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Wednesday, 30 August 2017
IGA Signs on to Help Support Parents and Families
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Tuesday, 29 August 2017
A Portable Lapse Prevention Plan
Randy Lindel, Facilitator, SMART Recovery Boston
Many lapses are triggered by unforeseen events. Some pressure just occurs out of the blue. It’s an important reminder that you can’t control everything – what other people say or do or what happens that you didn’t expect. Strong emotions can result quickly and produce powerful urges.
But, there IS something you can do. And that’s to have a plan for the unexpected.
In SMART Recovery, we have many strategies to use when you know you’re going to be in a social situation. You “play the tape forward,” thinking through the event and develop your plan to deal with what you’re expecting to happen. After being in a few different situations, you refine your plan to a point that it starts to become automatic.
The difference for the unexpected situation is that your plans are in the back of your mind and the current events may make them hard to find and use while you’re in an emotional state. What you need now is help to access your plans. And a great way to have that help ready is to –
Write your Lapse Prevention Plan on an index card that you keep in your wallet, purse or someplace that’s always accessible. What’s on your card can be any strategy that you think can help. At my regular meeting this week, here are some ideas the group came up with for a card:
Whatever your list, just make sure they are approaches you think will be good to deal with strong emotions and urges. With your “plan in your pocket,” you won’t have to worry about making one up when you really need it.
For a list of SMART Recovery meetings near you visit https://www.smartrecovery.org/local/
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http://blog.smartrecovery.org/2017/08/29/a-portable-lapse-prevention-plan/
Tuesday, 22 August 2017
What’s the first step of habit change? Going off autopilot!
– Carrie Wilkens, Clinical Director of the Center for Motivation and Change
Changing behavior requires self-awareness. Changing a well-worn habit in particular requires that you move it from “automatic” to “conscious” so that you can make other behavioral choices. For example, if you don’t even notice that you are reaching for a cigarette as you get into your car, how are you ever going to decide to resist lighting it up?
Habits are influenced by your environment and are set off by environmental cues, sometimes called triggers. Triggers are the people, situations, locations and emotions associated with any behavior you are trying to change. When it comes to substance use, triggers are the environmental variables that provoke “cravings” or the desire to use or engage in the habit. Neuroscientists have studied the trigger effect in the brain—how an encounter with drug paraphernalia or the smell of a long-frequented pub lights up the part of the brain responsible for emotion and instinct, the “feel good” parts of the brain. As you encounter these cues in your daily life, it’s likely that you are on autopilot and don’t even notice how they are linked to your decision to engage in your habit. Scientists have also found that once these habits are engaged, the brain has a difficult time considering the consequences and risks associated with the behavior. In other words, once you are in your car, smoking the cigarette, it’s not likely that you will have the wherewithal to say “this is really bad for my health, I’m going to throw this cigarette and the rest of the pack away right now.”
If you are wanting to change a habit, it is important to start with identifying the cues/triggers (both internal and external) that lead up to the decision to engage in the behavior.
- What are the usual times of day/night associated with this behavior?
- What are you doing?
- What are you feeling?
- What are you thinking?
- Who are you with?
- Where are you?
The good news is that by understanding these triggers you can go about altering your
environment in order to support change. In addition, when you replace old behaviors with more positive actions, new neural pathways are forged. Thankfully, triggers tend to lose their strength over time as the old pathways power down from disuse.
Suggestions:
- Address your environment: You can choose to be one place or another. You can avoid certain places or certain people. You can consciously alter things in your environment to make it safer (remove paraphernalia or any other visual cues to use).
- Be conscious! Much of daily life is out of our control but we can make conscious decisions about some variables and doing so can make a big difference. Who are you spending time with? Where are you hanging out? How are you responding to certain emotional states?
- Pay special attention to the internal triggers (the feelings and the thoughts). Do you need to get specific help with anxiety? How can you go about tending to your loneliness? Fatigue? Anger?
- Be proactive and deliberate. As you try to resist old behaviors, be creative and engage in life-enhancing alternatives so that you don’t feel deprived.
- Ask for help. Changing your relationship to behavioral habits often involves including other people. Let people know what you are trying to do so that they don’t accidentally contribute to your being exposed to your triggers.
Remember, making changes in behavior require new learning. No one is an A student over night. Be patient with yourself as you navigate your day to day and encounter triggers and possibly the desire to engage in your habit. By shifting out of “automatic” and trying to be aware of your triggers you will have a much greater chance of changing your behavior and patterns. Conscious decision making leads to change!
Dr. Wilkens is a Clinical Director of the Center for Motivation and Change in NYC which she co-founded with Dr. Jeffrey Foote. She specializes in motivational treatments and group psychotherapy, and has worked with traumatized populations in both individual and group modalities.
Source: Center for Motivation & Change (used with permission)
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http://blog.smartrecovery.org/2017/08/22/whats-the-first-step-of-habit-change-going-off-autopilot/
Tuesday, 15 August 2017
A Powerful Exercise for Changing Your Thinking
Three Minute Refutations by Michael R. Edelstein Ph.D.
SMART is based in part on the rational (REBT) concepts of Albert Ellis. Here, Michael Edelstein outlines his distinctive style of the application of REBT as an aid to recovery.
In my book Three Minute Therapy, I introduced the cognitive practice of the Three Minute Exercise (TME) to challenge your internal demands–your “I musts,” “Others musts,” and “Life musts.” The Three Minute Refutations (TMR) involves a powerful exercise for changing another type of addictive thinking. It targets your rationalizations or excuses, which arise from your demands. For example, if you have set a smoking quit date and find it uncomfortable to follow through, you may tell yourself you “must” avoid that discomfort and smoke anyway. Or if you have the urge to light up in an area where smoking is prohibited, you may think you “must” satisfy this urge and step outside. These “musts” lead to self-defeating behaviors.
Targeting your “musts”
The Three Minute Exercise (TME), which is discussed in Three Minute Therapy, is ideal for targeting your “musts.” Your “musts” may encourage you to make excuses for not quitting on the appointed date or not abstaining from a cigarette during work hours. Some excuses might be: “I have a lot of stress today, I’ll quit tomorrow” or “I’ll have only one drag, then I’ll stop.”
Irrational Belief
“I absolutely MUST satisfy my urge for a smoke right now. I can’t stand feeling frustrated.”
Excuse or Rationalization
“I’ll have one last cigarette, then I’ll quit.”
Targeting your excuses to attack your smoking addiction
This is where TMRs are useful. They target these excuses and rationalizations. Along with the TMEs, it mounts a two-pronged attack on your smoking addiction. The TMEs target your demands, while the TMRs target your excuses.
TMRs also prove effective for other behavioral difficulties including procrastination, alcohol, drug, and food addictions. They consist of two elements: excuses and refuting the excuses. Let’s focus on excuses first.
Excuses are statements we say to ourselves which make procrastinating, overeating, overdrinking, or smoking seem reasonable, when in reality they’re destructive because they block, interfere with, or sabotage our long-term goals. Refutations put the lie to the excuses and state how they’re false or self-destructive. Here is an example of a completed TMR:
Excuse
“It’s ok to smoke right now because it’ll be the last time.”
“Refutations put the lie to the excuses and state how they’re false or self-destructive.”
Refutations
1. I’ve used this excuse hundreds of times. It hasn’t worked before and it won’t work now. It always has led to the next time.
2.This “last time” could mean losing my job and ruining my marriage.
3. How many days of smoking is this “one last time” going to continue?
4. I don’t HAVE TO indulge this “last time.”
5. This “last time” could lead to lung cancer.
6. I’m lying to myself, pure and simple.
7. I can change this statement to: “No more times!” or “Quit smoking right now for good!”
8. I’ll be better off now, better off tomorrow, and better off for the rest of my life with: “No more nicotine.”
9. Since I choose to smoke, I can also choose not to smoke.
10. If I choose not to smoke, the discomfort I’ll feel will be temporary, not forever.
Implementing TMR
How do you implement TMR? With practice and effort! Here is what I recommend:
1. Write and read these refutations five times daily until you’ve memorized them.
2. Then write them from memory five times daily.
3. Whenever you have the urge to light up, identify the thoughts that make smoking seem reasonable. Then refute these excuses.
4. If the excuses seem to be gaining the upper hand, externalize the debate by writing down the dialogue or saying it out loud.
5. Practice, practice, practice.
If this sounds like a simple concept, it is. But simple does not mean easy. The application is your challenge. But if you follow the five recommendations above, you will be successful in changing your addictive thinking.
About the author:
Dr. Michael R. Edelstein is a clinical psychologist with a phone, Skype, and in-person practice in San Francisco and Marin County. His book, Three Minute Therapy, Change Your Thinking, Change your Life can be found on Amazon. He can be reached at DrEdelstein@ThreeMinuteTherapy.com
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http://blog.smartrecovery.org/2017/08/15/powerful-exercise-for-changing-your-thinking/
Friday, 11 August 2017
Partnership for Drug-Free Kids Supports the Declaration of a National State of Emergency
Tuesday, 8 August 2017
5 Things You Need To Know About Digital Tools for Recovery
Addiction Recovery 101, with Reid Hester, Ph.D.
“There are a huge number of digital tools to help people with alcohol and drug problems…..It’s really hard to tell, just on the basis of looking at them, what’s going to help you.”
~ Dr. Reid Hester
Watch to find out what you need to know to find an effective app:
CheckUp & Choices is a confidential online program, based on the 4-Point Program® of SMART Recovery, designed to enhance your efforts to achieve and maintain abstinence. It offers modules for alcohol, marijuana, opioids, stimulants, as well as compulsive gambling.
The 5 Things Series contains footage of Recovery Research Institute interviews with international experts in addiction treatment and recovery.
Reid K. Hester, Ph.D. is the Director of CheckUp & Choices LLC
For More Information Visit: http://checkupandchoices.com/
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http://blog.smartrecovery.org/2017/08/08/5-things-you-need-to-know-about-digital-tools-for-recovery/
Tuesday, 1 August 2017
Words are Hugely Powerful Mediators of Positive Change
Word Choice and Positive Outcomes
The leading barrier to treatment entry by people abusing substances is fear of stigma.
And beliefs inform behavior. One study found that treatment providers who referred to patients as “addicts” had significantly more negative attitudes towards them when compared to treatment providers who referred to patients as having “substance use disorders.”
Words are an attitude, a belief, and have an impact. The leading barrier to treatment entry by people abusing substances is fear of stigma. Stigma is conveyed by word choice. “I’m glad you’re here, Mr. Smith, and it’s important that you’ve recognized you are an alcoholic” Ouch! “I thought I was just drinking too much in the evening! Maybe this isn’t the place for me..maybe they are going to view me a certain way..maybe I’ll do this on my own”. Words matter because they convey meaning and attitude, and they set up barriers and roadblocks.
The fortunate inverse of this is that words are hugely powerful mediators of positive change as well. Some of our most successful treatments (e.g. Motivational Interviewing) are predicated on use of language by the therapist that is non-confrontational, respectful, conveys a sense of collaboration, and demonstrates empathy and understanding of the other person. All with words!
Additionally, this approach places a lot of emphasis on facilitating certain language from the client, called “change talk”, that has been demonstrated to predict positive change. So our language matters, and the language of the person we are trying to help matters.
Source: Center for Motivation and Change blog. Used with permission.
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http://blog.smartrecovery.org/2017/08/01/words-are-hugely-powerful-mediators-of-positive-change/
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