Archive for the ‘Sobriety’ Category

When considering treatment for chronic alcoholism or drug addiction the term: relapse is sure to be encountered.  It arises when the effectiveness of therapy or treatment is the subject for discussion.  It’s a legitimate concern and certainly one that applies in many situations. Some professionals consider it a symptom of addiction and dependency on chemical substances including alcohol.

Counselors at The Beachcomber with more than 125-years of combined experience in alcoholism and addiction treatment are familiar with the dangers of relapse.  They’ve found that those seeking help have experienced various routes to a “cure” and consequently have found themselves, or a loved one repeating some aspects of their search.  In most cases counselors have found treatment for substance abuses successful and all efforts rewarded. Statistics have generally set a pattern that’s been predictable:

One third of those treated respond immediately.  Another one third goes through multiple treatment experiences. The remaining third are constantly facing encounters with relapse and then temporary sobriety. In this later group a small percentage never accumulate enough sober time to overcome relapses tied to physical compulsion.

As with many serious illnesses our treatment team warns that statistics can help or hinder.  One underlying truth is that the majority of alcoholics and addicts will be likely to remain clean and sober as their abstinence times accumulate.  In other words, if the patient “works at the sobering process” then recovery will almost surely come about.

Some former residents at The Beachcomber have encountered relapses before gaining long-term sobriety.  With over 40-years in residential treatment, the oldest program in Florida, most counselors agree every individual has to want to be clean and sober. Long-term recovery results when an accepted support system is put in place to back that desire.

Treatment for alcoholism and substance abuse will succeed in almost every case if determination is part of the process.  Understanding by a caring network is of primary importance and one reason why counselors urge after-care contacts. They also encourage participation in Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous since these “twelve step” groups have proven their importance time-after-time.

AA & NA work best if friends and family members are supportive. Very often treatment programs, like The Beachcomber, provide family members and concerned friend’s special orientation meetings. These professionally presented classes point out some of the danger of relapses.
In after care sessions the warning signs of relapse are discussed and the importance of self-help programs is explained.  Many of the myths and misunderstandings concerning AA & NA are clarified for some who may doubt their importance after following a course of treatment either in-patient or out-patient.

By James K. Bogert, M.S. in Counseling – Spiritual Adviser

My alcoholism brought with it very few material consequences. I was never picked up for DUI, nor was my health seriously impaired. I was never fired from a job, nor confronted by an intervention, except for an occasional comment by my family or a friend that I’d had too much to drink. No, I had become very good at pretending, clever at keeping up appearances and protecting my secrets.

As a clergyman, I had a lot to hide. Periodically disposing of numerous empty scotch bottles that accumulated in my closet required the ingenuity of a 007. My ploy was to use a suitcase and under cloak of darkness find a discretely placed dumpster. To mask the signs of a hangover long cool showers, Listerine, Excedrin and copious eye drops seemed to work. Yes, I was the great pretender looking good on the outside but crumbling within.

The effect of my alcoholism was subtle, insidious and devastating. Alcohol was killing my soul. I pretended so much I began to lose a sense of who I was. Not only that, friendships lost their meaning because no one knew the real Jim. I couldn’t face my God anymore – I knew that He knew – and I felt too ashamed to pray. I felt too ashamed period. I not only avoided God but I avoided everyone because if anyone got close they might uncover my secret – and then what?

The fear of discovery led me more and more to isolate with my “feel good friend,” Johnny Walker whiskey. At the same time intimacy in my life began to evaporate as I distanced from family and friends. I felt as though my soul riddled with fear was drying up and beginning to die. Yet, in light of my dependence on alcohol, a life of total abstinence was equally terrifying. The temptation of suicide became an appealing alternative to me.

With the support of a caring friend, I was able to take that first scary step of attending my first Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and began to identify with the struggle of others in the AA fellowship. Now friendships were forged as the honesty of others became contagious and allowed me to feel safe in revealing my own secrets. Intimacy began to once again blossom in the desert of my heart. In my twenty enriching years in the AA fellowship, I have come to realize that sobriety is not loss but gain and that Twelve Step Spirituality is simply the art of cultivating that precious gift of intimacy. Gratitude prompts me to coach and share that gift with others like me, taking those first few scary steps toward sobriety at The Beachcomber treatment center in Delray Beach, Florida.

By Tony Foster

Although I went to treatment for alcoholism three times in a seven month period it was only the third time that I went by choice.  The first time I went was at the behest of my family along with a Baker Act. As you might imagine, I wasn’t excited about being in treatment and giving up alcohol.  Consequently, I did my twenty-eight days and stayed sober exactly five days.

Soon after that my wife went to court to have me committed under the Marchman Act.  A judge signed off that I was a danger to society and myself, and off I went to treatment again.  This time I was even less excited about investing a month of my life into doing something I didn’t want to do.  I decided that since I was a grown man nobody was going to tell me when I could or couldn’t drink.  I drank on the 28th day on the way home from treatment.  Imagine my surprise when I got home and found my house completely empty, except for an easy chair and a television.  Believe it or not, I thought I had won the lottery.  Now I could drink with impunity.  No wife or kid around to stop me.  That lasted about six weeks.

During those six weeks the only thing I ate was one bag of M & Ms per day that my wife brought me.  She hadn’t completely given up on me, she just couldn’t live with me like that.  In any case, during the six weeks I lost sixty pounds.  Then one day she came over and out of the blue I said to her “I want to stop drinking”, “I want to change my life”.  What I didn’t know then was that I suddenly had something that I never had before, a desire to stop drinking.  Alcoholics Anonymous says that the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking.  I finally qualified.  I said to my wife, “I’m going to go to treatment and do everything they tell me to do”.  I opened the phone book and found the Beachcomber, an alcohol and drug treatment facility in Delray Beach.  That decision changed my life in more ways than I can count.  It literally saved me from a painful, premature death.

My start at the Beachcomber was inauspicious, at best.  On the appointed day of my intake my wife drove me there at about 8:30 in the morning.  I had been drinking until 4 AM.  Joe, the owner, did not want me to stay because he thought I needed detox.  My wife begged him to let me stay and capped her pleading and crying with “we need a miracle”.  That’s what the Beachcomber became for me, a miracle.

Like many treatment facilities of its kind the Beachcomber uses a twelve step model to help patients get and stay sober.  But they do much more than that.  Alcoholics Anonymous tells us that drinking is but a symptom of underlying issues that are going on.  The Beachcomber focuses on that over a twenty-eight day program.  However, it’s how they do it that’s so unique. First, they only have sixteen beds so they never have more than sixteen patients.  For these sixteen patients they have five therapists.  I doubt you’ll find that kind of ratio anywhere else in the country.  They also have a full and a part time chef.  Like most other new patients I showed up undernourished and with terrible (or no) eating habits.  The chefs took care of that.  But besides the food and the therapists it was what I was taught that really helped me when I got out.

I was taught that I was feeling a lot of guilt and shame for what my life had become and how I had squandered a family and my own potential.  I learned that there is a grieving process to quitting drinking and that I had to now feel things that in the past I would always drown with vodka.  I had to learn how to live my life one day at a time without a drink.  But I believe the reason I am sober today is that I learned “Toothbrush Therapy”.

Toothbrush Therapy is a method taught at the Beachcomber which gives one a daily routine that helps a recovering alcoholic or drug addict stay sober.  I can still remember Trey, a Beachcomber therapist, saying “if you follow the simple directions and do these five things every day I guarantee you, you will never drink again”.  The first time I heard that I was beside myself.  You’ve got to be kidding, I thought.  In fact, it was early in treatment that I heard it the first time and like a good alcoholic I was going to prove Trey wrong.  Well guess what, not only was I wrong, I’ve been doing it now for nearly six and a half years and I haven’t had a drink yet.

Toothbrush Therapy is named because it is designed in a way that it is used as you would brushing your teeth.  You get in a routine for personal grooming and such and Toothbrush Therapy establishes a routine.  It takes into account that alcoholics and drug addicts are creatures of habit, usually bad ones.  But if we really want to be sober Toothbrush Therapy makes it pretty simple.  You just have to do it every day.  Does that seem like a lot?  Well, I drank every day from the moment I woke up until I passed out.  I was either buying alcohol or consuming it every waking hour.  Toothbrush Therapy can be done in as little as one hour and forty-five minutes per day.  Now if you really want to stay sober that seems like a very small requirement to me.  If you can’t invest that much time in your sobriety and saving your life then you really don’t want to be sober.  I decided to condense Toothbrush Therapy to one sheet that I could refer to all the time. This made it even simpler.  In short, I pray at the beginning and end of each day.  I also meditate every day.  I follow that up with reading four pages of AA literature.  Then I go to a meeting every day.  I also have a support group of recovering people who I talk to every day.  Finally, at the end of every day I write a gratitude list in the manner of a letter to God (my higher power).  In the letter I thank him for five things in my life which I’m grateful for.  That’s the end of Toothbrush Therapy for that day.  As Trey says, “follow the simple directions” and it works.