One of Two

What freedom do we have to harm ourselves? Do we have the right to prioritize others over ourselves or put our lives in danger? Are we even good judges of what danger we face? 

And what right do we have to hurt those around us? Should we sequester ourselves or medicate our emotions or actions away to protect those who may not be able to protect themselves?

View fullsize

"Bathroom" by Hermetic Hermit via Flickr

Questions without answers. Except the constant answer that we have the right to make mistakes and the right to feel our way forward using our deepest desires as much as our highest thoughts. 

You have the right but also the responsibility to not waste that right by becoming confused by the lies we tell ourselves; the lies that our darknesses tell us.  

So what do we owe ourselves and those we care for? Nothing less than honesty and nothing more than what is safe. We can give of ourselves only that which we have to give and it is dishonest to give more than is safe. If we give to an extent that makes us vulnerable, that is righteous, but to give to a level that makes us less likely to give tomorrow is unfair to ourselves and unfair to those we care for and care about. 

Support. Having it and giving it is the way away from being exploited by those we care about and by ourselves. 

Control, fear, anger, hurt, loss, importance. Betrayal only happens if you have extended your vulnerability and been hurt. 

One is fighting herself for control of her emotions of her future and of her willingness to try. The other is fighting herself to stay vulnerable after being so thoroughly hurt and marginalized. Brought to fight wolves and abandoned to fight on her own. But this isn't a single action, this is an emotion and emotions change with new experience. And these new experiences are not pre-destined, they are potentials, some easy and harsh some rare but beautiful. The potentials exist to be actuated through fear, worry, bravery and courage. There is nothing definite except that the current beliefs will be validated or challenged based on new experiences and we control those new realities. 

“No!!! Yo nunca me rendí, sólo entendí que... Ya fue suficiente.”

The common is to wait, to react, to accept, and to alter our expectations.  To act with purpose and to fight for a preferred future is not modeled and is not common. It is a brave existence without a set of models.  We aren't shown the way and aren't guaranteed success. But what we are guaranteed is a position in the process and a right to own the outcome. Future does not happen to us, it is made by us. 

Relationship Help: Fondness and Admiration Survey

For couples, people in relationship with a romantic partner, even people recently out of relationship. This survey form may be difficult to take, but just by taking it you may feel yourself understanding what is right and what is not. The survey is directly from the John Gottman book Seven Principles of Making Marriage Work and is part of what the Gottman Institute has developed as a way to rebuild or create stable foundations for long-term relationship success. I have only slightly changed the survey so that we can get more detailed numbers instead of a simple True / False. Questions are in a random order which includes the name field, which you can fill out with your name or with a random set of numbers and letters: just something to identify them as unique.

Emotional intelligence

The feelings we get are possibly more rational than the thoughts. For one, emotions exist as experience and do not need to be thought into existence, unlike many other concepts. This makes them somewhat outside the realm of rationalization. 

We may rationalize why we have a feeling but the feeling itself, once known and named accurately, does not need further validation. The same cannot be said of theory or intellectual positions, which may change depending on our beliefs or experience. 

The Notebook Trigger Journal

A suggestion for stopping triggers and the thought spiral that comes out of them.  

View fullsize

through CC @ Pixelbay

1. Carry a small pocket notebook and pencil. Fancy or plain is fine but unruled is much better.
2. Name each journal something having to do with the stage of sobriety or change you are going through at this time, maybe "Scared days" or "unsure about everything" or "I've got this," so later you can reference your experiences based on your stage. 
3. Frickin' carry it with you like I said. Like all the time.
4.  It's designed for Triggers but could work for cravings or thoughts as well. 
5. Catch yourself having an event (trigger, craving, thought, dream, emotion, etc.)
6. Write down the date, time, location
7. (optional) Write down the situation and the event (trigger, craving, etc.)  The idea is that if you do this you can look back and see what you were experiencing for sure. If you don't do this then your notebook is virtually meaningless to anyone else who reads it, looks at it or even watches you do the drawings. 
8. Sketch, draw, doodle or scribble as much or as little of the page as you need to help you bring your focus away from the dangerous thought or event.  Use more pages if you have to. It can be a detailed Celtic knot or a mess of loops.  
9. You can add anything else you want to afterwards like how it turned out, who you called, what you did to get through it or how long it lasted, but that's not as important. 

through CC by Ben Brittin

The idea isn't to think or create, it's to draw, literally draw your attention away from the event and into something else.  Those who draw, draw, those who sketch, sketch, and those who filled the margins of their school notebooks with this:

do that. The slight stimulation and attention to the drawing will be a short but very immediate reminder that the thoughts, events, or cravings are only that. They can't get you if you don't respond to them. 

It doesn't have to be the best moleskin or a #6 soft graphite pencil.  Just get something you can draw on and again, make sure you have it with you. 

Is Resilience A Normal Response to Tragedy?

For a long time the standard view of tragedy is that it only takes time for most people to get over it.  The phrase "moving on" or "time to heal" is seen as the proper way to view a situation where someone is affected by personal loss or life-altering physical status.  The loss of a spouse, of a limb, or of a child is something that we just need to go through and heal from like a cut or bruise.  

New information from Arizona State University shows that this perception may not actually apply in the majority of cases.  Up till now we thought of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Chronic/Prolonged Grief, or life status adjustment disorders to be the result when someone doesn't bounce back as they should. Now there is evidence that the majority of people that face large life changes actually continue to be affected by these tragedies for a lot longer and to be more affected by smaller life changes, such as unemployment.  

View fullsize

Used under CC license, Pixbay

The research article, appearing in Perspectives in Psychological Science, may not be the end of the conversation, but it does appear to look at the same data that has been used before and draw significantly different conclusions.  In fact it draws these conclusions by not looking for expected results.  Whereas many of the previous studies assumed that there was not a large group that were not resilient and instead looked for why or how they were or were not resilient, this study instead simply looked at how many of the people appear to be continually affected by what happened. 

What this also means is that for the many people who feel that they just aren't good enough to overcome what happened, they are not in the minority.  Losing a job or losing a husband both come with severe consequences for most of the people it happens to. This also means that the benefit of group and individual therapy is increased as it has been shown to reduce the negative impact from these events.  For those of us who are friends or family to someone who returned from deployment, lost a job or maybe has a child in foster care, it is important for us to realize that there is a good chance that time alone will not heal these wounds and that helping them find a way to unstick themselves and create meaning from it is better seen as a natural response to all such events instead of only necessary in a few severe cases. 

Building resilience is possible and it is not like eye color or height.  We can change how effective people are at facing and growing from life changes.  Our brains continue to be malleable throughout our lives, and we have developed a Neuroplasticity Retraining and Enhancement program that can help every single person through life's struggles.

Stop by or call to find out how getting to your preferred cognitive reality can help you break free from the negative habits and non-resilience your brain has learned. 

Sobriety Support: Noted from r/stopdrinking

I want to share something I read recently: an encouraging and brave letter of advice and support copied from: 

https://www.reddit.com/r/stopdrinking/comments/436wzo/4_years_what_has_worked_for_me/ 

View fullsize

Stacks by Noah Sorensen

"My last drink was four years ago. Since I don't post often, I figured I'd use this as an excuse to share some of the things that have worked for me. This is basically just collective stopdrinking wisdom that I've shamelessly stolen adopted over the last 4 years.

Keeping myself busy was crucial in the first month or so. And I don't necessarily mean productive busy. Just having TV shows, movies to watch, mindless projects to work on. Idle hands and all that. It's ok to be bored. Sobriety can feel boring at first. Thankfully it doesn't stay that way.

Staying away from drinking environments as much as possible for the first few months. I didn't go to a party or social event unless I felt 100% confident I wasn't going to drink (and had an exit plan). Staying sober was about making smart decisions, not about making foolish ones in order to test myself or to prove that I'm a special snowflake. I waited until I was really ready, and even now I don't enjoy those types of environments much, so I limit my time in them.

Delaying. It's ok to have cravings and not act on them. Cravings don't tend to last very long, so if I could delay drinking for a short time, they would go away. This is where "one day at at time" or "one hour at a time" can be quite useful. At times I've told myself "I can drink tomorrow if I still want to, but today I won't drink, no matter what". Tomorrow isn't that far away, so that usually helped me get through the day. By the next day, I didn't want to drink and I was always so glad and proud of myself for not giving in. P.S. the important part of this tool is to use the same strategy if cravings return the following day and not actually drink. ;)

Spending a lot of time reading r/stopdrinking: learning from other people's mistakes, observing patterns, watching the people who had the kind of sobriety I wanted and modeling my behavior after them. Commenting to encourage others, even if I felt like I wasn't experienced enough to give advice. You don't need to have a certain amount of time sober in order to be supportive.

Actively creating new associations and habits. Usually leave work, stop at a liquor store, and start drinking? I'd plan a new enjoyable routine for when I got home and drive a different way. Or drive the same way and flip off or laugh at the liquor store as I drive by. Whatever floats your boat. Tend to drink on Saturdays out of anxiety or boredom? I'd designate that as my day for a new or old hobby. I'd make plans and break up old routines to do things I'd been meaning to do but never found the time. I actively tried to reprogram my brain: stopping romanticized thoughts about alcohol as they happen and replacing them with new, more rational, pro-sobriety thoughts.

Openness and willingness to try new tools. If what I was doing wasn't working, I had to be honest with myself and do something different. If I was 9 months sober and having daily cravings, to me that meant something wasn't working and I had to do something different or step it up a notch. While I don't do AA or SMART or any formal program, I was open to using them if SD didn't seem to be enough. I never ended up feeling like I needed that in-person support, but I learned about a lot of AA and SMART tools (mostly through SD members) and incorporated some into my own recovery. The more tools in my toolkit, the better. 

Sober community/friends. I didn't have sober friends IRL so it was a godsend to find this place and specifically the chatroom. I have a place I can go any time of the day to chat with people who get me and understand. Some of them I've known for years. Without my irc people, I don't know where I'd be. (Probably back to drinking... :/ ) I luv you guys.

Perspective/gratitude. It can be easy to forget how bad it was while I was still drinking. Checking in with this community, even though it's not as often these days, helps remind me and keeps things in perspective. Is my life perfect? No. But I don't want to take for granted how much better it is since I quit drinking.

Continuing self-improvement beyond just not drinking. Now that I'm sober, I have the clarity, time, and energy to work on whatever issues I was trying to cover up or avoid with alcohol. This one isn't very glamorous or fun, but I think it's important for long-term success. If I drank because of underlying depression, I need to address that depression eventually. If I notice myself replacing alcohol with other harmful habits, then I have to be honest with myself about those and work on them if I deem that they really are harmful. In early sobriety for example, I think it's fine to eat whatever you want if it helps combat cravings. But I don't want that sort of thing to be a long-term habit I use to cope with life, so I address that when I'm no longer "newly sober" and feel ready for a next step. This is a journey and I'm never going to be perfect, but I don't want to be stagnant either. If I get too stagnant, I'm in danger of apathy and slipping backwards.

For those of you in your early days, I wish I could show you how much easier it gets. It gets better and it gets easier. Keep it up and you'll see for yourself. :) 

Thanks for being here, SD. "