Allen Berger - 12 Stupid Things That Mess Up Recovery & 12 Smart Things to Do When the Booze an: Avoiding Relapse and Choosing Emotional Sobriety through Self-Awareness and Right Action

Stupid Things

That Mess Up Recovery

Avoiding Relapse

through Self-Awareness

and Right Action

ALLEN BERGER, PH.D.

Hazelden Publishing

Center City, Minnesota 55012
800-328-9000
hazelden.org/bookstore

12 Stupid Things That Mess Up Recovery 2008 by Allen Berger

12 Smart Things to Do When the Booze and Drugs Are Gone 2010 by Allen Berger

All rights reserved. Published 2008, 2010

Printed and produced in the United States of America

The Emotional Sobriety Inventory Form that appears in 12 Smart Things to Do When the Booze and Drugs Are Gone may be reproduced for personal or group use. Otherwise, no part of these publications may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwisewithout the express written permission of the publisher. Failure to comply with these terms may expose you to legal action and damages for copyright infringement.

e-book ISBN (for bundle of two books): 978-1-61649-103-1

The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data for both books available upon request.

Editors note

The names, details, and circumstances have been changed to protect the privacy of those mentioned in this publication.

These publications are not intended as a substitute for the advice of health care professionals.

Alcoholics Anonymous, AA, the Big Book, the Grapevine, AA Grapevine, and GV are registered trademarks of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.

Permission to reprint The AA Grapevine, Inc., copyrighted material in 12 Smart Things To Do When the Booze and Drugs Are Gone does not in any way imply affiliation with or endorsement by either Alcoholics Anonymous or The AA Grapevine, Inc.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to all of the men and women who have shared their personal journeys with me during the past thirty-six years. God bless you all! I also dedicate this work to my children, Danielle and Nicolas, who continue to inspire me to be the best father and person I can be. I love you both very much.

Contents

Acknowledgments

I want to acknowledge and thank several people. First and foremost, I thank Nick Motu for encouraging me to submit this manuscript to Hazelden. I recognize my editors Karen Chernyaev and Kate Kjorlien for their outstanding suggestions and insights that improved this manuscript. I thank Tom, my sponsor, for his unfailing support and wisdom. I recognize Herb Kaighan and Lauren Dibbs for their feedback on and contributions to the original manuscript. And last, but not least, I acknowledge my friends and family for their ongoing support and encouragement.

Introduction

I believe that if we are truly to recover from the disease of addiction, we must grow upemotionally. True recovery is the product of humility that emerges from living and practicing a conscious and spiritual life. In order to attain humility, we must be honest with ourselves. This necessarily includes looking at the stupid things we do, today, in our recovery. I use the term stupid to indicate the things we do that are self-destructive and not in our best interest.

Before we move on to a discussion about how to identify the underlying causes of self-destructive behavior, I want to share how I selected the twelve issues that I discuss in this book. There must be at least a million stupid things that we can do to mess up recoveryall of them self-destructive. A book cataloging all of these would be unwieldy. I wanted to narrow down the list to a more manageable size so I used the following criteria for my selection. I chose what I considered to be the most commonly confronted and critical issues during the early stages of recovery. I define early recovery as the first two years of recovery. The main issues that we confront during this time include breaking the bonds of addiction, establishing a spiritual foundation for our recovery, learning effective tools to deal with ourselves and our relationships, and dealing with the wreckage of our past.

Few of us will relate to all of these issues, but the general themes should be familiar. So without further ado, here are my top twelve nominations for stupid things we do to mess up our recovery:

1. Believing addiction to one substance is the only problem

2. Believing sobriety will fix everything

3. Pursuing recovery with less energy than pursuing addiction

4. Being selectively honest

5. Feeling special and unique

6. Not making amends

7. Using the program to try to become perfect

8. Confusing self-concern with selfishness

9. Playing futile self-improvement games

10. Not getting help for relationship troubles

11. Believing that life should be easy

12. Using the program to handle everything

These twelve things are tried-and-true ways of messing up recovery. In the following chapters, I will elaborate on each of them. Please try and keep an open mind as you read this book. It has been my experience that those who do best in recovery are those who are honest with themselves, open to new ideas and experiences, and willing to take direction.

Theres one more thing I want to talk about before we move ahead to the task at hand. As you read about each of these twelve stupid things, please ask yourself, What would cause me to think in this particular way or behave in this particular manner? The rest of this introduction presents a series of questions to help you become aware of the causes of self-destructive behaviors. The more we become aware of the underlying cause of a particular belief or behavior, the less it controls our life: awareness of what we are doing to ourselvesawareness of how we sabotage ourselvesstarts the process of change.

Identifying the Causes of Self-Destructive Behaviors

Psychologists and philosophers throughout modern history have tried to understand why we human beings are so self-destructive. Their discussions have ranged from speculating that a death instinct exists deep within our psyches to believing that personality type, childhood trauma, low self-esteem, or an undercurrent of self-hatred are the culprits behind self-destructive acts.

I believe there are four possibilities to consider when assessing the causes of self-destructive behavior. They are numbered because it is important to consider them in order. I recommend starting with number one and working down the list, until the best fit is discovered:

1. our addiction, or our disease

2. ignorance

3. unreasonable expectations and emotional dependency

4. self-erasure and self-hate

Remember to consider each possibility in sequence. When we identify what motivates or causes our stupid behavior, we begin the process of change. Awareness starts the process of change.

Is Our Disease the Culprit?

The first and most important thing to consider when looking for the cause of self-destructive behavior is whether our disease is lurking in the shadows. Let me explain my particular view of addiction, which should help explain why I see this as the most crucial issue to rule out.

Research supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has demonstrated that the addicts brain changes once addiction has been established. In one study, researchers assembled two groups of people: one group with a history of cocaine use who were in recovery and one group with no history of drug abuse. Each subject was given a PET scan that generates a computer image of the areas of the brain that are absorbing glucose, which reflects which areas of the brain are active.