recovery

Gray Zones

October 25, 2024 by Ken Wells

READ IT TO ME: Click play to listen to this post.

Living out a sober life is quite a feat regardless of the addiction. Cravings dominate to varying degrees. Commitments begin to melt down as soon as some addicts close their mouths in a 12-step meeting. We have all heard stories of addicts who swore to commit to sober living and who began acting out before they left the parking lot. I once led a group of sex addicts where one of the addicts was sexting his affair partner just after his share while the meeting was in progress! The truth is that intrigue is a drunken dreamland with bewitching charm. The junkie worm that undermines rational sober living is:

“like a hard-nosed hound, the lion never ends its chase. It lures me to the dance, as I look to hide my face—The monkey’s always talkin’ trash in his deep clear voice—
He talks about a paralyzed paradise—
I quickly lose my choice”
—Stalking the Lion King by K.W.

From another perspective, sobriety can be like nailing jelly to a tree. If I’m an alcoholic, obviously getting loaded with alcohol is an example of relapse. But what about substituting a favorite IPA beer with an O’douls or any other of a number of non-alcoholic beer choices that have 0.4 percent alcohol content? Am I sober with this choice? For sure, some hard-core recovering folk will answer with the charge that you are just bullshitting yourself while others contend differently. If I’m a sex addict in a committed monogamous relationship and jump in the sack with another person, I have given up my sobriety, right? But, what if I just masturbate to images of the other person but have not engaged that person in a face-to-face, skin to skin contact? Am I sober? Well, some people say yes while others say No and most would say you are playing with fire. What becomes ominous is the growing reality that to live in sobriety suggests that I must manage “gray zones”—places in my life that without question create a high risk toward relapse.

Most of us who have hung out around 12-step digs have long since heard and understand the reference “If you hang out at the barbershop you’re gonna, at some point, get a haircut”. For most, this is true! Most of us addicts have our own stories of playing with fire and getting burned. It could be sitting in a bar as an alcoholic or toying with “eye candy” on the internet, flirting with the desire to look at porn, for a sex addict. Some gray zones differ between addicts while others are more common and universal. Usually, an addict cannot eliminate all the gray zones in their life.

The question that haunts me is how I manage my “gray zones.” There is no holy grail that is retrofitted for all addicts. Here are a few suggestions for managing gray zones.

1. Be honest with yourself. I am convinced that one of the hardest things to do or be for any of us, addict or otherwise, is to be emotionally honest. Addictive rationale, Not getting enough of what I really don’t want, is a constant storyline that requires rigorous honesty. Most will avoid this inquiry because it demands an open moral search and an embrace and exposure to what is inevitably uncomfortable and even painful. Yet, without everyday rigorous honesty in the life of addiction recovery, gray zones quickly become red zone relapse behavior.

2. Tell on yourself. For addicts, D-Day always refers to the day of disclosure—turning over every stone and releasing all the secrets around acting out behavior. The truth is that D-Day is the threshold of reality for the rest of life for those who choose recovery. Secrets must become bygones. Rigorous honesty only grows when I tell on myself to my support people. I believe that for recovery to be effective in 12-step meetings, an addict must embrace an approach that requires the last thing I want group members to know about me is the first thing I will share with the group. This admission grounds an individual with the degree of honesty required to manage gray zone behavior.

3. Live in consultation. Hypocrisy, incongruence, and inconsistency are trademarks of reality for anyone who is alive. Addicts, particularly, require accountability in order to manage these compartmentalizing dynamics that fuel double-life living. One of the most difficult concessions for an addict to embrace is that I can no longer act in isolation and alone. I must live in consultation with those I choose to trust. Addicts who are not meticulous with consultation seldom manage gray zones and most likely end up with red-zone relapse. Whatever challenges I face today, if I anchor my decisions in the context of the support community, I am most likely to manage gray zone behavior and avoid red zone relapse. Many of us have heard the recovery reference for group work “If 8 people tell you that you have a tail, the least you should do is take a look at your ass in the mirror”. The wisdom of this homespun truth has helped to manage gray zones many times in my life. On a bad day, I may get a crook in my neck, straining to look at my ass in the mirror, but I have avoided red zone relapse and have successfully managed gray zone behavior.

All in all, living in consultation and telling on myself with rigorous honesty has proven to be a solid pathway to managing gray zone behaviors and establishing successful long-term recovery.

Junkie Worm Blues #4 – Grounding Skills

October 11, 2024 by Ken Wells

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“Life can only be found in the present moment. Your true home is in the here and the now.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

The greatest challenge I have ever had in addiction recovery is being present in the here and now. If this is where my true home exists, there have been many days that I have spent on the road, even though geographically I am home. I become preoccupied with yesterday’s behavior, thoughts, and other people’s actions. I have engaged my mind for hours thinking about the anticipation of tomorrow’s activities and what I need to do or what I think about what the responsibility of others should be. Some days there is a nonstop ping-pong match between past and future that preoccupies my mind and keeps me from being just where I am. This mind mesh unmanaged triggers the junkie worm blues.

In your recovery do you know this dynamic? It short circuits the serenity of sobriety. It creates a brown out from self empowerment. It breeds an environment that is ripe for relapse. Here are some short suggestions to manage past and future distractions that pull you away from the present moment.

1. Practice noticing nature: We live our lives as if everything is centered around our perceived wants and needs. I am in the process of deepening my awareness that when I am distracted and stuck wallowing in past thoughts and behaviors or worrying about the future nature can bring me back to the present. Nature is sacred in this manner. Thich Nhat Hanh reflected “Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child—our own two eyes. All is a miracle.” Nature brings us back to the present. Black Elk, the Oglala Sioux leader, offered grounding in this description “What is Life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow that runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset. The True Peace. The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells Wakan-Taka (the Great Spirit), and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us. This is the real peace, and the others are but reflections of this.”

Eckart Tolle said, “You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are. Realize deeply that the present moment is all you have. Make the NOW the primary focus of your life. Sometimes, letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on.” The practice of noticing the nature around you cultivates the awareness of being present in the here and now.

2. Slow down and do things mindfully. Meditation brings us back to center. Some people have found grounding by doing a walking meditation, feeling their feet connected to the earth, their bodies at one with the trees and animal life around them. They experience the energy of life by inhaling the breath of fresh air in the great outdoors and taking in the warmth of the constant sun. Recovery author Melodie Beattie wrote, “At no day, no hour, no time are you required to do more than you can do in peace.” Shifting to a slower speed can help you center yourself and promote a clear perspective in recovery.

3. Pay attention to your purchasing patterns. It is easy to lose yourself in the frenzy of consumerism. We have all compulsively purchased something we did not need. There is an amazing number of people who have bought items that they don’t even take out of the box. It is important to ask yourself what the compulsive urge to buy something is all about. What emotion am I trying to avoid? Compulsive purchases not only block awareness of emotional needs, it will set you up to feed the junkie worm in your addiction.

4. Cultivate sensitivity to ways that you presume upon the people around you. If you are an addict and an entrepreneur, you must pay attention to this subtle yet dangerous dynamic in behavior. Are there people around you that you take for granted? Do you expect others to take care of your personal needs? In what ways do you presume upon those around you, your partner, family, colleagues, and those who work for you? It is easy to create a calloused expectation about those who are hired or in a relationship with you that subtly fuels entitlement. Celebrity status is dangerous this way. Most of us think of celebrities as Hollywood, athletic, or rock star status people. But, we are all celebrities in our own world. There are people who look to you and tend to put you on a pedestal no matter who you are or the world you live. Pay attention to the way in which you might presume upon them. The presumption always accelerates an entitled attitude. Entitlement comes from deprivation. Ask yourself what legitimate need must be met that when neglected triggers me to presume upon someone else to meet that need.

Sensitivity to the present moment, nature, and personal patterns that lead to destructive behavior are necessary grounding skills in managing the junkie worm that wants to be fed one way or the other.

Junkie Worm Blues #3 – Outside Distractions

October 8, 2024 by Ken Wells

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“Our boundaries define our personal space–-and we need to be sovereign there in order to be able to step into our full power and potential.” – Jessica Moore

People who are in a relationship with addicts learn to read them like a book. However, oftentimes they deny what they see. For an addict, they don’t even see what is. The ominous cloud of relapse builds when both the addict and support ignore the obvious and embrace the improbable.

Ultimately, as an addict, you are responsible for reading the tea leaves in your life. No one else is responsible for recognizing high risk and managing it but you. Sometimes I hear addicts lament “I need a kick-ass therapist” or a “kick-ass sponsor”. I have learned that ultimately you have to be your own “kick-ass”. In life, we all must learn to be both steel and velvet. Typically, addicts tend to be gentle where they need to be steel and steel where they need to be gentle.

Reading the tea leaves means managing outside distractions that inevitably weigh lay recovery. There are many outside distractions. Hindrances to recovery require boundaries, both internal and external. In the beginning stages of recovery, addicts are in crisis. They gladly do anything to ease the discomfort and save themselves from the crisis they have created by acting out. Over time, the pain eases. That’s when outside distractions come into play. Addicts begin to fit recovery tasks around their lives rather than build their lives around recovery. It can be a subtle shift but it quickly becomes lethal to both sobriety and serenity. The list of outside distractions is many. I want to address one that seems subtle but is prevalent and stymies recovery growth while triggering relapse.

The pressure to function for others

Addicts who want to prioritize their recovery don’t get a pass for being responsible for the demands of everyday living. Those who have taken a break and went to rehab, face the demands of everyday life whenever they step back into their real world. There are family obligations, hopefully work pressures, and suddenly from a sequestered environment, they are faced with the immediate stress to function for others. Many addicts flip out right here.

The outside distractions to function for others who face addiction recovery are immense. Let’s talk about an important one.

Family

There are important family obligations. How do you reintegrate, particularly when your family is dysfunctional? You do that with boundaries, internally as well as externally. Caring for others will look different. In recovery, you must be in control of your life. This means removing toxic influences from your life, including family members. For some, you will need to distance yourself—lovingly but firmly. For others, you will need to practice saying no. It may feel awkward but “No” is a complete sentence. Without internal boundaries, you will lose yourself in the world that gobbled you up in the first place.

If you are in a relationship with a significant other, you both will need recovery support. After all, you did betray them and they have been traumatized by your behavior. Sometimes partners do not want support. The response is that it is your problem, fix it! Addicts are not the only ones who deny the obvious and embrace the improbable. Here’s the scenario. You just ran over your partner with a big Mac truck. It would not make sense for the paramedics to rush to the scene of the accident and pick up you, the driver, and then rush you to the emergency room of the hospital while leaving your partner, the victim, on the side of the road to figure out how to heal! But, that’s the reality when your betrayed partner refuses to accept treatment for the betrayal behavior. Yet, you cannot control your partner’s response. It becomes a distraction to your own recovery. You must practice letting go of your partner’s decision and continue practicing your own recovery.

There are many family dynamics that can become outside distractions to your addiction recovery. You will be required to establish boundaries to maintain sobriety.

Managing outside distractions can be messy. Your success in doing so will be the sum of small steps, repeated day in and day out. When you get out of balance, recalibrate, get back up, and re-balance your priorities. Ignore the temptation to judge yourself by daily results. Pay attention to the seeds of maturity that you are planting. You will become stronger and more resilient in the doing. There’s an old Buddhist proverb that says once you are facing in the right direction, all you have to do is keep walking. When things go wrong just don’t go with them. Make recovery first so that everything you love in life doesn’t have to come last.

Recovery is about living an authentic and meaningful life. You will need to practice the reality that there will be times when your recovery boundaries will disappoint and upset others. Sometimes people you care most about will feel hurt because of your boundaries. It will be important to learn to sit in the reality that some people will reject you and not accept your recovery life and boundaries. It won’t be easy, but it will be essential if you want your life to reflect and fulfill your deepest desires, values, and needs.

Junkie Worm Blues #2 – Managing What Matters

October 4, 2024 by Ken Wells

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“One day of practice is like one day of clean living. It doesn’t do you any good”. – Abe Lemons

One of the crazy experiences about life is that the average experience is so daily. What is average for an addict is the junkie worm blues. Addicts struggle with daydreaming about using. It’s an obsessional fantasy that feels like it never stops. It does but, the tunnel of craving makes it seem never-ending. Most addicts succumb to the junkie worm. We seldom hear about their years of lonely booking dominated by their drug of choice. There are millions of unheard stories of those who pursued their junkie worm blues into oblivion. Each author of an unheard story was an unrepeatable miracle of the universe who simply lost their way into insensibility. Most die that way.

Recovery offers an option. You don’t have to die that way. Addiction is the only prison where the locks are on the inside. Recovery is not a pathway whereby life gets easier and more forgiving. It is a way for you to become stronger and more resilient. Caring for yourself is not self-indulgent. It’s an act of survival. When craving is its strongest it is likened to a bitter cold snap in the winter. Recovery provides the warmth of the summer sun on the inside. It says that no matter how hard the junkie worm pushes against sobriety, there is within you something stronger, pushing right back that buoys you and helps you to maintain center and balance. However, it requires daily practice. Abe Lemons is right, “one day of practice doesn’t do any good”.

Consider daily practicing the following:

1. Practice the basics every day: The other day I heard an addict who was struggling to say to a group of guys who were practicing recovery, “You all speak a foreign language and are impossible to understand. I am not who you are and cannot understand why you do what you do or say what you say”. He’s right, recovering addicts practice a different language and do things far different than when they were practicing addicts. Until you decide to stop acting out and surrender to practicing recovery, the behaviors of recovering addicts won’t make any sense whatsoever.

What are the basics? Doing the 12-steps. Many recovering addicts say they did the steps. But, doing the steps is a lifetime endeavor, not a one-and-done. It doesn’t mean you need to fill out someone’s workbook forever! It does mean that you skillfully assess your life on a daily basis with the 12-steps as a tool for intervention. The 12-steps become a lifestyle, not a goal to complete.

The basics include going to meetings and reaching out to other recovering addicts. Addicts stuck in relapse or who haven’t relapsed but who are stuck in victim posture, fail to reach out. They talk about their phone weighing 500 lbs, and they complain about wherever they are stuck, and don’t go to meetings or connect with others outside the meeting. Eventually, they complain that the 12-step meetings don’t work. Like medicine prescribed by the physician, when you don’t take the med, strangely it doesn’t work and symptoms remain the same!

2. Empower yourself with a deep belief in who you are. It’s not about what you do but who you are. Many addicts believe that they can create successful outcomes and they do! But, doing more never covers up for feeling less. As an addict, you must be willing to go deep down within and face your insecurities, shortcomings, and what you don’t like about yourself. Embrace and believe in who you are. Most addicts deeply believe that if you know what I know about me you would reject me. Ultimately, managing the junkie worm will require that you practice deeply believing in who you are, not what you can do!

3. Anchor yourself with others who believe in you. None of us do recovery in isolation. An early church father, St. John of the Cross, once said “A lone coal outside of the fire soon grows cold”. The fire inside that fuels recovery must be fed by those who believe in who they are. Included are other addicts, loved ones, and those who have gone before you. You must create a grandstand of support from those who deeply believe in who you are. You can access your forefathers, not only those who have passed on who have known you but also those who have inspired you through their writings or lives lived that you have read about. Put all of them in the grandstand of those cheering and believing in who you are.

While practice does not make perfect, it does create the fuel for an addict to progress through the junkie worm blues.

Junkie Worm Blues #1

October 1, 2024 by Ken Wells

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“What’s this thing about the barbershop? And who do you know hangs out there?”
“Addicts do”!
“Really”?
Yeah, and when they hang out too long, they generally get a haircut!”
— Anonymous from one of the guys hanging out at the barbershop

One thing is for sure if you are an addict, you want to do it again and again. It is common for consequences to scare the shit out of you and freeze the junkie worm. But summer always comes and the junkie worm always thaws and pushes to be back in business again. You may run as hard as you can to escape the wolves that chase you through the woods but the junkie worm tells you there’s magic just one more time. So how do you deal with the junkie worm blues?

During the next few blogs, I want to share short vignettes of reflection and suggestions of what I have learned over the past 35 years about managing the junkie worm blues.

1. Yesterday’s addictive actions were an aberration to who you are: You were then and are now an unrepeatable miracle of the universe. Your behaviors are not who you are. It is important to realize that yesterday ended last night. Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.

2. Practice healthy affirmation: It’s a nice thought, but it is usually the last idea you want to consider implementing if you have acted out, again! However, affirming your being, not the addictive behavior, and acting on the affirmation in spite of the critical voice that screams ‘You are a fake, a sham, and a piece of shit’ is the secret to ending addictive behavior for the long term.

3. Embracing your feelings is a paradox. There is a time to sit with your feelings and a time to ignore them and do the next right thing. Recovery wouldn’t be so hard if it wasn’t such a paradox. Addicts struggle to recognize and embrace any feelings. Yet, without being able to sit with feelings, they will never recover. So, once you enroll in kindergarten to identify feelings, you also have to learn that when feelings, like shame and guilt, come up and demand that you wallow in the pig pen of failure, you must learn to ignore those feelings and do the next right thing. It’s a moving dynamic that requires practice, consultation and accountability.

4. Commit to writing out and talking about your feelings every day. In the beginning, for an addict, the conversation about feelings will be short. It is always hard. Stay with them anyway. Your feelings will tell you what need must be met in a healthy way.

5. Practice deep breathing. Your breathing will open or block feelings that come from the heart. It doesn’t take much to breathe deeply from your diaphragm. It will touch your anxiety and break through stress to help you know what you feel which will tell you how to take care of yourself under the duress of every day living.

Recovery Lesson From A House Fly

September 20, 2024 by Ken Wells

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“Persistence does not mean banging your head against the wall repeatedly and hoping it shall break one day. That’s just going to break your head. Persistence is about having the common sense to come back with a sledgehammer to break the wall. If that doesn’t work, come back with a bulldozer. If that doesn’t work, use dynamite. If that doesn’t work, look around a little bit to see if there is a hidden door in the wall that you missed! If that doesn’t work, just find another damn wall or stop looking for walls at all.”
―Anubhav Srivastava,

I was watching a common house fly bang up against the window pane in my living room. When I snuck up on it with my leather fly swatter, it took off into the hinterparts of my house only to return again and again to the light and warmth of the window pane, willing to face seeking escape from the fear of death of my leather fly swatter. The fly was quick and alert and I missed smashing him against the window sill many times. I thought to myself why doesn’t this fly realize that he cannot break through the window sill? Does he not know that sooner or later his options for escape from the swatter will run out? Why not look for a hole in the screen at the back of my house or wait till the door opens and then exit? This predictable pattern repeated itself until even the quick and savvy fly ran out of escapes and fell victim to a swat, becoming unrecognizable, smashed on the window sill.

As I contemplated the demise of the house fly I thought about what keeps us stuck in behaviors that sabotage our recovery growth or trigger us toward unhealthy, high risk behaviors. Addicts are like house flies, banging up against the window pane– seeking that which is beyond our reach and control.

To the fly, freedom looked so clear through the window pane, feeling the warmth of the sun. It just couldn’t figure out that freedom was never going to happen by banging against the pane to avoid death!

I want you to think about what it is that deters and stymies your recovery growth. Why do you keep banging your head against the window pane in your life? Does the warmth of other suns from one more fling tell you that somehow you can break through the window pane once and for all and find your bliss? Does the junkie worm with con and cajole tell you ‘there’s magic just one more time’? Do you tell yourself that there is something richer, deeper than sobriety? Do you tell yourself that no matter what you say about who you are or what you do, you are never understood? Does lonely booking with an ugly shame-over trigger disconnect and make you want to forget the permanence of the window pane? Do you find yourself running as hard as you can with all the mojo you can muster to avoid the fly swatter? With whip and whimper, darkness and defeat, have you discovered that there’s no magic or mojo in your addictive pursuit? With all the meaning of life squeezed out, does emptiness reside with no escape route?

Then try compassion which is love birthed inside before it makes its way out. Let it grow in the midst of struggle, in the heart that is weary with wrestle and wrangle. Embrace the turmoil of anger and hate and their powers that nag and rag and never let go with the strength of self love. When you face what you fear and embrace what you feel, you transform your insides—the rage and hate—to something that is real. It’s been the only thing I know that provides an effective escape route from the fly swatter. It transforms a lot of hell into a little bit of heaven called sobriety.

What to Say When the Truth is You Don’t Know

September 10, 2024 by Ken Wells

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The discovery of relational betrayal is a shocking experience for everyone connected to the gauntlet of disclosure. The betrayer is challenged to expose hidden secrets that destroy trust. The betrayed waits for words that are daggers to the heart. The end result is a crushing carnage of hurt that cripples and at times is irreparable.

Couples who try to survive this tsunami of emotional pain experience a roller coaster of devastating feelings that rock their foundation. Stress on the relationship is extreme. Often, the betrayer doesn’t disclose all of the details, and the betrayed is left to wait for the next shoe to fall. The betrayer pulls away from further details of disclosure like someone retreating after touching a hot stove. Heartache and anger are inevitable to the betrayed in the presence of shock and disbelief. The intensity escalates each partner to polarizing positions toward each other.

Addicts often ask, “What do I say when my partner asks why I betrayed and then did it again? Were you thinking of me before you decided to violate your vows to me?” The question begs for an answer and a salve that will make the pain go away. The dilemma is that no matter what you say there is no fix because you cannot make the pain go away with words. Many addicts panic when asked why because they don’t know the answer and can’t think of a solution.

There are a few things you can do.

1. You can respond by saying it straight. Tell on yourself when you have minimized or omitted hurtful admissions. Clarify your behavior that added a crazy-making environment to your betrayed partner. Surrender to the distrust your partner felt because of your deceit. When asked “Why would you do this to me and your kids?” Be honest. Don’t evade tough questions. If you don’t know, admit it. In time, recovery and treatment will help you know why and you can express your understanding then. However, in the moment be clear and truthful and let go of trying to fix your partner’s anguish. Easier said than done but necessary.

2. Let go of trying to fix your partner’s pain. When you see your partner in agony, it is normal to want to say or do something to take away the pain. Trying to fix it by saying what you think they want to hear will backfire. Saying you’re sorry and promising to never do the behavior again will not take away the never-ending pain. Betrayers who obsessively try to fix their betrayed partner’s hurt with attempts at solution responses focus on trying to escape not only their partner’s pain but also their own self-contempt. Healing advances for both parties when the hurt from devastation is recognized. The only way to resolve the pain is to go through the heartache and the intense feelings that accompany broken trust. So, stop repeating “I’m sorry!” Don’t offer any more solutions for the betrayed partner’s pain. Sit with your own disturbed breach of personal values. Let this journey be your path to healing. Allow your partner to have their personal struggle to get through your crippling conduct.

3. You can validate! Replace empty promises and apologies with validating words and behavior. When your partner screams out in pain, simply validate that what they feel makes sense and is as awful as they feel and express. When pain is expressed by those you’ve hurt, save explanations of your behavior and simply validate. Later will be a better time to give the needed explanation. Needed apologies are appropriate after you have painstakingly validated the harm you have done when your partner expresses grief and hurt from your betrayal.

You will need to validate your own pain. Becoming busy with recovery programs, vocational work, or tending to family activities can become a way of escape and avoidance from your own emotional pain. You will need to validate your pain in order to authentically be present for the pain of your betrayed partner.

Essentially, betrayal is a traumatization of both the betrayer and the betrayed. You will need to say it straight to yourself and your partner. You will need to lean into the pain of your hurtful behavior. There are no words that fix it. Healing will require that you validate yourself and the one whose heart is broken by your betrayal behavior. These actions are more healing than the words you choose to explain or attempt to alleviate the pain in the presence of betrayal behavior.

Taking What Is and Making It Work

September 6, 2024 by Ken Wells

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Feelings in recovery can be like a pendulum that swings from one extreme to the other. There are times that we are oversensitive and other times we are not sensitive enough. Sometimes we seem to work very hard to make something out of nothing and other times we need to take what we think is nothing and make something from it. For example, you can perceive someone’s silence as rejection in an instant, and then build what Mark Nepo describes as a cold castle on that tiny imagined brick. In this way, you make assumptions about what can turn out to be nothing. Other times you might go to a 12-step meeting that lacks the chemistry you hoped for. You don’t know anyone, there’s no coffee and you honestly feel turned off by everyone who is present. This becomes the time that recovery would require you to make something out of nothing. How many times have you walked away from a meeting empty and how many times did you shift your attitude and walked away with insights of gold? It becomes about attitude and your willingness to shift your spirit.

So much of recovery is about taking what is and spreading it around to make it enough. There are many things you don’t have to have to be successful in recovery. You don’t have to have the best addiction counselor in the field—you are not the best client, so why would you need the best counselor? It’s not imperative that you pay an exorbitant amount to the greatest guru or an arm and a leg for treatment that you really cannot afford. You don’t have to find a “kick-ass” sponsor. The list of imagined unnecessary requirements can be endless.

There are some things you must have. You will need an attitude to do whatever it takes to be sober. You will need to employ the capacity to take what is spread it around and make it enough. These two ingredients will take you to where you need to go in order to access who you need to work with and to engage in what you need to face in order to be sober and find healing. Here are some considerations to help you cultivate these characteristics:

1. Embrace grit and grind in recovery: I am not a big fan of providing plush conditions for addiction recovery. I also don’t promote the opposite, that austere conditions are required for recovery. I just believe that what is needed to do sobriety is a willing attitude to embrace grit and grind. One of the spiritual virtues of the 12 steps in recovery is courage. Recovery does not happen by way of convenience. Addicts in recovery build their lives around recovery, not the other way around. Ninety meetings in ninety days require a commitment to a whatever-it-takes mentality. Recovery requires more than merely jumping through the hoops. It demands that you tell on yourself at each meeting and that you not leave the meeting without getting one thing to help you remain sober and deepen recovery life. You then follow up with accountability by reaching out to someone to help you to incorporate in your recovery what you discovered in your last meeting. When you do these three things 90 times in 90 days, tell me you won’t get better! Yet, it requires grit and grind because these things are simple but not easy to do.

2. Practice gratitude: You will lose meaningfulness in recovery living if you do not practice gratitude. The challenges in recovery are so daily! Every day’s struggle to do the next right thing requires embracing the grit and grind. But, you won’t be able to remain consistent in this effort without practicing gratitude. Take your eyes away from the challenge and choose to be grateful for what is around you. Notice the birds around you, your kids, your pets, your neighbors, the intricacies of everything outdoors, your partner, and your job. The list of gratitude is endless. Yet, this practice will take what is and make it more. At the next meeting you attend, that doesn’t have what you are looking for, practice gratitude and see what you find in the meeting after doing so.

3. Practice being generative: Believe it or not, your recovery is not all about you! Living sober creates a foundation of living whereby you can become generative. Generativity means any activity that contributes to the development of others and to the life of the generations that come after you. It’s a way of living. Addicts practice the 12 steps to end the crazy-making experience of addictive living. The power of healing is legendary. However, healing would be short-lived without the emphasis of Step 12. Step 12 encourages addicts to pass along the hope for recovery to the next generation of addicts in need of healing. The 12-step program was never designed to be insular but inclusive. Twelve-step generativity is about the mentality of sharing hope for transformation to those without hope. Addicts with experience in recovery point to promise and healing to the generations that come after them. This is the nature of generativity spawned from the 12th Step.

The story is told of a 10-year-old boy who loved peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. When he went to get the peanut butter jar to add to his jelly sandwich, he noticed daylight at the bottom of the peanut butter jar. Dejected, he threw away the peanut butter and walked out of the kitchen with nothing. His dad called him back to the kitchen, took the peanut butter jar from the trash, scraped the sides so that his son had 1/2” of peanut butter rather than the usual 1”, slapped it with the jelly slice and his son now had something where he otherwise would have had nothing.

Recovery requires that we take what is when resources are less than ideal and make something from nothing. This art form of recovery will require your personal grit and grind, the magic of your grateful spirit, and a commitment to generative recovery living.

Taking Time To Learn From Yesterday

September 3, 2024 by Ken Wells

READ IT TO ME: Click play to listen to this post.

“Life is meant to be lived forward but can only be understood backwards.” —Soren Kierkegaard

Many times people disconnect their past from their present experience. In the addiction recovery world, there is a reference made to walking around the elephant in the living room. It highlights how denial fuels the function of addictive behavior. In order to survive, an addict learns to live a pretend life by ignoring what is real and embracing what is fictitious. This dysfunctional way of living paves a pathway toward addiction behavior. People learn to live a disconnected life.

Twenty-five hundred years ago, the Buddha emphasized the importance of the interconnectedness of everything. He said for us to look at a leaf. It contains the sky, the earth, and the sun in terms of what it needs to grow. He said the birth and death of any phenomenon is related to the birth and death of all other phenomena. The one contains the many and the many contain the one. Without the one, there cannot be the many and without the many there cannot be the one.

Life is interconnected. It becomes a tapestry that weaves the healthy experience with the dysfunctional. It connects bitter with sweet. It couples joy with sorrow and success with failure. It is all intersectional.

Important studies suggest that people are biopsychosocial beings. This means that we cannot isolate our physical essence from our mind and we cannot separate the individual from the environment. The history of your environmental background is significant for you to better understand the struggles that you experience around addictive behavior. Studies show that growing up in a family with a lot of stress and relational isolation impacts children’s ability to learn. A child learns to dissociate from stress and anxiety in early childhood. Later the child easily connects the numbing out with addictive behavior.

Studies show that economics matter too. People who are poor face more stress than others. They are more likely to breathe polluted air, have less access to healthcare, and be unable to address preventative health concerns, including emotional concerns because they do not have the resources to do so. They are more likely to become a victim of a system that considers material things more important than connection as human beings.

All of this suggests it is important to look backward in order to understand your present addictive behavior. Your addiction indicates a desire to escape stress and anxiety, not only present but historical. You will need to unpack childhood stress in order to release its destructive impact. Many parents have done their best while facing impossible circumstances. Understanding your addiction as not a result of poor choices but as a coping mechanism that evolved from unmet needs or abuse will help you integrate effective treatment so that you can look forward without being dominated by addiction.

Studies show that you are actually wired for connection, love, and compassion. A supportive 12-step community can have a huge impact on long-term sobriety. Here are some suggestions to help you reconnect your past with your present.

1. Connect with nature: Take a walk through the woods. Notice the energy of life all around you. Slow your thoughts and connect your awareness to the plant life, the birds in the air, and the ants on the ground. See yourself as a part of the greater energy of life.

2. Connect with others: Studies show that we have less contact, intimacy, and trust with others than ever before. Call a friend. Take time to listen to what’s important in their life. Take time to share what is important to you. Be willing to be vulnerable. Share what hurts and longings that are left unmet. Risk trusting that your friend cares about what matters to you. Put yourself out there and show that you care what matters to them.

3. Connect with what is meaningful in your work: Many experience their work as meaningless. There is no vision or passion. As a result, they turn to how they look, the accumulation of things, etc. But, they have no sense of value in what they do at their work. Determine to reconnect with making a difference in what you do for work. It may be something that others will not notice when you do it. You may not be rewarded financially. Yet, finding meaningfulness in your work will help you reconnect with yourself.

4. Connect with yourself: Most people have had gut feelings that they ignored and wish they hadn’t. This suggests that some people learn to separate from themselves. Two-year-olds know what they feel in their gut and express it. Gut feelings tell us what is friendly and what is dangerous. They tell us what is true and what is false. Take time to listen to your heart. Pay attention to your feelings. It will help you regain connection with yourself and integrate that connection with the world around you.

Being connected to yourself, others, and the world around you requires that you embrace the insights from the past while keeping your eyes focused on the present moment. We are biopsychosocial beings that need healthy connections with all living things.

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