Post by primrose on Jan 29, 2011 11:05:37 GMT -5
If you feel like you may be about to slip, it is important to work out what is triggering you. There is ALWAYS a reason you slip, it is never random. The more you understand your triggers, the more choice you have in your recovery. I hope that these questions will help you grow in self-awareness and help you develop the emotional muscle necessary to see yourself through the trying times when slips seem preferable to recovery.
1. Think back on what has happened to you recently. Has someone said something painful? Have you been hungry, angry, lonely or tired? Are you very stressed? What is going on for you?
There will be a reason you feel off-balance and slippery. Usually, it is because you are feeling a feeling that is difficult for you to cope with. Most slips happen because intense feelings that an addict is used to medicating on, are surfacing and surfacing in a way that feels threatening. What is it? If it doesn't automatically come to your mind think about the last week and see if you were simply a "little" bit something. A "little" bit depressed, lonely etc. In early recovery you will be learning about feelings that you have repressed for years, it may be difficult for you to recognise them, or even imagine that something as simple as feeling "a bit blue" could drive you to act-out. But as an addict you will have spent many years running away from your feelings. You don't yet have enough emotional muscle to deal with things like loneliness or frustration without turning to your fix. So be rigorous in your search for the trigger. Knowing what it is will help you so much in moving forward in your recovery.
2. Assuming you now know what triggered you, it will help to write about the feeling you are afraid of. For example, I could not cope with loneliness at all and acted out on it over and over again. In early recovery it was important that I sat with loneliness and processed it, but it was also something that triggered me a lot. When I felt very abandoned, I wanted to contact my POA. I spent time writing and drawing out my feelings of loneliness when they surfaced. I grieved a lot, the longing was terrible, but getting it out by crying and talking about it and writing and drawing helped me work through it. For me I had to remove the loneliness bit by bit as if I had a huge pile of it and each day I took out a spade full of it. Doing it that way meant I didn't keep slipping even though loneliness was my biggest trigger.
It will help you come to terms with your feelings when you work out what is a trigger for slipping and what is going on emotionally for you when you want to slip.
3. It might be time to "get real" about what you actually got or didn't get from your POA. I kept the last message I'd sent to my POA for a long time so I could see how much agony I was in and exactly why I cut contact. Euphoric recall is part of being a love addict, when that starts up, dowse it out with reality. Think of the most painful thing/things your POA ever did to you and write about that. That is the reason you left. That is the reason you are in recovery. The high was always always followed by a low. The low is why you are here doing the hard work and getting well. If you'd always been high, you wouldn't be reading these questions now, knowing that others have tread your path and know how hard it is, but know how real it is and how it's the path to dignity and self-respect and self-love. You are here because the low was awful and stripped you of contentment and happiness. So write about the lows to ground yourself.
1. Think back on what has happened to you recently. Has someone said something painful? Have you been hungry, angry, lonely or tired? Are you very stressed? What is going on for you?
There will be a reason you feel off-balance and slippery. Usually, it is because you are feeling a feeling that is difficult for you to cope with. Most slips happen because intense feelings that an addict is used to medicating on, are surfacing and surfacing in a way that feels threatening. What is it? If it doesn't automatically come to your mind think about the last week and see if you were simply a "little" bit something. A "little" bit depressed, lonely etc. In early recovery you will be learning about feelings that you have repressed for years, it may be difficult for you to recognise them, or even imagine that something as simple as feeling "a bit blue" could drive you to act-out. But as an addict you will have spent many years running away from your feelings. You don't yet have enough emotional muscle to deal with things like loneliness or frustration without turning to your fix. So be rigorous in your search for the trigger. Knowing what it is will help you so much in moving forward in your recovery.
2. Assuming you now know what triggered you, it will help to write about the feeling you are afraid of. For example, I could not cope with loneliness at all and acted out on it over and over again. In early recovery it was important that I sat with loneliness and processed it, but it was also something that triggered me a lot. When I felt very abandoned, I wanted to contact my POA. I spent time writing and drawing out my feelings of loneliness when they surfaced. I grieved a lot, the longing was terrible, but getting it out by crying and talking about it and writing and drawing helped me work through it. For me I had to remove the loneliness bit by bit as if I had a huge pile of it and each day I took out a spade full of it. Doing it that way meant I didn't keep slipping even though loneliness was my biggest trigger.
It will help you come to terms with your feelings when you work out what is a trigger for slipping and what is going on emotionally for you when you want to slip.
3. It might be time to "get real" about what you actually got or didn't get from your POA. I kept the last message I'd sent to my POA for a long time so I could see how much agony I was in and exactly why I cut contact. Euphoric recall is part of being a love addict, when that starts up, dowse it out with reality. Think of the most painful thing/things your POA ever did to you and write about that. That is the reason you left. That is the reason you are in recovery. The high was always always followed by a low. The low is why you are here doing the hard work and getting well. If you'd always been high, you wouldn't be reading these questions now, knowing that others have tread your path and know how hard it is, but know how real it is and how it's the path to dignity and self-respect and self-love. You are here because the low was awful and stripped you of contentment and happiness. So write about the lows to ground yourself.
Glad you like them! Hope they help. x