addiction Archives - Page 8 of 27 - Enlightened Solutions

Sharing as Service

Written by enlightened solutions on September 27, 2018. Posted in 12 Step Program, Addiction. Leave a Comment

Sometimes when we think about sharing our stories during our recovery process, we think about the benefits it can have for us. Sharing helps us to express our pain, to find the understanding and compassion we’re looking for from other people, and to connect with other people experiencing similar things. Because we are always learning from each other, sharing of ourselves can also be an act of service- to help others, to offer guidance and wisdom, and to be a part of their recovery.

It can be really scary to share our thoughts, emotions, stories and experiences with other people, especially if we don’t know them well enough to know that we can trust them. Sharing requires a vulnerability and honesty that can be really hard to muster. It can be uncomfortable, awkward and embarrassing. We are putting ourselves out there at the risk of being judged, criticized and rejected.

Instead of only focusing on how we can benefit from sharing our stories, we can start to see sharing as something we can do to help other people who are suffering. Looking at it this way can help us summon the courage we need to take that step. It can be a leap of faith. We don’t know how we will be received, but we share anyway, believing someone out there might be helped.

Many of us feel like we wouldn’t have been able to recover from our addictions and mental health issues without other people’s help. Oftentimes these people helped simply by sharing their own stories. The lessons we learn from other people’s experiences can be invaluable and lifechanging.

We can choose to help other people not be alone in their suffering. We can take everything we’ve learned and pass it along. We can be a guiding light in other people’s healing journeys. Sometimes simply knowing we’re not alone can make all the difference. Addiction, depression and other mental/emotional challenges can be very isolating. At times it can be difficult and frightening to talk to other people, or to even be around other people. Imagine the impact you could have on someone who is struggling, just by talking, just by being yourself and sharing your story.

Being honest about our struggles can be difficult, but it can be less so when we open ourselves to the idea of sharing as service. We can choose to wish other people healing and wellness, and to want to help them along their way.

We have years of experience helping people to share their stories, and sharing our own. We’re here to help. Call (833) 801-LIVE.

Setting Goals for our Healing and Recovery

Written by enlightened solutions on September 26, 2018. Posted in Addiction, Addiction Recovery. Leave a Comment

Creating goals for ourselves can be a very helpful tool in our recovery process. We often are so consumed with our addictive thoughts and behaviors that we don’t know how to go about planning for recovery or seeking help. Thinking of the process in terms of setting and achieving goals can be therapeutic and can help us motivate ourselves to take the steps to get better.

Set small, manageable goals. The idea is to prevent getting overwhelmed by breaking things down into actionable steps. We don’t want to try to do everything at once, that can be intimidating and can cause us to give up before we even try, or to keep procrastinating on our recovery.

Your end goal might be to stay sober or abstinent, and more generally, to achieve inner peace. What does that feel and look like for you? What healthier behaviors would you adopt, such as regular exercise and meditation? What things and people would you avoid, aside from your drug of choice? Start thinking about how you can implement changes to both your routine and your mentality.

Here are some ideas for goals you can try for yourself.

Goals:

To spend time with the people in my life who want to help me and who encourage my recovery, rather than those who enable or contribute to my addictive behaviors.
To find new activities I enjoy, that feed my soul and creativity, that make me happy, that don’t include using my drugs of choice or engaging in my addictive behaviors.
To make time for meditation, prayer or other form of spiritual practice.
To create space between myself and my unhealthy relationships, in order to focus on my healing.
To start a day count for every day I stay away from my drug of choice, unhealthy behavior, or toxic relationship.
To create affirmations around my healing and recovery that I can write, repeat out loud, record and then listen to, and meditate with. “I am at peace within myself. I am strong enough to do what’s best for myself.”

7a. Find a local meeting or support group and get more information on it.

7b. Attend a meeting.

7c. Choose a sponsor.

7d. Pick a meeting schedule and stick to it.

Thinking about the whole recovery process can be daunting and scary, but when we break it down into small steps that we can take for ourselves every day, the process can be easier to manage. As we take the steps, our faith in our ability to heal grows, and we’re on our way.

The community at Enlightened Solutions has years of experience helping people in recovery and can help you. Call (833) 801-LIVE.

Learning How to be Alone

Written by enlightened solutions on September 25, 2018. Posted in 12 Step Program, Recovery. Leave a Comment

It can sometimes take us a long time to realize that we stay in unhealthy relationships in part because we are afraid to be alone. Often when a relationship is toxic for us, we know we need to end it for the sake of our happiness, mental health and inner peace, but we find ourselves unable to. When our relationships become addictive, we sacrifice our own wellbeing.

Some of us are caught in unhealthy relationship cycles and battling addictions at the same time. For some of us, our relationships themselves are the addiction. It can take years to extricate ourselves from our self-destructive relationship patterns, but learning how to be alone is one of the best things we can do for ourselves in our recovery.

Many of us are afraid to feel the painful loss of a breakup, sometimes because we experienced that same sort of separation in our families. Letting go of someone we love can be one of the hardest things we’ll ever have to do. We are battling fears of being abandoned, replaced, rejected, fear of inadequacy, fear of being lonely. Our current experiences often mirror the ones we experienced as children and witnessed with the adults in our lives. We inherit patterns from the people who raised us, we learn from everything we see, and our childhood experiences often inform and direct how we function as adults.

For many of us, our addictive relationships can contribute to and exacerbate our depression, anxiety, other mental health issues, and other addictions. We often struggle with suicidal thoughts, just as many other addicts do.

Some of us have racked up one painful relationship breakup after another with no time alone to really process, grieve, and work through our pain. How do we start the process of learning how to be alone?

It starts with a choice. Just like with any addictive behavior, you make the decision that you can’t live like this anymore, that you’ve hit your rock bottom and refuse to fall any lower. You decide that you want to live.

Choose to face the fear and the pain. Choose to prioritize inner peace. Affirm that you are strong enough to do what’s best for yourself. Grow your self-love so much that you never want to settle for unhappiness again. These things take time. Many of us struggle with unhealthy relationship patterns for years. You deserve to be safe, happy and respected in all your relationships. If you are in physical danger, please get help.

Call (833) 801-LIVE for more information on how Enlightened Solutions can help you.

Coming to Terms with Our Addiction

Written by enlightened solutions on September 24, 2018. Posted in 12 Step Program, Addiction. Leave a Comment

Accepting and coming to terms with our addiction may be one of the hardest things we’ll ever have to do as addicts. For many of us, we’ve spent much of our lives embroiled in our addictive behaviors and caught in vicious cycles of suffering and self-destruction. We may or may not have realized we struggled with addictions. With the stigmas, judgments and stereotypes surrounding addiction, we may have been afraid to identify as addicts. Acceptance is a powerful part of the healing process.

Many of us are in denial about the severity of our addictions. We know our addictions well and aren’t prepared to give them up yet. Some of us haven’t become conscious of our behaviors yet, and we haven’t put it together that our recurring, problematic, self-destructive issues are related to addiction.

When it hits us that we are addicts, we can feel a whole range of emotions. We feel deep sadness, regret, shame, embarrassment- about who we are, how our lives have played out, the people we’ve hurt. We might be filled with fear, dread and panic at the thought of being in this much pain for the rest of our lives.

The sooner we come to terms with our addictions, the sooner we can get better. When we have acceptance, we can surrender, allow ourselves to receive the lessons and then move through the pain. We often try to resist the truth about ourselves and fight against it. We take our fears and pain about who we are and bury them under more drugs, alcohol, relationships, sex, food, gambling, video games, etc. Eventually it catches up with us, though, and after a few more go-rounds, we hit “rock bottom” – that place we know we can never let ourselves get back to, if we want to stay alive. Sometimes we’re in that place and still haven’t accepted what it is we’re up against- addiction.

We’re often afraid of being judged and rejected by the people we care about. We’re afraid of disappointing the people who believed in us. Sometimes we try to hide how bad it’s gotten, for however long we can, until we can’t, and we surrender. We accept. “This is my truth. I am an addict.”

To help pull ourselves out of that place, we can start to change how we think and talk about ourselves- as recovering addicts. We can choose faith and hope. We are capable of change, and we have the power to heal.

The community at Enlightened Solutions is here to support you, and we understand the recovery process firsthand, from personal experience. Call (833) 801-LIVE

The Benefits of a Spiritual Practice

Written by enlightened solutions on September 20, 2018. Posted in 12 Step Program, Alternative Therapy. Leave a Comment

There are numerous benefits of having a regular spiritual practice. Starting anything new can be challenging, as can being consistent, but the more we practice, the more we will see the powerful effects. The transformation lies in the practice, rather than perfection, and as we do the work, we see huge changes in our mental and emotional health. Here are some of the many benefits of creating and following a spiritual practice for yourself.

Connecting with spirit has a calming effect that is hard to put into words. It is comforting, nurturing and soothing. It reminds us we aren’t alone, as we are one with our higher power and all the other life it created. When we genuinely feel this connection, it can help us to transcend the temporary, human, fleeting circumstances we often find ourselves troubled by.

When we allow ourselves to be guided by our spirits, we are connected to the universal flow of our higher power. This connection can help us to uncover powerful healing solutions for ourselves that we might not have been open to by simply using our thinking minds. Having a spiritual practice enables us to connect with our spirits more easily and more regularly. Some of us tend to pray or meditate only when we’re in distress, but if we can implement these things on a regular basis, we might find ourselves reaching that point of distress much less frequently, if at all.

Our spirits can help us to remember who we are. Our ego minds tend to dwell on our fears and our woundedness. They often bombard us with meaningless illusions that distract us from our life mission and purpose. Our spirit, on the other hand, is our higher power manifested within us. When we are able to tap into that power, there is no limit to what we can achieve. Our healing becomes tangible and lies within our reach. We can reclaim ourselves as the people we were destined to be, rather than what our fears have created. The limiting beliefs we have imposed upon ourselves start to fade, and we have renewed faith in ourselves and our abilities.

As we practice, we grow in resilience. The emotional challenges and triggers we once suffered over become the platforms from which we launch ourselves. We are better able to manage our complex moods and emotions. We have increasing control over our thoughts and can direct them in more positive ways. With a spiritual practice, we come to learn that we have the power to choose inner peace, and as we continue to practice, the more we can return to that state easily and naturally.

Holistic healing is a large part of treatment at Enlightened Solutions. Call (833) 801-LIVE.

Suggestions for Beginning a Spiritual Practice

Written by enlightened solutions on September 18, 2018. Posted in 12 Step Program, Alternative Therapy. Leave a Comment

The idea of beginning a spiritual practice can be intimidating for many people, especially those who don’t consider themselves to be spiritual people. A spiritual practice can provide tremendous benefits and can help you heal through your most difficult life challenges.

As we know, our addictions and mental health issues can be so powerful they take over our lives. They can make functioning on a daily basis feel unbearable, and they can make our lives feel unmanageable. We can feel so overwhelmed that starting something new feels too daunting to even try. When we are deeply unhappy and unwell, anything pertaining to self-care can feel insurmountable.

A spiritual practice can help us to navigate our complex emotions. It can help us to prevent falling into a deep depression, and if we’re already in one, it can help us to pull ourselves out. When we are in the depths of our pain, we may only be able to do a very small bit at a time. Even one minute can make a huge difference and can have a lasting, transformative impact.

A spiritual practice can include anything that makes you feel connected to God, the Universe, your angels, your higher power, collective consciousness- however you choose to refer to the power that is bigger than us as individuals but that we carry within us as creations of this higher power. If you’ve never considered yourself a spiritual person, give some thought to how you might connect with that higher power.

Look to your past experiences for guidance. Maybe you went to church with your family as a child. Maybe you have felt comforted when you said a prayer. Perhaps you’ve heard the expression “count your blessings.” Maybe you’ve taken a deep breath when you felt overwhelmed. Maybe you feel calmed and soothed when you’re in nature. Maybe you’ve found writing out your problems to be cathartic.

Ask other people what they do to feel connected to their spirits. Look for suggestions online. Anything can be a part of your spiritual practice so long as it is personally effective for you and helps you connect to your spirit. Prayer, meditation, breathing exercises, spending time in nature, a gratitude practice and journaling are all wonderful healing tools. You can create an altar and collect sacred pieces for it. You can learn about the healing power of crystals and start a crystal collection. You can learn about the moon cycles and follow rituals to harness their power and/or create new rituals for yourself. You can read spiritual texts, walk meditatively, light candles, create art, or form personal spiritual ceremonies. Anything you do to connect with your spirit will help you to grow, heal, learn and transcend difficulties.

The community at Enlightened Solutions believes in the power of holistic healing, and we have years of experience helping people heal themselves. Call (833) 801-LIVE.

The Importance of Spiritual Practice

Written by enlightened solutions on September 17, 2018. Posted in 12 Step Program, Alternative Therapy. Leave a Comment

When we address addictions and mental health issues, we often tend to focus solely on our minds, namely the chemical imbalances of our minds. We sometimes forget that these issues often have spiritual causes and manifestations. Because we are much more than just our minds, we have to address healing in a holistic way.

Our spirit is our connection to our higher power and to the divine power within us. It is connected to every part of ourselves and extends to every facet of our beings. Trauma, therefore, affects not only our minds but also our spirits. We store our fears and emotional memories in both our subconscious minds and our spirits because it is our spirit that connects our divine power to every element of ourselves- mental, emotional and physical. In short, everything we experience has a spiritual cause, effect and manifestation, because our spirit lives in every part of us.

When we become too focused on the thoughts produced by our minds, we sometimes neglect the health of our spirits. Our ego, or sense of self, is often wounded from the trauma we experience, and therefore our thoughts are often negative, limiting and self-destructive. Our thought patterns and behaviors are often so pervasive and damaging that they become our addictions, depression, anxiety and other mental health issues. In order to heal these deeply rooted patterns, we can look to spiritual solutions that go deeper than the ego mind.

Sometimes our minds are limited to the information they have already been exposed to. We tend to think in shortsighted ways because our minds have a hard time being open to unknown possibilities. Sometimes we can’t see past our current circumstances and find it difficult to be open-minded, especially when we are struggling with such difficult challenges as depression and addictive behaviors. Sometimes it’s our minds causing our problems; they process and store emotional information for us and are very powerful, so any imbalances and unwellness in our minds can easily turn into full-fledged mental health issues.

Our spirits, however, are connected to the infinite wisdom and guidance of our higher power. We can also call this power collective consciousness, which includes all living creatures. Imagine all the information we can access when we tap into this higher power. The possibilities for our healing are limitless.

When we are open to the idea of creating and following a spiritual practice, we open ourselves to a world of healing that goes deeper than the mind can go.

Holistic healing is a major focus at Enlightened Solutions. We can help you find healing solutions that work for you. Call (833) 801-LIVE.

The Emotions of Addiction

Written by enlightened solutions on September 11, 2018. Posted in 12 Step Program, Addiction. Leave a Comment

When we are dealing with addictions, we often experience layers of emotions. Sometimes we are conscious of these emotions, and sometimes we bury them underneath our addictive behaviors and thought patterns. We often avoid dealing with our emotions because of how difficult and painful they can be. This avoidance has a way of exacerbating our addictions and compounding our pain. Here are some of the emotions we commonly feel when living with addictions.

Shame

When struggling with addictions, we often feel a deep sense of shame, for letting the people we care about down and for disappointing them, not to mention ourselves, for failing to reach our goals of sobriety, for not living up to our potential. We are caught in cycles of behaviors that we know we need to stop, that we want to stop. When we can’t stop, we feel weak, pathetic, ashamed and embarrassed. We are often consumed with regret and remorse. We feel unable to forgive ourselves. This painful buildup of shame often compels us to want to escape via our drugs of choice, which, as we know, only increases our shame.

Sadness

Because addiction is often judged and stigmatized, sometimes we forget that at the root of people’s addictions there often lies a deep sadness. We carry grief from our traumatic childhoods, past relationships and other difficult life experiences. As we self-destruct with our addictive behaviors, we accumulate more sadness- about our feelings of unworthiness, about the pain we’ve caused other people and ourselves. We see the effects our addictions have on us and the people we care about, and it can be very sad, for everyone involved. Sometimes trying to escape our sadness was what initially prompted us to engage in our addictive behaviors in the first place.

Hopelessness

Addiction and depression often go hand in hand. As we try to quit and can’t, we often become more and more depressed. Feelings of despair and hopelessness are common in both addiction and depression. Sometimes we don’t know where to turn or who to ask for help. Sometimes we feel so convinced that there’s no hope that we feel it’s useless to seek help. We feel deeply alone, scared, lost, overwhelmed and confused. Maybe we’ve already sought help, even received treatment, but our relapses cause us to believe we’ll never fully recover. We’ve been in darkness so long that we not only can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, we believe there is no light at all. We seek comfort in our drugs of choice, thus perpetuating the cycle. The painful hopelessness we feel drives many of us to consider taking our own lives.

We can learn how to work through our painful emotions. It is far from easy but so necessary for our healing.

There is hope. Recovering from our addictions means facing our emotions, and the community at Enlightened Solutions is here to help. Call (833) 801-LIVE.

Positive Thinking

Written by enlightened solutions on September 5, 2018. Posted in 12 Step Program, Addiction. Leave a Comment

When we talk about ways to manage depression and anxiety, one of the things we often hear recommended is positive thinking. When we are feeling like things are absolutely hopeless, it’s very hard to make ourselves think happy thoughts. How do we change our thinking to be more positive? We have the power to change the course of our thoughts, and therefore our energy. We have more control over our moods than we think we do.

Start to pay more attention to your thoughts. Practice observing them. Become more conscious of the thoughts that are bringing you down, causing you anxiety and making you sad. As we dwell on these thoughts, they become our default thought patterns. They are often self-destructive in nature and can have a serious impact on our mental health.

Start to imagine what it would feel like to be free from those thoughts. Take the issues at hand and come up with positive counterparts to them. “I am depressed” could be transformed to “I am healing. I am working through challenges. I am getting stronger every day.”

“I am an addict” can be transformed to “I can create a new life for myself. I am strong. I choose what’s best for me.”

As you create these transformational, affirmative statements, put your energy behind the words while repeating them, and try to feel them as though they are real. You are creating new positive thought patterns, and as you continue to focus on them, they begin to replace the old, negative ones. You are reprogramming your subconscious mind to default to these patterns instead.

Over time, with practice, these thoughts become second nature. When we have moments of fear, anxiety or sadness, our minds become more resilient and respond with self-loving, self-affirming thoughts. We start to believe in ourselves more and mentally build ourselves up more often.

Positive thinking is often dismissed as being too simple to be effective, especially for serious depression. Working to transform our thoughts, by way of repeating affirmations, writing in a journal, creative writing, etc., is one part of the healing process. We can’t expect affirmations alone to completely heal our deep-rooted fears and traumas, but they are a powerful tool we can use to help ourselves. Healing is a lifelong process, and we can really help ourselves by working to have more control over the direction of our thoughts.

Treatment at Enlightened Solutions includes therapy, mentoring and recovery planning. Call (833) 801-LIVE for more information.

Dispelling Myths About Addiction

Written by enlightened solutions on September 4, 2018. Posted in Addiction, Addiction Recovery. Leave a Comment

One of the most difficult things we face as addicts can be the judgments of others, especially those who don’t have a personal understanding of addictions and all the elements that can contribute to them. When it comes to judging addicts and addictions, there are some myths we can try to dispel. More understanding can translate to all of us having more compassion and more empathy, which will hopefully help more people feel safe enough to reach out for help.

“Addiction is just an excuse for bad behavior.”

Addicts, like all people, can and do sometimes make excuses for their behavior, but addiction as a whole is much more complicated than that. The manifestations of addiction may include making excuses, just as they may include telling lies, but critics who minimize addiction by saying things like “he’s just making excuses,” or “he’s just lying,” are failing to see all of the other, deeper elements of addiction. These can include the shame, remorse and regret that many addicts feel consumed by, sometimes on a constant basis. Addicts can feel as though their thoughts, feelings and behaviors are out of their control. Their actions are often compulsive, and they may struggle day in and day out to stop. Many addicts feel a constant need to quit, and their relapses can be disheartening and painful. Many addicts are suffering from chronic depression and anxiety, and many of them are suicidal.

“If you can’t quit, you haven’t tried hard enough.”

The majority of our thoughts and behaviors are driven by our subconscious minds, which govern 95% of our daily lives. Because the subconscious stores all of our emotional information, people who have been traumatized and who struggle with mental illness or addiction are operating with unseen forces of pain and instability. The limiting beliefs and self-hatred they have stored in their subconscious are constantly working to sabotage their recovery. Addicts may be trying as hard as they consciously can to quit, but they are up against the powerful self-destructive and self-deprecating programming of their subconscious minds, programming they often aren’t conscious of. In other words, when addicts try to quit, the vast majority of their inner voice’s monologue may be comprised of thoughts like “You can’t quit. You’ll never stay sober. You’re a horrible person. I’m so ashamed, and this hurts so much- don’t you want to drink to take away some of the pain? Just one more time…”

Recovery requires not only trying to abstain from the drug of choice, but also working to heal the wounds of the subconscious mind in order to choose more self-loving, healing thoughts and behaviors. This can be very difficult and can take people years to do, especially when they are suffering from trauma, co-existing addictions and other mental health issues.

The community at Enlightened Solutions has personal experience with addiction. We understand just how hard it can be to feel judged. Call (833) 801-LIVE for support.

Tag: addiction