Coping with Life’s Ordinary Moments in Recovery…
Are things honestly ever โjust fineโ in early recovery?
At Sanford House , we begin group therapy sessions with a check-in. Clients are asked to identify how theyโre feeling today. (Sure, sometimes therapy is just as on-the-nose as one may imagine.) I challenge my clients to reframe answers like โfine,โ โgood,โ or โI donโt knowโ as emotion words.
โGoodโ may be reframed as โinspired,โ โcontent,โ or โrelaxed.โ
โI donโt knowโ as โconfused,โ โnumb,โ or โoverwhelmed.โ
โFineโ is trickier.
I’m Feelinโ Fine – My Recovery is Just Fine
It isnโt uncommon to reach a plateau in addiction treatment. The client is maintaining their sobriety, but motivation has waned. Folks may be less active or enthusiastic in their recovery than immediately after the decision to get sober. Life begins to feel routine. Everything is less urgent, less shiny.
The New Normal sets in where nothingโs wrong, but nothingโs especially right either.
Weโre reaching the seasonal equivalent of a โplateauโ in Michigan right now. February: the shortest, but longestย month of the year to Midwesterners. Valentine’s Day has come and gone. The ice will not quit. Nor the wind. Nor the wet, sloppy, slippery streets. Itโs misery. I really canโt sugarcoat it, and I wonโt. Iโm exhausted (and cold).
And why should I? Life is full of unsweetened moments. I spoke to a friend recently who was flying into Detroit from Florida. She said, โEveryone on the plane was asking, Who would live here?ย But the fact is, people do and there are moments of great beauty and people are also successful in recovery here. Honestly, you could live in California and relapse exactly the same. Youโd just be warmer while doing it.โ
Full color February – a monochromatic beauty…
When Sobriety is Monotonous…
The hard truth is, life is ordinary far more often than itโs extraordinary. Itโs what makes the extraordinary moments stick out, because theyโre out of the ordinary. If things were wonderful all the time, weโd get bored. And then start seeking out the extra-extraordinary stuff. Itโs the human condition, the primative part of our brains is never satisfied.
And after the chaos and fast pace of active addiction, the monotony of sobriety can lead us to madness. All of the sudden, a surreptitious thoughtโฆ a dangerous thoughtโฆ What if I threw a wrench in here. I screw everything up anyway, right? Fiona Appleโs voice sings: โI want to make a mistakeโฆ I want to do it on purposeโฆโ And we begin to flirt with people, places, and activities that donโt support our recovery. Partly out of boredom, partly out of frustration, mostly as a really good excuse to use.
Seduced by Secrecy, Cloaked in Shade
None of us are immune, Iโve found myself engaging in the forbidden. Falling in love with self-sabotage and feeling superior and darker because of it. Like a martyr. Carrying this weight, this burdenโฆ which we love. Which we tie to our identity and use to keep us sick. For some reason, we equate secret-keeping with strength and importance.
Itโs exhilarating to have a secret, it makes my skin buzz. However, the exhilaration usually fades once the dangerous thought no longer thrills us. (A fair sign it was void of any healthy meaning in the first place.) And we move on to bad behavior, when bad thoughts arenโt enough.
Thereโs this movie iconic scene where a woman starts seeing a married man. They rendezvous at expensive hotels, they meet in the middle of the night. Inevitably, it grows stale. So theyโre lying on a scratchy motel twin, not touching, when the man says, โThis room smells like take-out curry.โ
And itโs such a great metaphor. At some point, โbeing badโ starts to smell like bad food. When the thrill expires, weโre left with a hollow, queasy heart. An I-donโt-think-I-should-have-done-that heart. Not very fulfilling.
Life in recovery is more often ordinary than extraordinary…
Hide and Seek
We love to be bad, itโs classic. In reality, it takes much more strength to disclose a secret and behave responsibly. It requires a great deal of bravery to reveal our dark thoughts. When we come up against self-sabotage (in the form of using thoughts, relapse, or situations we know to avoid), itโs best to tell on ourselves. Opening up to our therapist or AA group holds us accountable, and gives us the knowledge to navigate those feelings in the future. Itโs the reason Sanford House values aftercare so highly (more information about our newly opened Sanford House Outpatient Center here).
Personally, Iโve always had a thing for people who bend the rules. Maybe thatโs why I became an addiction counselor. I respect people who forge a new path, question everything. Those people are usually smart.
But thereโs bending the rules, and thereโs recklessness for the sake of recklessness. And thatโs why secret-keeping is so often tied to shame, especially in terms of substance use.
In early recovery, we have to be vigilant to the ways our addict brain will repeat old patterns. Boredom is one of the biggest triggers my clients report, and folks typically never see it coming. Itโs during the quiet moments, when things are โjust fine,โ that it’s easy to play fast and loose with our recovery. And in this weather, one canโt help but feel a little bad for oneself. The good news, is that appreciating the ordinary times becomes a mainstay of long term recovery. Where we can relish the lack of drama – and look forward to the inevitable and extraordinary blue sky winter day…