Addiction is Addiction is Addiction

You have heard the jokes. Shopping addiction, chocolate addiction, TV and shoes too. They are jokes, until they are not.

In the new book, “Out of the Woods” I write about our tendency to transfer addictions—moving back and forth between drugs, food, alcohol and also about the “soft addictions” and “process addictions”, things like too much TV, binge TV, Internet, shopping and even work and worry.

We come to understand that addiction is really in the person and not in the substance. We also learn that while it’s true that shopping may not kill us and we can joke about being addicted to the games on our phone, we also know that avoiding our feelings is an early sign that we are sliding to the place that means trouble.  

This is why I know that I need ongoing discernment with other people in recovery: the process addictions are often things that have very good qualities. Exercise is a good example: We get in shape, we get a good habit of running or going to the gym, but what happens when we miss a day or can’t work out? Are we in a bad mood? Are we afraid? I’ve been there with exercise.

Similarly with shopping: Who doesn’t want to look nice? But do we obsess? Spend money we don’t have? Wander the mall in a trance? I’ve done that too.

That old joke from early recovery turns out to be true: “The only thing you have to change is everything.”  Marion Woodman, Jungian analyst and teacher said, “The natural gradient in us is toward growth. Whatever we use repeatedly and compulsively to stop that growth is our particular addiction.”

In “Out of the Woods” I included a chapter on “Facing Other Addictions” –it’s all part of what we’ll encounter as recovery progresses. It’s a lot of fun and it’s deadly serious. 

Out of the Woods--The book is in stores and on Youtube

I am so pleased to let you know that what began on this blog is now a book. "Out of the Woods" has been published by Central Recovery Press.

You can purchase the book at your local bookstores or an Amazon. I placed a link below to make that easy. And also a link to me on YouTube talking about why--oh why--I wrote this book.

I began talking about how we come out of he woods when I was maybe ten years into my recovery and then I started writing about the issues of changing recovery, transferring addictions, relationships in recovery and finally longterm recovery over the next 20 years.

I made myself laugh when someone recently asked me how I wrote a book while also having a big job and a busy recovery life and rich friend life and wonderful married life too (and a little cancer thrown in for interest) and I said, meaning this is how I write, "I did it one day at a time."

Yeah, I said that. To coin a phrase:) But it's true. I wrote the book the way I do recovery: baby steps, trials and tests, building new habits and one day at a time.

I invite you to buy the book. But keep joining me here. The discussion  just keeps going and there is so much more for us to talk about as we come out of the woods.

Check this out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHbwyvPV0Q0&feature=youtu.be

http://www.amazon.com/Out-Woods-Womans-Long-Term-Recovery/dp/1937612473

All Encompassing Recovery

In my earliest years of recovery I had the blessing of discovering two recovery speakers who, I now know, significantly impacted how I would recover.

One was the AA speaker, Bob Earle, who told his story of progression through various addictions and an array of issues leading to deep emotional and spiritual change. In one of his earliest talks Bob told his audience, “When I am ten years sober I don’t want to go to five different Twelve Step groups for my alcoholism, food, family issues, codependence etc. I want to go to one meeting where I talk about all of me.”

The other person who influenced me was Judi Hollis, PhD an eating disorder therapist and the author of “Transferring Obsessions” published by Hazelden. That small pamphlet was part of my daily reading from my first year. I know that her ideas made early recovery really hard, but now in later recovery I thank her every day.

Hollis was writing to an audience of Overeaters Anonymous members. She talked about what happens when a woman or man in food recovery begins to let go of that addiction and how, if a Higher Power is not the replacement, we will move on to shopping, decorating, exercising, dating, sex, work and using alcohol or drugs. In those earlier days of OA there were members who still used alcohol, seeing the separation of substances but not seeing the singularity of addiction.

It was not unlike the way most professionals viewed drug addiction and alcoholism 25 years ago. At that time most hospital treatment programs for drug addiction allowed participants to drink alcohol. In some programs people completing their treatment for drug addiction were given a Beer Bash as the celebration of their 90 days of clean time. We are amazed by that today. Maybe someday we’ll be amazed by alcohol treatment that includes tobacco use or ice cream parties on Friday nights.

Now, to be clear the influence of Earle and Hollis did not stop me from swapping back and forth between alcohol, food, shopping, exercising and overwork. It just made it so much more painful because the denial was much more short-lived. When I left a department store with two shopping bags of clothes I knew it was the same as sneaking out of a grocery store with two bags of cake and cookies. And I knew that the married man that pumped up my heart rate was the same “drug” as the extra hour on the treadmill. A drug is a drug is a drug.

It’s been said that we give up our addictions in the order in which they are killing us. That was true for me. Mine went in this order: food, bulimic behavior, alcohol, drugs and then the ones that are ongoing: relationships and work. I take those tigers for a walk every day.

There are still some audiotapes of Bob Earle around. Ask the old-timers in your home group. And Judy Hollis’s “Transferring Obsessions” is still available from Hazelden.