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Overcome Addiction

Recovery Month Contest Winner #2: When Community Is The Key

October 8, 2018Genius RecoveryBlog, Latest Content

In honor of Recovery Month, we asked you to send us your stories about the impact community, nutrition or environment has had on your life since you put down substances and picked up life. Winners are not only receiving copies of our book, The Miracle Morning for Addiction Recovery, but are also being published here on the site.

This week we have Terra Brooke. 

Community was the antidote, for me, to the belief that something was fundamentally wrong with me and if I could just fix myself, everything “out there” that wasn’t working for me would be OK.

Community saved me when I felt most alone.  Sometimes, often, I would pay people to be part of my community.  Mentors and guides would accompany me into the trenches of what lay in my subconscious, and help to change my beliefs and create a new world.  They gave me perspective on the confusion happening “out there.”  They let me know I was not crazy and that I was pulling away from a disorganizing reality.

Divorce was one part of my transformational crucible.  My community was my friend, Geri, who let me stay on her couch, many times, and listened to me when I was frantic, overwhelmed, and sad.  My community was my attorney who walked me to the elevator as I sobbed and said, “You know Terra, we are going to be friends.”  It was my accountant.  It was financial advisors I hired who told me that I inspired them and who didn’t shame me for what I didn’t know, but guided me with respect and care.

Community was random people who connected with me.  It was people I met when I began to study co-dependency.  It was my co-dependency coach.  It was myofascial body workers who held a space for unconscious body memories to emerge and who taught me how to be with them.  It was uncles who cared for me when the core of my family and I were estranged.  And community evolved.

As I continued to take classes, community became people I studied with on-line and worked with on Zoom.  Community became people around Europe, Canada, and the US who offered me support and places to stay.  Community became people in my exercise classes.  And for sure, community became various coaches, shamans, people I met who were in recovery and recovery programs, psychics, and healers.  All of them were part of my community.

But most of all, community has come to be myself.  I have learned to love myself and to be my own company and to notice tender, young parts when they arise and hold them gently and with care.

As deep shame and grief arise, I don’t believe healing is possible without community.  My frozen places and trapped emotions need community, a loving presence who stays through my most difficult moments,  in order to re-wire my nervous system.  I know I need encouragement as well and to see that at what may feel like the darkest, most challenging places, there is still a path and hope.  I  need people who truly care and have the depth and capacity in themselves to touch what surfaces.  There is no substitute.  I need community to teach me so I have the satisfaction of doing this for others.

And now I am able to stand where once, I needed to lean.

Related

: community, recovery
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An Open Letter to Anyone Struggling with Addiction
By Joe Polish
First I want to say how sorry I am that you or someone you love is struggling with addiction. I know firsthand how painful it is. Addiction nearly killed me when I was 18 years old.
What I’ve learned since then is that almost all addiction stems from trauma. This can be difficult for some people to understand; they assume trauma has to mean a person was beaten, molested or in a life-threatening accident. But we all have different levels of sensitivity.
Addiction is something you are driven to do—anything you crave that gives you temporary pleasure or relief but then causes negative consequences. Addiction is something you are unable to give up, despite the suffering it causes.
The challenging thing for people that don’t have this to understand is how someone could have that craving in the first place. They wonder why the addict can’t just make a better choice.
I’m of the belief that addiction is not a choice. Once the addict goes into a craving state, it’s beyond willpower or intelligence. Intelligence can actually be a detriment because the smarter people are, the more they believe they can think their way out of the problem.
What many don’t understand is that addiction isn’t a problem—it’s actually a solution. If you’re in pain, angst, anxiety, fear, rage, depression, sadness, loneliness or experiencing any other form of suffering, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be out of that pain. It’s how we go about scratching the itch that causes the issue.
Ultimately, addiction is a connection disorder. It’s feeling incredibly disconnected and uncomfortable in your own skin. You just want to numb out, or escape. You want to feel something—anything except the dread that comes with that craving state…a state that always has compulsivity or impulsivity attached to it.
Looking at addiction from a state of compassion, as opposed to judgment, is critical. We cannot punish or beat addiction out of somebody. Sure, we can throw people in prison, scold them or run away from them, but that doesn’t help make the cravings go away. Love and compassion are critical—though, of course, those can be difficult emotions to embrace when dealing with addicts. The symptoms of addiction can be ugly; they often involve activities like cheating, disrupting, lying, stealing and other egregious acts. That’s because addicts will do anything to get out of the pain they are in. The addict brain has an appetite for destruction and is fueled more by chaos than harmony. In other words, it’s hard for addicts to feel okay. And it’s not easy to feel compassion for someone who’s leaving shrapnel in their wake. But the more you can understand that the addict is in pain and just trying to get out of it, the easier it can be to deal with the recklessness and chaos that comes with it.
Addiction is also biochemical. You are dealing with serotonin and dopamine. Once you quit the drug or behavior, you may have to fix and repair the gut. You have to get the body back to a state where it produces “feel good” chemicals in order to cope with the uncomfortable feelings. This means exercise, yoga, meditation, float pods, the right nutrition, and more. The issues are in the tissues, and if you can incorporate movement and communities, it can help heal. Building a rapport by being around other addicts is critical. It doesn’t have to be a 12-step meeting; you just need a community—an ongoing, consistent community.
It’s a lot of work—but not nearly as much work as active addiction. And if you’re willing to do the work, there’s freedom on the other side that most addicts and their families probably haven’t ever experienced before. The bottom line: help is available. There are many people and resources available at little or no cost.