T gether
Paul Williams: "You Know You’re an Alcoholic When You Misplace a Decade" Page 11
A voice f or health a n d rec overy
www.together.us.com
Inside A Sober St. Pat's Day? In New York?
Fight Your Fight or Flight Impulse.......8 Shortcuts to Daily Bliss............................12
"Something So Perfect" Page 4
Sometimes an addiction isn’t the only problem
A
By Terry A. Kirkpatrick
nthony had always suffered a vague anxiety that would spill over into frustration, constant worry and anger at his wife and children. Despite it he became a successful Wall Street executive. Alcohol made him feel better, and he started drinking more and more, even though in hindsight he now realizes that alcohol made his anxiety worse. Eventually he joined AA and got sober, but two years into sobriety his anxiety returned with a vengeance. Someone mentioned a therapist, and in therapy Anthony was able to get a clear picture of what he had experienced and what he was now feeling. A doctor prescribed non-addictive medication that helped him deal with the anxiety, and he felt serene and at peace for the first time in his life. The therapy and the prescription, he believes, make it less likely that he will return to alcohol to medicate his uneasiness. Things did not work out that way for Margaret, a mother of three and chronic abuser of alco-
Mood
ANXIETY
ION ICT ADD
hol. She suffered depression and the trauma of verbal abuse by her husband. She was in and out of treatment centers, withdrawing when her husband stopped paying. On a gray day at some friends’ weekend home on the Jersey Shore, Margaret took a kayak out into the surf and was never seen again. The police interviewed her friends and family and suspected suicide, but they will never know for sure. Anthony and Margaret (whose identities have been disguised) had co-occurring disorders: a mental condition combined with substance abuse. Co-occurring disorders – sometimes referred to as dual diagnoses or comorbidity -- are very common, and anyone who wants to be sober needs to consider that he or she might suffer one. Otherwise attempts at recovery from substance abuse are more likely to fail. Likewise, treating mental health problems will be difficult if not impossible, because substance addiction will contribute to the mental condition. “One of the biggest causes of relapse is an underlying mental disorder that is not being treated,” says Keith Arnold, vice president of operations for Elements Behavioral Health and Promises Treatment
Beginning the Ascent to Recovery The family ties itself together and looks to its Sherpa to lead off
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March/April 2012
What Else Is Wrong With Me?
Page 10
An All-Purpose Miracle Medicine.................6
New York Edition
By Janice Blair
t a recent intervention, the “intervenee” called me the Blair Witch Project. It’s hard not to take that personally. At my age I don’t immediately go to Sabrina or even Samantha Stevens. Rather, that horrible, green-faced, wartnosed, black hat-wearing “I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too!” nightmare came to mind and sent me debriefing to my most supportive colleagues. Like any good group of therapists, we processed until someone cognitively reframed the comment with a quote from a witch expert of sorts. According to Gerina Dunwich, “to be a witch is to live one’s life in tune with the earth and the cycles of nature. It is reclaiming old ways, viewing the world and everything in it as magickal, and working with the mystical energies of (nature) to create positive changes within and without.” In tune with nature to create positive changes -- it sounded more like alchemy than witchcraft, but I wasn’t going to quibble because either way I felt better. I began to wonder if this wasn’t, in fact, the best of what I bring to the intervention process. There was a time in my life when this was a foreign, and not altogether appealing, notion. It went against everything I was taught --
if something isn’t working, I was told, try harder, work longer, push on. I can do that and I’m quite good at it. Which is likely why it took me so long to grasp the recovery concepts that would ultimately save my life.
Going with the flow Healing, growth, and restoring the true self required a way of thinking and a set of skills I did not have at the time I hit my own bottom with alcohol. In AA, I was advised that I should find a guide and follow directions. That turned out to be harder than it sounded, despite my sponsor’s constant reminders that he could teach a lab chimp the 12 steps. I used to tell him not if the chimp was a middle child. I still had my dignity. I would come to understand the need for being “in tune with,” for surrender and acceptance; I would learn how to listen, to slow down and to go with the flow. This flow idea intrigued me from the very start, and I recall spending a good portion of my first year in a befuddled attempt to find it. “Enough of inventories
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