One of the most common questions I get asked when people are struggling to quit drinking is:
It can be really demoralising when you end up drinking yet again, after promising yourself repeatedly that you’re done –
and especially when it doesn’t even do much for you anymore except leave you with a banging headache, writhing in a swamp of anxiety and shame.
If you are along the anxious attachment spectrum you will get ‘activated’ within close relationships. This means that your stress response system is constantly triggered. You will scan for signs of abandonment and tend not to trust other people’s motives. Because there is always a heightened sense of anxiety, you will probably struggle with worrying about what other people are thinking, doing, feeling and can end up looking for excessive reassurance. You will often feel a sense of unease and this can result in:
Well let’s look at the options; you can do one of five things
So I assume if you are still reading you’ve probably tried options 1-4 numerous times before and perhaps they didn’t end so well? In that case, read on and look at what you need to do to get through this relapse. [Read more…]
What is your anger trying to tell you?“Anybody can become angry – that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way – that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy.” – Aristotle
Anger is one of the most frequently cited reasons for why people relapse back to addictive behaviours. Anger can be such an intense emotion that when triggered, all rational thought is lost, the logical brain gets hijacked and the emotional brain takes over. In such a highly charged intense state it’s easy to press the F*** it button and throw recovery out of the window. It is very normal to experience anger in recovery as in the past you would likely have numbed or suppressed it through drugs and alcohol. Once the anaethetizing effects of substances are no longer an option, anger and all its variations, – frustration, irritability, annoyance, impatience and intolerance So how can you learn to manage your anger? Classic anger management techniques might tell you to beat a pillow with a baseball bat, scream and shout until you’ve worn yourself out or count to ten and breathe through the anger until it subsides. However, while these techniques may help to calm you down temporarily, they don’t do anything about the underlying cause of the anger. [Read more…]
I’m Ruben, an internationally certified Substance Misuse Counsellor and Recovery Coach.
I have spent the last 20 years working in premier residential addiction treatment centres in both the Philippines and Thailand.
I have an experience working with a wide range of treatment methods including the Minnesota 12 step model, CBT, Motivational Interviewing, Brief Solution Therapy and Relapse Prevention Therapy.
I place a lot of emphasis on helping clients develop and implement new tools and strategies that will help them in their journey to creating a life free from addictive patterns. I do this by allowing clients to formulate a recovery plan that is goal oriented, measurable, realistic and simple.
With life’s complications and difficulties coupled with substance dependence, going back to basics is something that will help the journey of recovery easier to understand. It’s not just about being abstinent from mood altering substances or managing our alcohol, it’s also about addressing important aspects of our lives in areas like social, spiritual, emotional, psychological and biological.
Christine is the Director of Recovery From Addiction and is from Wales, UK . She has spent the last 23 years working around the world, first as a teacher then as a therapist.
Jennetta has been in the field of addiction science since 2002 and is a licensed chemical dependency counsellor and clinical supervisor.
She uses her degree in Human Services and Health Care Management to gain understanding of the social aspect of addiction and the complex role it plays in the family unit and in the clients social structure.
Her studies in co-occurring emotional disorders and addiction have given her an in-depth understanding of the complexity of addiction.“Addiction just does not happen in a bubble” is her outlook when working with an individual or with a family unit.
In 2003, she worked with specialized females in low-income areas of Houston, Texas (USA) to address the problems of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and its relationship to the continual patterns of substance use and addiction.
Since that time, she has devoted her career to addressing the origins of behaviors that lead to disorders such as eating disorders, gambling, sex-addiction and substance addiction.
Jennetta is based in Houston, Texas
We are a team of addiction specialists that have extensive experience in both residential and out-patient treatment facilities. We use evidenced-based approaches to help you address the issues that are keeping you stuck in unhelpful patterns of behaviour. Our mission is to provide affordable treatment, which can be integrated into your daily life, and to support you through the changes that need to be made to restore balance and break the cycle of addictive behaviour.
