Some people use drugs

Some people use sex

Some people turn to the bottle

Some turn to violence becoming plain thugs

Others keep moving or don’t move at all

Then there are those adrenaline junkies going full throttle

So many of us obessed with being perfect, having control and making money

Running from people who did not show love

Running from people who loved them too much

Running from abusers, prepetrators and nightmares there of

Running to escape nightmares that haunt them

Running from responsibility

Or taking on too much

All of this running just to escape someone or something

Never realizing that what they are running from is themselves

We spend so much time searching to fill some big void

Looking for love, acceptence and approval

Searching to fulfill that wounded child that just wants to be hugged

Stop running

Sit still

 The search is over

Embrace your power

Change your mind

Listen to your heart

The answer has been there all along

written by Lise Thompson (Counsellor)

When people come to treatment or engage in some sort of addictions counselling, they sometimes feel a pressure to not have any urges to use.  Some people actually don’t have urges once they seek help but most do.  The ability to discuss this has not always been open.  I’ve watched many clients behave in ways and say certain things that show they are still ambivalent and think about either using or the culture of using.  But they don’t express what they are truly feeling because they want to be socially accepted; or they want to deny to even themselves that these feelings creep around underneath the surface.  There becomes a stigma in treatment that one should not have feelings or thoughts about using because why on earth would they be in treatment if they wanted to use.  This is all unsaid and gets reinforced even by practitioners that subconsciously feel like failures if their clients still want to use.  Much of this is due to a long time of poor knowledge of addiction, as well as, extreme judgment of addiction.

It needs to be more accepted that changing takes time.  Most people have either thoughts or dreams of using soon after they stop or enter treatment.  There is nothing “wrong” with this.  It might be disconcerting to those who just want it all to go away but it is also very normal.  Intense desires such as those that fuel the process of addiction are not shed overnight.   The other drawback to this unsaid phenomenon is that substance abusers trying to quit start to feel like failures when they have cravings and urges!  How debilitating!  You are not failing or bad at recovery if you have urges to use, even intense thoughts.  You are also not failing recovery if you lapse or relapse.  What? How so?  You do not have to go back to ground zero if you relapse.  You just need to turn around and observe what you just tripped on then keep on going.  Brush yourself off.  You do not have to delve deeper into a full-blown relapse or beat yourself up.  Natural feelings of guilt will arise as your behavior is going against your values of wanting to quit, but it does not have to carry deeper into shame.  Shame is feeling bad about yourself while guilt is feeling bad about your behavior.  Therefore, just having dreams, thoughts, and cravings to use does not mean you are doing recovery wrong.  It means you are a normal person trying to quit something that has had strong chemical and psychological holds on your whole person.  It also means it has been the number one way to cope and deal with everyday life and until your newly acquired skills are fully developed, you will sometimes want to resort back to what feels best.  But remember, just because you WANT to resort back and want to use, does not mean you HAVE TO use.

This idea or line of thinking that I am describing goes for so much more than just addiction.  In our society, we hold addiction to an unintelligently different standard of expectations for change.  Most people take a while to change behaviors/states such as anger, upset, smoking, eating, exercise, depression, anxiety, workaholism, sex, etc.  These same people relapse MANY TIMES!!  But for some reason people with substance abuse problems should get over them more quickly than everyone else who has unwanted, unhealthy behavior.  Interesting, huh?

Here at Crossroads we encourage clients to discuss both sides of their ambivalence: the side that wants to quit and the side that isn’t quite on board yet, or sometimes the side that really enjoys using and doesn’t want to stop.  Carl Jung (famous Depth psychologist) talks about a concept called Shadow which holds aspects of ourselves we suppress away that we don’t want to see or express.  Eventually, our shadow finds ways to be seen.  It is easier to reflect on the unwanted parts of us and get to know them.  Sometimes they will teach us things that no other part of ourselves could teach.  It is like the saying, “better the devil you know than the devil you don’t,” which illustrates the idea that you can do something about your shadow side of cravings and urges if you know them and explore them.  If you hide them and push them away they will find weird ways out that do not reach your conscious mind.  Basically you won’t know what you are up against.

My thoughts are you might as well talk about what you feel/experience because you are already feeling/experiencing it. Don’t be afraid to explore all parts of you because they all lead to healing.  Just because we have thoughts that scare us doesn’t mean those thoughts are who we are.  Those of you early in recovery or even long time in recovery, allow those thoughts to come to the surface and find a safe person to share them with.  Find a way to give them voice so that voice becomes less powerful. Do not feel like a failure, or that you won’t succeed in treatment or recovery because you have urges, thoughts, feelings, even yearnings about your using life.  You are always up against the choice of how you want to live your life and the more choices you make in one direction the more ingrained that way of life becomes.  It can always be changed.  So let yourself be open to the exploration process of all parts of you and there will be less shame.  Put it all on the table so you know what you are working with and you’ll be further along than if you didn’t.

Post written by: Jason McCarty, Outpatient Therapist

I was with a client the other day and felt that helplessness I sometimes feel working in addictions. This person wanted it all to stop and I wanted to help them. I discussed my frustrations with a colleague and was reminded that it takes time. Cravings won’t go away immediately. There is no quick fix. It is a process that takes time, commitment, and most of all, hope. If you are a parent or a service provider, being reminded that change takes time will help you have the space to actually help. I couldn’t “fix” that client that day and it wouldn’t even be beneficial for that person to be “fixed”. The change process is full of learning and growth that does not come easy. Addiction perpetuates a need for quick fixes and immediate gratification. As helpers, or family members of substance abusers, clients will do best with our consistent plugging away with them combined with the instillation of hope. People change. People can change. People do get clean.

If you are addicted, this mindset can also benefit you. Seeing the process a little more realistically will help to keep the discouragement at bay. Know that if you stay on the road to recovery and seek help, you will get clean. There might be ups and downs but that doesn’t mean you’re not going forward. Give yourself some time. Change is a combination of baby steps and periodic leaps. It takes time.

Post written by: Jason McCarty, Outpatient Therapist

In my work with substance abusers in residential treatment, I’ve noticed that the ability to initiate the recovery process is a two-decision process.  Before I get into that process I want to address a phenomenon that occurs with practitioners working in this field.  We often have clients who seem resistant to treatment or counselling and for the most part this is normal.  Not everyone comes to treatment super motivated, and some come to alleviate pressure from family and friends.  Some clients going through treatment or counselling will not comply with all programming or homework assignments and this is just where they are.  When clients are showing some of this resistance many of us assume they are “not yet ready for treatment,” or they “just aren’t finished using yet.”  For some clients this is true, but this assessment can sometimes be a mistake with others.

The client who actually isn’t ready for treatment did not choose to quit yet.  I even say that statement with caution because we don’t really know this.  People are complicated and our resistances are there to protect us, whether one calls it denial or something else.  Someone may go to treatment and come across a personality type in their counsellor that keeps them from moving forward with being open.  We all then decide that client isn’t ready.  This may or may not be true.  What is going on behind a person’s resistance and defenses is not knowable until it is.  We can make some general assumptions and logical inductions, but we don’t really know what is or isn’t motivating that person.  Let’s say that client did not make the choice to really quit, that his/her parents, spouse, friends, etc, pushed her/him to come to treatment.  That client has not yet made the first decision in the process of recovery.  The first decision is to stop and want a different life.

Isn’t that enough?  Wouldn’t that motivate someone to get clean?  No, not completely.  Someone could decide to stop, go to treatment, but not fully benefit.  They say they want to stop but yet, seem to be standing still.  There is an old adage in the addiction treatment community that if you want to change you have to change everything.  That can be quite scary to most people.

So what does the second decision consist of then?  The second decision is to move forward with doing the work. We talk quite often in the addiction treatment world of “doing the work”, and this really entails the examining, changing, and processing of one’s emotions, thoughts, behaviors, and relationships, to keep it simple. Doing the hard work sometimes is about being vulnerable enough to allow other human beings to help. Doing the hard work sometimes means exploring events of the past that continue to keep one stuck.  Doing the hard work sometimes means deciding who one wants to be.  Doing the hard work sometimes means taking medication.  Doing the hard work sometimes means taking more responsibility for one’s life.  Although I describe this as hard work, it can be, and usually is, very rewarding and transforming.  The pain that most people are in emotionally is about the fear of their pain, not the actual pain.  Facing our own demons and pain is not as painful or scary as the fear about having that pain.

To quit and be successful, these two decisions might need to be revisited or renewed often in early recovery.  It is also important to determine what one needs in order to follow through with both decisions.  Sometimes that is support from others.  Other times it is letting go.  I have watched clients stay “on deck” like a batter on a baseball team and not step up to the plate.  It is like they are in a holding cell.  This assessment is not a negative judgment toward those clients, it’s just where they are.  I wonder, “what does this person need to move into the batter’s box?”  They’ve obviously decided to play this game (i.e. recovery, treatment, counselling) but they sure are having a hard time “getting in there.”  As practitioners it is our job to help them navigate fears and hesitations so they can step in when they are ready.  Once they make that choice, the recovery process becomes a lot more doable.  There is no cure here, or arrival, but the second choice is necessary in the way any of us change something about our lives – we actually have to DO something.

Lastly, I want to say this is my own observation in doing this work for several years.  The change process is quite complicated and this portrayal is only an aspect.  Take it for what it is worth.

Two Decisions:

1. To Stop
2. To Do the Work (actually start changing)

Post written by:  Jason McCarty, Outpatient Therapist

The experiences of freedom and responsibility are very closely tied to addiction, but are so much more in the forefront of a human being’s struggle that addiction is quite secondary and symptomatic.  It is not the major issue.  Many clients are in addiction because it is the ultimate place to hide from freedom and responsibility.  “That’s crazy,” you say!  Yes and No.  We all do a lot to run from freedom and responsibility.  “No, not me!” As human beings we live within many paradoxes, and one major paradox we deal with on a daily basis is confronting our freedom and responsibility.  We both crave it and run from it.  People will die for it (terrorism, martyrdom, etc.) and die to avoid it (addiction).

I will let someone else explain this better than I and then discuss.  Yang (2009) writes:

According to Fromm, freedom is unavoidably tied to responsibility and destiny. Responsibility is equated with authorship.  Jean-Paul Sartre (1956) wrote that to be responsible is to be “the uncontested author of an event or thing” (p. 633). To be aware of responsibility is to be aware of creating one’s own self, destiny, life predicament, feelings, and, if such be the case, one’s own suffering. Sartre, like Fromm, believes that human beings are doomed to freedom.  Again, a paradox. (p. 184).

How can discussing freedom sound so negative and depressing??!!  No one ever said the existentialists were a bubbly sort and their writings definitely struggle with the sunnier side of life, but they do write about human realities. We are in a paradox.  We do fear our own freedom.  We do fear our own sense of responsibility.  It can feel like walking a plank.  It can make us want to run Home or stay in bed.

Addiction is also a paradox.  It can serve both as a way to avoid, as well as, a way to discover.  It can be a way one’s psyche forces them to take responsibility.  The only way out of addiction is to take responsibility and confront one’s freedom.  I have seen adolescents and people in their twenties arrive in addiction because so much was done for them by parents that they don’t know how to stand on their own two feet.  Addiction is a way to cope with that but it is also a way to change the dynamics in the relationship so drastically that parents can no longer “rescue” their “child” and that child is forced, by their own accord, to grow up, take responsibility, and live life.  This becomes a choice for the person in addiction.  Do they want freedom?  Without choice and responsibility, we have no freedom.

As the quote stated above, the scariest thing about responsibility and freedom is that it is ultimately up to us to create our life, “to be the uncontested author” of our lives.  We create our predicament.  “No, not me, the government screwed me, my parents have wronged me, my boss is unfair, my family won’t talk to me, I have a disability, I’m clinically depressed!!!”  We all have limitations, and some more than others, but the only true way out of them is to realize what responsibility we do have for our feelings, our thoughts, and our lives.  There are also limits to freedom, and accepting and realizing this will help to “experience” freedom within those limits.

But why is it so scary to be the author of our lives?  That’s what we want isn’t it???  Yes and no.  If it is all up to us, then we are very much to blame.  We don’t’ want to hear that.  We don’t want to feel like failures in a world that expects perfection the first time.  We want a place to lay blame if it doesn’t work out.  “I’m not clean because that treatment center sucks!”  “I cheated on my wife because she won’t have sex with me.”  “You made me angry.”  “I can’t go after my dreams because my mother needs me to take care of her.”  Even the things we think are to blame are choices we make.  We already are the author’s of our lives but we can often ignore that.

Accepting responsibility for everything, gives us freedom.  Realizing we make choices everyday, and accept responsibility for those choices, gives us freedom.  Freedom is scary, but once we step into it, it is liberating.  We are all looking for some aspect of liberation, but ultimately we are needing full liberation from ourselves – that part of ourselves that gets in the way of freedom: our fear.

Hoffman, L., Yang, M., Kaklauskas, F., & Chan, A. (2009). Existential Psychology East-West. University of the Rockies Press: Colorado.

Written by Jason McCarty, Outpatient Therapist

Two summers ago we had Dr. Gabor Mate come speak in Kelowna.  At that time he was a doctor in the downtown eastside of Vancouver, and had recently written a book entitled, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction. He is an engaging speaker and thought provoking man.  In his book he has worked hard in 426 pages to bring a human face to addiction, and show that it is a complicated phenomenon – but that ultimately, it comes down to some pretty basic human needs.  I encourage anyone who wrestles with addiction, or has a loved one who is addicted, to read his book.

I pick it up from time to time to be re-energized and motivated to take on this daunting task of helping people overcome their addiction.  Today I read a paragraph that I would like to share.  It describes well Crossroads’ bio-psycho-social-spiritual philosophy.  It also helps to really show the existential reasons for continued, chronic use.

Mate (2008) writes, “Like patterns in a tapestry, recurring themes emerge in my interviews with addicts: the drug as emotional anesthetic; as an antidote to a frightful feeling of emptiness; as a tonic against fatigue, boredom, alienation and a sense of personal inadequacy; as stress reliever and social lubrication. And, as in Stephen Reid’s description, the drug may – if only for a brief instant – open the portals of spiritual transcendence.  In places high and low these themes blight the lives of hungry ghosts everywhere”(p. 32).

I like his use of the word “themes.”  As human beings we are all faced with these themes in our lives.  None of us are exempt from these struggles and none of us make it out unscathed.  Further, we all have found imperfect ways of coping with these major human needs and experiences.  Addiction to drugs and alcohol is only one imperfect way of answering these needs.  We all have mini-addictions that are there to gain our attention and let us know we are missing something.  Overcoming addiction and leading healthy lives is about listening – listening to the finger pointing of addiction in all of us.  The finger is pointing at you and your needs.  When we ignore this, we are “addicted”; when we pay attention, we are free.

Written by Jason McCarty, Outpatient Therapist

One way to look at addiction is that it serves a purpose.  Finding meaning in one’s addiction can help put the craziness into perspective.  For many clients, addiction leads them to the healing of deeper issues they might never have explored.  Addiction seems to work at getting one’s attention.  It also seems to work at forcing one to dirty themselves in such a way that pushes them to eventually take more responsibility for their lives (even though it may look as though all they want to do is push responsibility away).  People become addicted for a combination of a number of reasons.  Even if it seems as simple as pure habit and biological sensitivity, human beings always have choice.  For many it’s the best way to live with great amounts of pain, both emotional and physical. It takes time and mindful exploration to understand the “purpose” of one’s addiction – but it is there, somewhere within the soul.  Addiction can be seen as the soul’s cry.

Written by Jason McCarty, Outpatient therapist