits. “I made some close friends outside meetings that way.”

Other people I know are still, in long-term sobriety—and living in LA, where these days smokers are regarded with the sort of skepticism normally reserved for serial killers—fighting the nicotine battle. As my friend Mark says, “I’m truly powerless over nicotine. I’m a slave. And I’d rather kick dope 10 times over than cold turkey nicotine once.”

But peer pressure can work when it comes to positive as well as negative life choices: I’ve seen one person in a certain sober clique get sober, then watched the rest of the group follow, one by one. Sooner or later it seems, whether it’s in their first or 14th year, nearly all the sober people I’ve known seem to quit. It seems that once people get real-life supportive buddies, they have much less need of the 20 that come in a pack.

What are the Side Effects of Alcohol Withdrawal?

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The Side Effects When You Stop Drinking

Alcohol withdrawal is, at best, uncomfortable and, at worst, life-threatening. While symptoms vary from person to person, it really depends on a number of factors, including how much you’ve been drinking and for how long you’ve been drinking that amount of alcohol. Withdrawal symptoms typically begin a couple of worse after your last drink and can persist up to a couple of weeks, depending on the severity of the drinking problem.

Man suffering from sick stomach and vomitingSymptoms run the gamut from mild anxiety and general shakiness to a horrifying condition called delirium tremens (also known as “the DTs”). DTs, which cause everything from confusion to hallucinations, actually kill 1-5% of the alcoholics who suffer through them. And while the DTs clearly don’t affect everyone, it’s important to understand that alcohol withdrawal symptoms oftentimes get worse before they get better. Things can seem stable and then, out of the blue, they suddenly take a turn for the worse. For that reason, many experts suggest getting immediate medical attention, even if the symptoms are fairly mild at the outset. What starts off as mild anxiety might rapidly degenerate into convulsions. If you’ve experienced alcohol withdrawal before, it’s doubly important to seek medical attention. Other complications can occur if you have a history of heart disease, lung disease or seizures, too.

Alcohol Withdrawal Symptoms

Most minor alcohol withdrawal symptoms occur within 12 hours after you stop drinking when blood alcohol level starts to decrease. During this time, expect to experience shaky hands, mild anxiety, a racing heartbeat, vomiting, a persistent headache, and insomnia. Between 12-24 hours after the last drink, some people experience visual/auditory hallucinations, though they typically end within 48-hour period. Despite how unnerving alcoholic hallucinosis can be, it’s fairly common—especially for people who have drank persistently for long periods of time. Unlike the DTs, people with alcoholic hallucinosis are conscious of the fact that the hallucinations aren’t real.

DTs, on the other hand, begin 48 – 72 hours after the last drink and involve serious life-threatening side effects imaginable. Withdrawal seizures are primary risk in DTs and patients who’ve gone through detox in the past are especially susceptible to. Other DT risk factors include acute illness, abnormal liver function, and older age. What’s worse is that DTs take their time, with symptoms peaking over the course of five days. During this time, DT sufferers will experience severe anxiety, confusion, sweating, high blood pressure, visual hallucinations, fevers, and uncontrollable shaking. The one way to survive DTs is the constant medical supervision, with professionals can guide you safely to long-term sobriety.

Bio

After nearly two decades of drinking and destroying just about every relationship in my life, I decided to get help. I didn’t know what to expect (and in some ways, I still don’t), but getting sober has been the most rewarding, fulfilling decision I’ve ever made. In the years since I entered treatment, secured an AA sponsor, and forged friendships in sobriety that rival all the others in my life, I feel like a completely different person. It’s as if I woke up in another person’s life. I’m a married father of three young children who lives in Columbus, Ohio, along with a bossy cat named Dr. No.

Most of my recovery has been spent writing about my experiences, and I’ve been fortunate to have my work picked up by The Fix, AfterParty Magazine, The Literary Review, and The Live Oak Review, among others. I want to help others find meaningful, lasting sobriety in any way that I can, which is part of the reason I’m so committed to Genius Recovery. More than that, though, I sincerely believe in the vision, aims and purpose of Genius Recovery. I’m as passionate about recovery as I am about discovering levels to my life that I didn’t know existed. After all, addiction recovery is about hope as much as it is about possibility. Through my writing, I hope to guide others to discover what’s possible for them, too.

– Paul

How to Stop Drinking Alcohol with Home Remedies

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Home Remedies for Alcohol Withdrawal

Most addiction experts, researchers and medical professionals contend that the safest way to stop drinking alcohol is to seek medical attention. In fact, depending on the severity of one’s drinking problem, medical assistance might be the only way to avoid a wide range of debilitating, if not deadly side effects. Still, some people might remain uncertain or fearful about getting outside medical help. Sometimes, finding a rehab or detox center simply isn’t in the cards for them. Although detoxing at home is risky, it’s certainly not impossible. Research shows that most alcoholics try home remedies several times in their drinking careers, though they’re rarely ever successful. It’s important to know that detoxing at home means you’re away from professionals. They may not be able to provide the immediate attention you need or adjust your medication right away.

It’s important to know that detoxing at home means you’re away from professionals. They may not be able to provide the immediate attention you need or adjust your medication right away. It’s important to know that detoxing at home means you’re away from professionals. They may not be able to provide the immediate attention you need or adjust your medication right away.

3 Things To Do Before Beginning the Self-detox at Home

First, you will need to get rid of alcohol from your home. Be sure to look everywhere, too. Alcoholics will sometimes hide bottles and forget that they did, which causes unfortunate surprises down the road. Remove every last bottle in your house before starting to self detox with home remedies. Your home needs to be a safe, secure environment, completely free of temptation when your cravings kick in.

Next, you’ll need to clear your schedule for a specific period of time. If you want to successfully detox, take extended time off from work and responsibilities to focus on your upcoming recovery. Determine the period of time you will need—generally related to the severity of your drinking problem.

Finally, be sure you’re not detoxing at home alone. You should enlist a friend or family member to be there with you, in order to keep you safe and secure through the process. If your withdrawal symptoms get too severe or out of control, they can take you to get medical attention.

Natural Home Remedies

There are also a wide variety of natural home remedies to help accelerate the process of getting sober at home. One of the most effective remedies for getting one’s alcohol addiction under control are grapes. Whenever the urge strikes, drink a glass of grape juice or pop a few grapes in your mouth. They’re rich in potassium and actively work to stimulate the kidneys, not to mention work to clean your liver free from toxins. Physical exercise is also key in breaking the cycle of addiction and alcoholism. Many studies reveal that physical exercise actually serves an even greater purpose for heavy drinkers: it helps prevent brain damage and a loss of cognitive function, according to a 2013 study published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.

Everything from stress, mood, depression, cravings and sleep are regulated by physical exercise, which is why getting outside for a brisk walk, bike ride, or a swim is crucial to your recovery. Also, many people swear by other home remedies to stop drinking alcohol. It includes laxative herbs, which help detoxify the body which also offsets cravings for sugar and alcohol. Cayenne regulates your appetite, balances out your digestion and smoothens anxiety. Cayenne provides an added “kick” to relieve the symptoms of alcohol withdrawal. Consumed raw, celery has a sobering effect and ends alcohol and sugar cravings on its own. Finally, Vitamin B is widely regarded as a substitute for alcohol, as it does everything from improve the quality of sleep to prevent withdrawal symptoms.

How to Stop Drinking Alcohol Successfully

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How to Stop Drinking Alcohol?

There are many ways to stop drinking alcohol, but the only successful way is to understand why you need to stop drinking alcohol in the first place. You can be mentally/physically dependent upon alcohol (or both), which can cause problems in every area of your life. Health, relationships, family, marriage, work and school are just a few of the areas that alcohol can wreak havoc on. Identifying the places where alcohol has caused damage in your life is the key to giving up the bottle for good. This isn’t always easy, though. Very often, the problems aren’t as clear as having a serious, clear legal consequence (a DUI, for example). Alcohol, in fact, can be causing other people in your life to suffer more than you.

Once you’ve identified the reason (or reasons) why you want to stop drinking alcohol, a great first step is to visit your primary care physician or medical professional. It is incredibly important to be honest about how much you’ve been drinking alcohol. Don’t worry about what they will think or say about you. First and foremost, the doctor’s job is to help you. If you don’t accurately describe how much you’ve been drinking alcohol, they won’t be able to correctly treat you or customize a plan for you to succeed. By lying, you’ll only be deceiving yourself. Depending on the amount of alcohol that you’ve been consuming daily, withdrawal symptoms can range from unpleasant to downright deadly. That’s why meeting with a doctor is the best way to determine not only the severity of your addiction, but to receive practical advice for how you can stop drinking.

The Common Effects of Alcohol Withdrawal

Stop Drinking AlcoholDoctors might suggest next steps that involve tapering down over time or stopping immediately. In some cases, physicians can prescribe medicine to make your alcohol withdrawal comfortable and safe. Even in the mildest cases, alcohol withdrawal is never pleasant. Common symptoms include nausea, anxiety, sweating, vomiting, a lack of appetite, and insomnia, while less common side effects include confusion, fever and (even worse) hallucinations and convulsions. Talking to family members and friends about wanting to stop drinking alcohol is another good approach to ending your battle with the bottle. By honestly explaining why and how alcohol caused problems in your life, you may discover their willingness to help you. By sharing your desire to stop drinking, you’re also sharing your desire to make a positive change in everyone’s life—not just yours. It’s also a highly effective way of staying accountable on your journey to sobriety.

Friends and family can oftentimes be the best support structure imaginable to help build confidence, provide encouragement, and keep that person on track—mainly because they know you and what you’re capable of.

Very early on, it’s easy to fall back in old habits and routines with alcohol. Believe that you can overcome on the setbacks and struggles. Early sobriety is all about finding out what works best for you. After all, what works for one person in recovery might not work at all for you. Alcoholics should always be mindful about not engaging in all the same behaviors they did while they were drinking. If you used to join co-workers for after-work happy hours, that’s really not an option anymore. Start replacing alcohol-centric events/occasions with healthier ones, be it an afternoon walk, shopping, or even going to the movies.

Self Discipline is Your Key to Sobriety

The first few weeks/months of sobriety are critical. You should spent thinking of new and healthier things to do, rather than mourning the loss of alcohol. Think on the negative consequences of alcohol, and it will make you more dedicated to long-term sobriety. What are your triggers? What are the places and people and things you need to avoid? Look for support groups that are convenient for you and your schedule. Don’t judge a fellowship by just one meeting, either. Chances are, there are dozens of meetings in any given week near your house. Get out there and meet people who understand exactly what it’s like to go through what you’re going through.

Once you get a few weeks or months of sober time under your belt, be sure to make note of it. Celebrate them, if you can. These are important milestones. The longer you’re away from the bottle, the more time you’re investing in becoming the best possible version of yourself. This is an incredible amount change in your life—and something won’t happen overnight. Recovery is an ever-changing, never-ending process—and it’s one that doesn’t need to be stringent or strictly defined. It’s your recovery and it’s bound to be as unique and dynamic as you.

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