Accessibility and free availability are great, but the content, sponsorship, twelve steps, and sense of community are equally helpful. Knowing that you are not alone in the recovery process is so important. Meeting others who are working on recovery provides a valuable resource to everyone who is in the group. “Old timers” in AA who have twenty or thirty years of sobriety help those who have been sober for two days. The ability to find a sponsor is an amazing addition to AA. Rehab centers work with clients to create a “sobriety” network, friends and family who will help with the client’s recovery by not drinking around them. Having a sponsor in AA provides the person newly in recovery with someone who has “been there and done that.” The twelve steps of AA are therapeutic in nature and can help people heal their own lives and those of the people around them. Earlier in the book, I explained how AA’s “fearless moral inventory” is analogous to the four steps of forgiveness I recommend.
So why is AA included in the list of coping skills? For many people struggling with addiction, trauma is an underlying cause. AA is great, but it doesn’t adequately address trauma (and it’s not designed to do so). While removing chemically dependency is helpful, unless trauma is addressed, the likelihood of relapse is high. When pulling weeds from your garden, you have to get the roots. The trauma is the root, and the weed is addiction. If you have tried AA or NA before with limited success but have now completed the Fritz, give AA a shot again. With the underlying root removed, the likelihood of remaining sober increases.
There are also other groups for people affected by addiction. Like AA, these groups are easily found on the internet. Al-Anon is designated for people who love someone who has an addiction, including spouses, husbands, wives, parents, girlfriends, and boyfriends. Loved ones find support, education about addiction, and information on how to set proper boundaries and how to love from a distance, if needed. ACoA stands for Adult Children of Alcoholics. Here, adult children find support, discuss how to cope, set boundaries, and practice their own recovery.
In addition to groups addressing substance addiction, there are other groups that might be beneficial. Similar in design to AA, Overeaters Anonymous (OA), Sexaholics Anonymous (SA), and Gamblers Anonymous (GA) all address potentially unhealthy coping strategies.
All in all, I’m a huge fan of twelve-step programs. With the underlying trauma or grief addressed and hopefully resolved using the Fritz, your chances of success in these groups increases drastically. So even if you have tried these groups before, give it a shot again. They have helped millions.
2. The Serenity Prayer
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
There is so much wisdom in this single sentence that I’ve included it in this list. This expression is common in twelve-step programs and is often said before closing out each meeting. But it has other uses, too.
I often use the Serenity Prayer to explain healthy boundaries in interpersonal relationships. Let’s start with the first part. As humans, we have almost scary limits on the amount of control we have and only limited things we can change. We have control over what we do with our hands, our feet, and what we say or don’t say. But other than that, control is limited. You can do everything right and bad things can still happen. Being the best driver in the world won’t stop someone from hitting your car. Be the perfect parent, and your child may still develop an addiction. Manage your diet, exercise regularly, never smoke or drink, and you may still develop cancer. You have responsibility for yourself only, and even when you do everything right, things still go wrong. For all the things that you cannot change, you need the serenity of acceptance.
Think about the last time you were frustrated with your boss, partner, or adult child, all people that you cannot change. Frustration with others can be a sign that you wish to change something that cannot be changed. If you have a child with an addiction, you have likely felt this. You want the best for your child, but ultimately, their sobriety is their journey, not yours. Try to change something that you can’t, and the first consequence is frustration. The second consequence is likely to be anger or guilt. Jim felt he should bring his sons back to life. Instead, Jim needed the serenity to accept the loss.
Let’s talk more about the second part of the prayer, the courage the change the things I can. It’s hard to change almost any behavior. Getting a toddler to stop sucking their thumb, or for an adult, remaining sober from alcohol or starting a new diet are all challenging. What do people need to face challenges? Courage. Going to your first AA or NA meeting is scary; going to a gym for the first time is scary; breaking up with an abusive partner is scary. Again, all require courage. This is probably the most helpful reframe for people who find it difficult to do these behaviors. People who go to AA meetings and admit they struggle with addiction are brave. Telling your therapist that you were raped requires courage. Opening up to your therapist and discussing the rape in detail requires even more courage. This is why I prefer the expression “rape survivor” to “rape victim.” Surviving after abuse, or surviving after someone you love has died, requires strength and courage.
The last part of the prayer is the wisdom to know the difference. The difference between what you can and cannot change is vast, and knowing the difference requires wisdom. This is one of those life lessons in which experience can be a brutal teacher, where the lesson will be learned after the class is taught. To summarize, we are in control of ourselves, and that is about all we can control. When people try to change other people, it is often frustrating and fruitless, and our efforts are likely best used in managing ourselves first.
3. Diaphragmatic Breathing
Earlier in the book, I mentioned that stress activates the “alarm switch” in your brain, causing your body to react accordingly. One of the most unpleasant symptoms of a panic attack is the feeling that you can’t breathe, because you are breathing so hard. This is called hyperventilation. People do sometimes hyperventilate to the point that they faint. You may also have noticed that anxiety is sometimes accompanied by short, shallow breaths. This decreases the available oxygen in your bloodstream, and guess what? Your brain likes oxygen. In fact, your brain likes oxygen so much that if there is too little oxygen, the brain freaks out and creates the feeling of anxiety to warn you that something is very wrong.
That vicious cycle can continue, potentially indefinitely. You feel anxious, your respiration changes, your body becomes deoxygenated and freaks out, and you feel more anxious, thus completing the circle. But here’s the good news, there is a simple and extremely effective way to break this cycle, and it’s called diaphragmatic breathing.
The diaphragm is a dome-shaped muscle located at the base of your lungs; while it works with your abdominal muscles, it is responsible for pulling your lungs down, which fills them with air. You can feel it working right now—take a deep breath. It is right beneath your ribs and on top of your stomach; it separates the two. If you take a deep breath, you’ll also learn that the diaphragm is a muscle that you can voluntarily control, which is great and important for the following exercise. Taking manual control over your breathing allows you to shift from the anxious, short, shallow breaths to longer, deeper, calming breaths. Taking deeper breaths (filling your lungs with air) allows more air into your lungs. where oxygen can be extracted and sent into the bloodstream. Oxygenating your body has a calming effect and breaks the above described cycle. So how do you do it?
1.Get into a comfortable position.
a. If you do this in a chair, sit upright and find a balance where your spine is as straight as possible. Your torso should support itself in an upright stance. The goal here is to get into a position where you don’t have to strain yourself to stay upright.
b. If you are lying down, lie on your back with your head supported and held in place by a pillow. Again, the goal here is to find
a position that requires little muscle involvement other than the ones used for breathing.
2.Place one hand on your chest and one on your stomach. Take a moment to observe which hand is moving more. If you are anxious, it is likely that the hand on your chest is moving more while the one on your stomach might not be moving at all. If the hand on your chest is moving more, this is a signal that you are taking shallow breaths and only filling the top third of your lungs.
3.Take control of the breath. Breathe in slowly through your nose. Keep taking in air until the hand on your stomach begins to move. You’ll likely notice that moving the hand on your stomach requires longer, deeper breaths. Different authorities recommend different amounts of time for these longer breaths, anywhere from five to ten seconds. As long as you are moving the hand on your stomach, it probably doesn’t matter. But I would recommend taking your time. Imagine there is a candle in front of your mouth; you want to breathe out enough to move the flame, but not so quickly that you blow it out.
4.Continue this style of breathing for some time. At first, aiming for just a couple of minutes will be adequate and helpful. As you get more comfortable with this type of breathing, you can extend the amount of time you breathe this way to five minutes, ten minutes, or fifteen minutes, etc.
If you just did this exercise, how do you feel? I would guess that you feel better now than you did a few minutes ago. This is a very simple but highly effective way to manage anxiety, and one of my favorite parts is you can do this in public and no one will know.
4. The Five Questions for Rational Thinking2
The five questions for rational thinking were derived by Dr. Maxie Maultsby during his work as a psychiatric resident at the University of Wisconsin. The purpose of the five questions is to help people identify sensible thinking and behavior that keeps our own best interests in mind. The goal for the individual is to commit the five rules (or questions) in mind to ensure that you are always acting in your own self-interest. First, I’ll list what the five questions are and then go into more depth regarding each.
The Five Questions for Rational Thinking
1.Is my thinking based on objective facts?
2.Will my thinking help me protect myself from probable harm?
3.Will my thinking here help me achieve my short- and long-term goals?
4.Will my thinking here help me avoid conflict with others?
5.Will my thinking help me feel the way I want to feel?
Is my thinking based on objective facts?
This question refers to how people think about what they consider to be facts and what they consider to be truth. Facts refer to objective reality, which exists whether anyone knows about it, likes it, or accepts it. What people consider to be true, however, is simply what they believe. The distinction may appear small, but when you really think about it, most emotional reactions are based on what is believed to be true, not on objective fact. If you believe your spouse is having an affair, you might become angry, but without proof, the affair is only your belief, not objective reality. Imagine an event, any event, being recorded by a video camera. Facts are seen on the recording. Anything that the camera cannot record is merely your opinion.
Will my thinking protect me from probable harm?
Because you are alive and reading this, you have a choice to make: to live self-destructively or to live self-protectively. Thinking, “I’ve only had a few drinks and I’m okay to drive home” exemplifies self-destructive thinking. A self-protective line of thinking might be, “I’ve only had a few drinks, but I should still call a cab just in case.” Different lines of thinking result in helpful or harmful behaviors. Exploring the consequences of your thinking will be helpful for emotional health.
Will my thinking help me obtain my short- and long-term goals?
Hope is one of the primary forces behind all behavior. People go to school and pursue a higher education with the hope of obtaining a good job. People meet, date, and marry a partner with the hope that they will have a long, happy marriage. People go to therapy with the hope they will feel better. Most if not all of the things you do today are in some way related to what you want to do tomorrow or in the future.
Of the five questions, this one is especially important in addressing short-term and long-term concerns. For example, telling your boss how horrible he is might feel better in the short term, but losing your job is not good in the long term. Drinking after a stressful day may be a good short-term solution, but if relied on frequently, can develop into alcohol addiction, which is obviously not good for your long-term health. I use this line of questioning frequently with my clients. For the young boy who wants to become a surgeon, I say, “Great, you need to go to school today, pay attention, do the homework, and study. Then tomorrow, do it all again. And then the day after that, do it all again.” For the alcoholic in recovery, I recommend AA meetings. Going to an AA meeting decreases the chances that you will drink today and helps you reach the long-term goal of sobriety.
All behavior is purposeful, and ensuring that it is goal-oriented is a good approach to take when considering how to live your day-to-day life.
Will my thinking here help me avoid conflict with others?
What you might consider to be a conflict may be different than what others might consider to be a conflict. However, with that in mind, significant conflict is what you consider to be above the threshold of the amount you think is acceptable. For example, having an affair and thereby cheating on your spouse is going to cause conflict with others. Being argumentative with your mother-in-law is going to cause conflict with others. Drinking excessively might cause conflict with others. I think this question is simple to understand. If your thinking does not help you avoid conflict with others, especially with someone who has your best interests in mind, it might be best to change this line of thinking.
Will my thinking here help me feel the way I want to feel?
Irrational thinking can contribute (heavily) to how you feel. Ever get rejected by someone you have a crush on? It hurts…of course, right? However, if you are rejected by someone you have a crush on and then tell yourself, “I’m going to be alone forever,” that will obviously hurt more. A key component to how your thinking may influence how you feel is if your thinking is hopeless. When people experience depression, as an example, telling yourself, “It will never get better” is a loss of hope. When you are depressed and hopeless, things like suicide might seem like a viable option. If you are depressed and you tell yourself, “I can get help, and it will get better,” it can instill hope.
Using these five questions can help people who are experiencing negative emotions to challenge their thinking and manage their moods. When you are working to cope with how you feel, challenging your thinking may be beneficial, and it is listed in the appendix as a result.
5. Hobbies/Recreational Activities
This one is so obvious, people often forget about it. Hobbies and recreational activities are closely tied in with the theme of self-care. Recreational activity (unless it is recreational drug use) is almost always good for your emotional well-being. And for the record, work doesn’t count as a hobby or recreational activity.
For me (Dr. Walden), my recreational activities are cooking and fishing. Fishing typically involves exercise, because I’m kayak fishing. I can go outside in beautiful Florida with just the birds, wind, waves, and hopefully fish. If all goes as planned, the result is cooking the fresh fish. Cooking requires patience, experience, and continued learning, and there’s always a new dish or recipe to make. It engages all five of your senses, allows for creativity, and has successes and failures (such as burned dishes). And best of all, when you are done, you get a meal out of it. For me, these two activities are hobbies that I do multiple times a week—a welcome mental engagement with something that isn’t psychotherapy. This mental engagement allows me to recharge, destress, and look forward to the n
ext day when I get to help more people.
If you are struggling to identify a hobby, my suggestion is to ask yourself if there is something you used to enjoy and maybe start there. I can’t tell you how often I hear people talk about how much they used to play piano, or paint, or go hunting, but then say they “don’t do that anymore.” Why not? Most people will report, “I can’t because I don’t have time,” or, “I don’t have the money.”
We are all busy, and time seems to slip away from all of us. However, engaging in and enjoying a hobby is an investment in yourself. Doing something fun helps you cope with everything else in your life. You must grant yourself permission to enjoy yourself, or else what will all this hard work be good for?
As for money, I’m sure that if you asked 99 percent of the people you and I know “Would you like to make more money?” they would say yes. I get that, there are certain expenses to doing things, and fishing is an example. Rods, reels, line, and bait can all add up and be expensive. But recreational activities can also be very low-cost, or even free. Here in Florida, watching the sunset while sitting on the beach is very low-cost and extremely relaxing. Listening to music (whether radio or playing your old recordings) can be very relaxing. Playing games with loved ones can be very relaxing.
Still having trouble thinking of something? Ask your friends and family what they do for fun and try it, maybe even with them. That’s how I started fishing. I loved going fishing with my dad. My mother loves gardening, which is personally not my cup of tea, but we both enjoy cooking and have cooked together. Other people collect stamps or coins, build model replicas of cars or planes, or pursue genealogy, furniture restoration, restoring classic cars, or carpentry; it could be anything.
Well, almost anything. There are things that I would not consider a good hobby or recreational activity, watching TV as an example. Watching TV is a passive activity physically and mentally. Physically, you are sitting on your couch or lying in bed and watching TV. Mentally, TV is rarely something with which people are rarely fully engaged; it simply washes over you. Contrast TV with cooking, where you must follow directions, mix ingredients, and observe cooking times. TV is more of a distraction, whereas a good hobby requires mental and emotional engagement. Other distractions include excessive social media use and video games. Hobbies engage your brain, require focus, and provide a pathway to self-esteem.
Keep Pain in the Past Page 20
