So today is the day for implant #5. My anxiety and craziness about not knowing what the hell is happening in my body talked me into popping a couple of Vicoden last night. Bad idea i guess, but it did help with the anxiety. I wish I could kick that little voice out of my head. This is so much harder than I thought it would be, for some reason. I don’t know why I didn’t think it would be hard. I think I did, I just didn’t know quite how much power that addict voice would still have. I thought I would be able to shut it up with the Sub/Implant I have to say that I am feeling less than confident that this next implant will do the trick for me, but I haven’t given up hope completely. I hope and I hope because I really don’t know what I will do next if it doesn’t help me. No $$, no ins, etc, etc… Wish me luck!
dealing with urges Sunday November 18, 2007
I found this on StumbleUpon (one of my favorite addictions!) and it seems pretty good. I am putting it here for all to read, but I am taking no credit for the contents. I know that reading this when I am feeling weak will help me, and maybe it will help you, too.
COPING WITH URGES
Robert Westermeyer, Ph.D.
Habits and urges go hand in hand. In fact, many people in the throes of an addictive behavior problem, whether it is overeating, drug use or alcohol abuse, claim that they derive no pleasure from their habit–that it is nothing but the relentless craving that fuels ongoing addictive behavior. What is usually most difficult for people when changing a bad habit is coping with the sometimes relentless urges. The initial days of a habit kicking plan can be exhausting as urges dominate thinking and interfere with daily routine. Many people give up change efforts because they feel that there is not way they can function without their habit as the urges interfere too much with quality of life.
It is important to remember that urges, in and of themselves, are normal. We experience craving in varying degrees every day. And because your habit has been important to you for a long time, it may be unreasonable to expect urges to vanish completely. What is hoped is that you will come to experience urges with less frequency and that when they are experienced you will be able to react in a way that avoids relapse.
The “three Ds” can be helpful in coping with urges and craving, whether these urges are related to alcohol or drug use, overeating , tobacco use or any habit you are attempting to change. The Ds stand for Decatastrophizing, Disputing expectancies and Distracting.
Decatastrophizing
Especially early on in your change efforts, craving can seem excruciating. Your daily routine has been altered by the elimination of an important part of life and now you can’t get your mind off it. Everything you see reminds you of your habit. If you smoke, every room you enter may bring to mind the image of a cigarette and associated pleasure. The inability to satisfy the urge can lead to frustration and inner statements like, “I can’t stand this!” or “There is no way I will be able to live without giving in. I’ll just go crazy!” Statements like this can be overwhelming. So much so that people often give up efforts.
As is the case with anxiety, catastrophic thoughts can lead to a great deal of arousal which can, in turn, make things seem worse than they are. If you believe that you are completely out of control, your emotions will follow. What is important to remember is that urges are normal and typically decline in intensity as you continue implementing change. To combat catastrophic reactions to urges it is important to remind yourself of times in the past when you have successfully changed habits (think now, we all have done so at least once or twice!). Do you still experience urges? If so, are they as intense as during the initial phase of your change efforts? Probably not, right? Furthermore, think about other people you have known who have undergone significant change. Do they seem haunted by urges such that they cannot function? If not, who is to say that you cannot accomplish that also?
Try to take some of the power away from a black and white adjective like “horrible” or “unbearable.” Belief in horrible extremes only makes you feel worse. Just how unbearable is your urge right now? To accurately answer this you may need to conjure images of what other types of suffering reported as unbearable are like. Is this as unbearable as getting stabbed in the stomach? Or better still, what have you endured which was worse than your current urge? Was that unbearable? If so, does it follow that your urge is less than unbearable and perhaps only “very uncomfortable.”
Disputing Expectancies
Craving is, in essence, the activation of expectancies. Beck and his colleagues (Cognitive Therapy of Substance Abuse, 1993, Guilford Publications) believe that there are three beliefs associated with “the acute decision to engage in substance abuse.” They are Anticipatory, such as “I’m gonna be Mr. Wonderful after one line.” Relief Oriented, such as “I won’t have to think about work if I drink this bottle of wine.” and Facilitative or Permissive, such as , ” I’ve been good all week, I’m entitled to an evening high.” Though Beck and his colleagues presented these fundamental beliefs in reference to substance abuse problems, it is this author’s contention that these beliefs can function in any habit urge.
Since we rarely think about distant consequences when craving, bring them to mind deliberately. Bring to mind the negative emotions which may be experienced at a later time due to engaging in your habit. Urges are “myopic” in that they can only see advantages. You must shed some light on your craving in order to effectively control it. Ask yourself questions like:
* How will I feel later if I give in to my urges?”
* What consequences might I suffer if I give in?”
* Will the negatives outweigh the positives in the long run if I give in?”
Another way to cope with urges is to imagine that someone very close to you is voicing the very urge you are experiencing. How would you go about convincing them not go give in. Sometimes distancing ourselves from our urges is imperative before you can subject them to any scrutiny.
Your ability to conjure vivid images can be used in your favor when you experience craving. In the presence of a strong urge, try to imagine a very negative outcome. The more negatively graphic the better. The more true to your life the better. For example, if you have a problem with alcohol and experience a strong urge to walk down to the convince store and buy a bottle of Vodka, imagine the worst hangover possible. Imagine vomiting all morning. Better still–imagine someone very important dropping by, someone you really want to impress, and seeing you in that condition. It is amazing how powerful our own imagination can be in fueling and impeding behavior. Use it to your advantage in your habit change efforts!
Distracting
Some urges are so relentless that talking back to them is insufficient. You still can’t get your mind off your habit. Good old fashioned distraction is sometimes the only medicine that can pull your thoughts away. Distraction can be cognitive, in the form of some mental exercises, or behavioral, in the form of activity. Certainly the latter is going to be the most effective, in that urges tend to occur in environments with are the same or similar to those in which the habit occurred in the past. If you are trying to quit smoking, and you have previously smoked at in your office all day, being in your office is going to elicit a strong drive to light up. Certainly if possible, taking your work into a conference room, or taking a break and walking outside will often be enough to decrease the urge to a manageable level. You must evaluate your schedule and determine which situations evoke the most intense craving and create as much flexibility as possible so that you can “escape” if necessary–especially in the initial days of your change efforts.
Cognitive distraction can be very powerful. Certainly imagery has been used as a means of helping stressed people learn to relax. You too can use imagery to take your mind off an urge which is dominating consciousness. Conjuring a pleasant place like a beach or on a raft in a lake can help you not only take your mind off the urge but relax as well.
However, “relaxing” images are not helpful for everyone. Some find that if they relax when craving they will only want it more. This makes sense as we have discussed that many habits are associated with relaxation and pleasure, and evoking these feelings in places previously associated with your habit can strengthen urges tremendously. I recommend that you find some mental task that will be very difficult to finish but which is interesting and consuming that you can activate in response to an urge. I like to refer to these as Mental Tapes. Some examples of tapes which have been helpful are:
* Writing the perfect epic novel or screenplay.
* Planning the perfect vacation.
* Creating the ideal money-making business
* Interpreting a dream from the night before
* picking an acquaintance and trying to “figure them out.”
Certainly what you choose will depend on your interests, but the key is to make it something that will be easy and perhaps interesting and fun to do. Choosing to think about all the mistakes you’ve made this year and how you could have done things differently is not going to prove a good distraction tape as it won’t be enjoyable. In fact it may increase the power of your urge, especially if stress has precipitated your habit in the past.
It is sometimes best to try one urge control technique at a time so that you don’t get overwhelmed. These techniques work, but they also require a great deal of mental energy and conscious effort. The aim here is not to make change excruciating or extraordinarily taxing, but to provide you with some tools which you can add to your armory at a your own pace.
so maybe I’ll start now… Friday November 16, 2007
I have time, and I am not overtaken by the numbness and grief that the loss of my grandma has left me with. I will write. I didn’t make it to the meeting last night. I decided to join C and the kids to the book fair, and we had a good time. I told the kids that we were making Christmas wish lists, that we would be buying nothing, but listening and watching for what they liked and wanted. I took R to the journals and watched her oooh and aaah over the fancy leather bound, jewel encrusted beauties. Her eight year old sensibilities left her longing for a book with a lock, however. Which left us with only the kid-type journals to choose from, not as pretty, but they lock. She does have a little brother, ya know. Even though he does not yet know how to read, her craving and need for privacy has pushed her to NEED a lock. And a promise that I would never ever read it with out her permission. Watching my little girl grow up is harder than I ever imagined. And the parts that are hard are not the ones that I thought they would be. It is watching her grow wiser of the world and it’s dangers that is hard. Listening to her relate playground battles and homework insecurities makes me want to cry with fury. Fury that my baby is having to deal with the world, without me, and that I have to let her. That is the hard part.
I saw my dad today, for the first time since I was in California. He joined me and R for the Family Feast at S’s kindergarten class. The feast was fun, and R enjoyed being sprung from class for an hour before recess 
It was nice to be able to give my dad a bit of distraction and comfort after all that he did for me last week. We are still trying to figure this damned service out. My uncle is being so god-damned difficult. I am angry with him for so many reasons
ok. What the fucking fuck?!? Every time I sit down to write someone fucking dies. I just got a call that a close friend of my mom’s passed away… Died of a pulmonary embolism and lied dead in her bathroom for three days until someone found her. When my grandma died she wasn’t found for three days as well. This is craziness. I feel like I am in the Twilight Zone or something. wow, I guess the Universe is trying to tell me to write my will or something? OK!!!!! I WILL DO IT!!!!!!
Anyway, I was going to write, and I guess I don’t have to stop…
I registered for school for Winter quarter. That felt pretty good. I hope I can deal with it by then. I think I will be ready. 12 credits, Stress Management (ha! 2 credits, 2 Saturdays, easy!), Modern American Women Writers (fun and easy! 5cr, M-Th), and Sociology of Minority Groups (5cr, M-Th, interesting, should be able to get a good grade). So, school from 11:30 until 1:35 M-Th, and 2 Saturdays 9-6. Sounds doable. I am really looking forward to getting back to my “real” life, but I am enjoying this little vacation, if you can call it that.
And on to recovery… I am clean. Not using except for the good ‘ol green. My care providers are aware of that and, although not exactly supportive, accept that I am not yet ready to work on that. I can’t say that I haven’t thought about a fat line of oxy. I have had a pretty hard time not choosing to go that route on a few occasions lately. So, I know the demons have not left me completely, but I am strong enough to fight them. I think that all of the stress that I have been dealing with is contributing a lot to that situation. Old habits die hard, or at least that’s what they say. And the fact that C is still struggling a bit is making it a bit harder for me. I don’t really want to ask, and he doesn’t really want to tell me about it, but it’s like the pink elephant in the middle of the room that everyone is pretending isn’t there. He tells me he’s ok, and we are so fucking broke that I know he can’t be using much, but it is still a tricky subject for us. And for some reason, even though I told him I was going to give the AA thing a try, he acted all weird about it last night when I said that I wanted to go to a meeting. He said that he thought I said that I didn’t like it and didn’t want to go anymore. I never said that, in fact I told him that I wanted to try the women’s only meetings before I decided, so I don’t know what that was about. I think he has a lot of feelings about 12 step, and I guess I do too. But I also feel like I could really use some support right now, and maybe a room full of women that are all struggling in the ways that I am might really help me. I can take what I need from these meetings and leave the rest. For some reason a good number of our good friends have decided to turn into giant gaping assholes lately is really not helping with the whole “support network” thing, ya know.
hmmm I seem to have run out of words so I guess I’m done for now.
Andrea Saturday November 3, 2007
I just wanted to tell you that I am thing about you today and what a great big step forward you are taking right now. Believe in hope. Please check in with me if you feel like it, I would love to hear how it goes for you. For me, my first day was like a double scoop ice cream cone on a hot summer day. Perfect. I was more myself within 20 minutes than I can remember feeling in my last 30 years. Peace to you, and enjoy your journey.
an open invitation Tuesday October 30, 2007
To any of you out there in web land who are reading this blog. If you are in recovery, if you are trying to decide if Suboxone is right for you, if you are depressed, if you are a mother who struggles with mental illness or addiction, I want to hear from you. I need support. And I truly believe that support is a flow of energy. That means that if I can help you with my words, then you can help me with yours. Leave me a comment, send me a link to your blog or page. I want to widen my safety net, and I am really getting attached to reading the kind words that are left for me when I am struggling. It really does help. So, to all of you out there, say hello, or help, or whatever it is that you are thinking. I need you all.
