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dcnativegal · 7 years

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Compulsion & Identity

Ruminations of a Certified Alcohol & Drug Counselor--Intern

I’m sitting in one of the group therapy sessions with clients who have kept sober from a variety of substances for months or perhaps only days. They pee into a cup or suck on a saliva stick to prove their sobriety to me and their probation officers. They are biding their time and showing up and jumping through hoops that include community service, visits to Treatment Court, and paying off probation fines. Each one of them has harrowing stories. I have so much respect for them. Even when I know for sure they are flat out lying.

I’m trying to understand what it’s like, mentally, emotionally, and socially as they maneuver through their lives and all their important relationships as a sober person. We talk about it. One person admitted, I still don’t know who I am, sober. I know I was funnier when I was high…

I’m learning all about “Substance use disorder” which is the newest term. (No longer abuse, and less use of the term ‘addiction.’) I have a stack of books with titles like “Buzzed” and “Uppers and Downers.” I remember from my early social work training that there is a stunting of brain maturation when a person starts using a substance regularly. Each of these people starting using as young teenagers. The growing human learns to navigate through life with the help of the mellowing effects of pot, the mania and energy of meth, the disinhibitions of alcohol. There are supremely stupid choices that are made under the influences. They don’t know how to deal with frustration, with a broken heart, with the moments included under the umbrella: ‘shit happens.’

I don’t know anyone who deals with ‘shit happens’ perfectly. Well, maybe the Dalai Lama, and the late great Maya Angelou.

My personal drugs of choice are carbs and yarn. Carbs may kill me in the end. I’ve developed pancreatitis, in large part because it’s a side effect of an injectable drug that worked well for me for a couple of years. The other part of why is, simply, gluttony. (Noun. Habitual greed or excess in eating. Ouch. Literally.) My side started hurting in December, and I self-diagnosed kidney stones, so upped the liquids. Didn’t get into see my family nurse practitioner until mid-January. NOT kidney stones but pancreatitis. What the…? Clear liquids for me. Who knew that there are dozens of kinds of broth. Although the pain did not disappear, it lessened, and the lipase and other lab values went down to normal when I stuck to liquids. When I eat solids again, the pain and labs worsen. So I’ve been off and on solid food for a while. Every one to two weeks, I give a couple of vials of blood and 3 hours later, my nurse scolds me. Kinda like peeing into a cup, or sucking a saliva test strip. Clean UA? Good labs? It depends on behavior.

Humbling.

A client ‘bangs’ (injects) meth. I indulge in a cookie, or three. Not equivalent, exactly. But pancreatitis is dangerous. Meth is, too.

When ‘shit happens’ to me, which includes simply a bad day, I realized some time ago that I have a sense of entitlement, of somehow ‘deserving’ the special treat of new yarn, or a Peppermint Patty. Because…. Insert self justification here…. I can imagine that some of the same justification goes on in the mind of people who use meth or pot or beer compulsively. “I’ve been good… It was a shitty day… Fuck you, bossy bitch, I’m going out… “ As I stand in the checkout line at Safeway, I’m like, I’m tired, just one Peppermint Patty won’t kill me…

Dark chocolate, ice cream, cookies. I’ve heard alcoholics say that if there’s alcohol in the house, it calls to them. Same for me with chocolate. Valerie hides it. At the moment, I think we are totally out. Which is good. (I found her stash. ‘Bye, ‘bye stash. I am a gluttonous theif.) I’ve been keeping a pile of tiny chocolates in my office for my clients. I give up. They’re all gone now. I couldn’t resist them. I’ll put stress balls in the box that held the mini-snickers and Twix. The Twix were very popular. I was especially fond of the mini-Milky Ways with dark chocolate. Val discovered Russell Stover’s sugar free peppermint patties. Oh. My. God. They are now on the banned list, even though they are sugar free. Even after I start feeling sick, I can eat 10 at a sitting. Like the rat hitting the cocaine water until he dies.

I knew someone who had a compulsion to use pornography. The idea would take root and next thing, that person would be walking into a strip club. Feeling disgusted later, dirty and depressed, the urge would diminish for a while, until the next time. My basic feeling about this whole arena is: tip the sex worker very well and be respectful. But, the compulsion, if it harms relationships with real live humans outside the club, is a problem. Not to mention how porn distorts what men think women actually enjoy.

Cravings.

Chocolate or yarn doesn’t HAVE to be a problem, but for me it is. Everything in moderation, except for me with sugar or yarn. I can ignore a wine bottle. No interest in illegal drugs. But keep sugar away from me. And no more yarn… hm… until I hit the new Willows store in Christmas Valley again. Seed planted, insert rationalization: I’m supporting an independent local business! (I think this is called ‘stinkin’ thinking’. )

What is your ‘self medication’ of choice, dear reader?

Weed, which seems to be the drug of choice for teens in Lake County is a mixed bag. Pun intended. It made me paranoid and more anxious than I already was when I used it in college. It’s legal in some states but federally illegal. The medical marijuana card is a great thing for those who need it. I’ve seen the videos with people who have Parkinson’s go from violent tremors to graceful movement. For young people, though, I’ve seen it among my kids’ friends, how all motivation seems to vanish. It is the slacker’s drug of choice. I have teenaged clients who are mandated to see me because of weed, and they pee into a cup. I want for them every ounce of motivation to get them out of poverty and do well in school, find a trade, make a better living than their parents.

Our group discussion gave me a chance to revisit my own struggles with identity, as well as my own compulsive behavior. Perhaps there is a parallel between my deep discovery in my early 40s that I am really and truly gay and my clients’ growing familiarity with their sober selves. For me, it was 2003. My husband had given me permission to figure out whether or not I was gay, bi, whatever. He’d had a serious heart attack, and earnestly pointed out that life is short. What a gift. What insanity. This journey led to the end of our marriage, which was a hard and painful process but also, to lives lived with authenticity. Thank goddess for therapists. The kids survived and thrived, and he has been with a lovely, gifted, hilarious and STRAIGHT woman for something like 10 years. I have been with the cowhand for nearly 6.

What made that part of my history relevant, perhaps, to the path of the newly sober, is that I had to regroup my identity. As my children’s father put it, I’d changed teams. Not only was I on a different team, that team had a culture, a lingo, a look and feel that was perceptible by something called ‘gaydar’ which I had the beginnings of but really needed to step up. I rented every classic lesbian movie I could find, and some of them were terrible, but all of them taught me something. As a feminine-appearing gay woman, I needed to learn about femmes and femme culture since I am so not a butch. I read Joan Nestle, founder of the Lesbian Herstory Archives, and the hilarious Leslea Newman who wrote, ‘Out of the Closet with Nothing to Wear’, and the classic, “Heather has two Mommies.” I watched lesbians, especially in lesbian spaces. I learned about my own body, my own range of gender expression.

I moved to the Oregon Outback to be with my sweetie full time instead of half the year, and out here, I miss gay space (like a gay bar, community center, or Pride event), other gay people, any tiny glimpse of a gender bending queer sensibility.

We all feel this way, in each of our identities. Jewish people feel more comfortable when surrounded by other Jews. Women feel relaxed when there are no men present, and vice versa. Alcoholics can avoid the stigma when they are with other alcoholics. Ranchers enjoy the company of other ranchers.

Just this past week I met, FINALLY, another gay person who lives in Lake County. This person is married, and so now I know there are FOUR GAY PEOPLE IN LAKE COUNTY. We’ll have a tiny gay pride parade in our living room come June, with a very large rainbow flag.

For my newly sober clients, it’s an adventure to learn who they are with their families, with their wives or husbands or girlfriends or boyfriends, with their employers, at their church. To say to their children, “yes, I have messed up, and I’m getting it together. No need to be sarcastic with me. I am still your parent.” They seek out the company of others in recovery to survive. There are several twelve step meetings in the county, thank goodness. Since all of my clients started using in their early teens, there is a lot of growing up to do, all the while they have very real and heavy adult responsibility. It’s a lot to manage, in a punitive and financially strapped environment.

For the sober, a hot bath has to take the place of a beer, or a bowl. All of those strong emotions cannot be mediated by a substance. Frustration? Anger? Sadness? How does one deal with those without an upper or a downer? And if I have a rough day, I do not have to buy a Peppermint Patty.

I seek to relate to them and their stories, even while I immerse myself in online courses about substance use disorder. It’s a bit narcissistic, I know, to search for my own parallel struggle to humanize theirs. But as Anne Lamott once so wisely said, I am the turd around which the world revolves.

On New Year’s Eve, I went to Soul Collage at Toni’s house in Paisley, and made a New Year’s mandala (which I shared a picture of, two posts ago.) In the center is a primate surrounded by bananas, and around the primate were examples of embodiment, words of encouragement, and healthy foods. It was shortly into 2017 that I was diagnosed with pancreatitis. I am now FORCED by my side pain and bad labs to get my eating act together, out of the realm of gluttony. Be careful what you wish for.

I went to Soul Collage again recently, and created two cards to help me tell the story of my clients, and also my own story. They depict the journey from serious faces to happy faces, with stops at

· Know thine enemy and maybe befriend them, (the man and the skunk, the user and the dealer, the lesbian and the Trumpette)

· Find your people and cuddle up to them to rest (like a pile of kittens)

· Be creative in all things, with colored pencils or your new sense of who you can be now

· Get used to feeling your feelings including the negative ones. They will not kill you. Smoking or ‘banging’ them away is procrastination. So are Peppermint Patties.

· Do the work. No way to short cut the work. Carry the water that needs carrying and don’t be a whiney child about it. I know it’s a bitch to be a grownup and exercise self-control when other people are allowed to be such pains in the asses!!! Remember: sometimes, I AM THAT BITCH.

· Allow time for joy, for running free, for deeply enjoying pleasure that doesn’t carry guilt. Find that joy if it’s new to you, the guilt-free kind! (Salad? Sigh. Knitting with the yarn I already own? YES.)

· Make a home within yourself if not in the outside world. Make that home cozy and full of love. Beautiful and familiar. Full of life and healing. (I’m ALWAYS working at this, the finding and maintenance of home…)

The journey to sobriety, to a whole and generous life, is not a straight line, more like a circle or a spiral, hopefully forward. All the same, as Proust said,

The real voyage of discovery consists in not seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.

#sobriety recovery

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yes-dal456 · 7 years

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Start The Year With A Social Detox

This article first appeared on QuietRev.com

We don’t do all that much for the holidays. We don’t travel great distances while lugging presents or have Hollywood-level, tension-filled dinner chat with relatives who love to start loud conversations about sensitive, personal subjects. But even without the drama, I still end up exhausted from socializing by the time it’s the New Year.

My strategies for self-preservation at any celebration or family get-together are generally successful because I get some alone time by volunteering for things. I organize pickups, I run errands—anything that will give me some reprieve and silence. But all these quiet moments I take are acts of self-preservation. They are a defensive tactic to maintain the illusion of calm. This is very different from self-indulgence, where the whole purpose is to celebrate yourself.

During the first week of January last year, my toddler son, while playing on my phone, bought me on Groupon a $19 day pass to a Russian bathhouse. Fortunately, he didn’t get to Living Social, or I’d be on a solo all-inclusive $13,000 trip to Papua New Guinea. Instead of returning the Groupon, I decided to trust my son’s instincts—even though his instincts at the time also included eating chalk and drawing on his face with permanent marker.

It was an odd feeling setting aside time to go to a bathhouse. When I arrived, someone pointed me in the direction of the locker room and of the steam, sauna, and the super hot Russian Rooms. That was the end of my interaction with anyone. I had a pretty perfect time, roaming through the different rooms, psyching myself up to taking an ice bath, and, most importantly, being phoneless during the entire thing.

As wonderful as the accidental purchase turned out to be, the rest of the year didn’t involve any more impromptu solo visits to bathhouses or other places I would find fun and relaxing. When I do find myself alone for an extended period of time, it’s normally not particularly well thought out. I’m typically stealing time from errands and chores to do something revolutionary—like read a book for pleasure.

In 2017, I’ve decided to plan solo getaways even if I can’t get five consecutive hours of relaxation, like at the baths. While there are things I already know I would want to do with my family, like a dumpling crawl (my wife and I once went to Queens for dumplings, and my daughter is still waiting for me to say the word), there is a long list of things I want to do in New York City by myself.

Self-maintenance is an important aspect, but self-indulgence is equally important. One of the things I’ve found most enjoyable about taking the time to spend by myself is just how much I have to learn about myself. For example, I was under the impression I would enjoy going to the arcade, so I spent $15 for a two-hour visit there but found it really boring and loud after about twenty minutes. As an introvert, it turns out that I treasure quiet time just as much as I treasure quality time with people.

This year, there are several places I plan to revisit solo as well as add a few more:

Russian and Turkish Baths

Ever since trying this place on my son’s whim last year, I’ve wanted to return. This place is not only historic, with over 126 years of operation behind it, but also perfect for being alone with your thoughts, all while taking a nice ice bath!

Jefferson Market Library

All my outings revolve around food, and this one is no different. It is directly across the street from Umami Burger, which has the most delectable truffle burger I never knew was missing from my life. Also, I am in love with high ceilings, and this library doesn’t disappoint. It used to be a courthouse and feels like a converted cathedral. You can sit and read a book where prisoners were once held. It’s up to you whether you find that macabre or fascinating!

Picnic on Roosevelt Island

Roosevelt Island is an absolute gem. I took my daughter there for a little outing last year and thought then it would be the perfect place to while away the hours in solitude. It costs a subway ride, and you get to take a ferry to the island while taking in gorgeous views. You could visit the wonderful landmarks, or you could be like me and plan to bring some wine, a book, and a blanket to sprawl out on amidst the trees and grass, steps from the tram.

Visiting a community garden

When I’m in the City, I am usually rushing to get to work, to meet people, or to go from place to place with my kids, so when we do pop into a community garden, it’s usually for a quick stop before getting to our actual destination or heading back home. This year, my plan is to make some of these gardens actual destinations for visits—with as well as without my kids. It’s always interesting to see how a community is reflected through its gardens, some including artwork or exotic plants while others going with trusty herbs and recognizable flowers. One I’ve always wanted to go to and never made the time for is on 9th and Avenue C, which has weeping willow trees, a reader’s best friend!

Ice cream

An often overlooked aspect of New York City is the fact that many of our ice-cream shops open as early as 7:30 AM. I am no glutton for pain, so I will be going for ice cream at a more humane hour. But the extended hours allow repeat visits, and there are so many flavors that people truly dedicated to ice cream come up with that I want to try them all!

As lovely as spending time with friends and family during the holidays is, especially ushering in the New Year, I find it’s also nice to spend time by myself. The things I plan to do involve leaving the house, but they can also be as easy as watching a movie at home by myself or eating some junky cereal. The point is to make the time to celebrate yourself.

More from Quiet Revolution:

The Beauty of Life in the Slow Lane

Solitude is Going Extinct: The Stress of Modern Parenting

How to Create Quiet Spaces in Your Home

This article originally appeared on QuietRev.com. You can find more insights from Quiet Revolution on work, life, and parenting as an introvert at QuietRev.com. Follow Quiet Revolution on Facebook and Twitter.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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janetgannon · 7 years

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Start The Year With A Social Detox

This article first appeared on QuietRev.com

This year, there are several places I plan to revisit solo as well as add a few more:

Russian and Turkish Baths

Jefferson Market Library

Picnic on Roosevelt Island

Visiting a community garden

Ice cream

More from Quiet Revolution:

The Beauty of Life in the Slow Lane

Solitude is Going Extinct: The Stress of Modern Parenting

How to Create Quiet Spaces in Your Home

This article originally appeared on QuietRev.com.

You can find more insights from Quiet Revolution on work, life, and parenting as an introvert at QuietRev.com.

Follow Quiet Revolution on Facebook and Twitter.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from Travel – The Huffington Post ift.tt/2ka0RAd

The post Start The Year With A Social Detox appeared first on YachtAweigh.

from http://yachtaweigh.com/start-the-year-with-a-social-detox/ from https://yachtaweigh.tumblr.com/post/156437152501

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jeantparks · 7 years

Text

Start The Year With A Social Detox

This article first appeared on QuietRev.com

This year, there are several places I plan to revisit solo as well as add a few more:

Russian and Turkish Baths

Jefferson Market Library

Picnic on Roosevelt Island

Visiting a community garden

Ice cream

More from Quiet Revolution:

The Beauty of Life in the Slow Lane

Solitude is Going Extinct: The Stress of Modern Parenting

How to Create Quiet Spaces in Your Home

This article originally appeared on QuietRev.com.

You can find more insights from Quiet Revolution on work, life, and parenting as an introvert at QuietRev.com.

Follow Quiet Revolution on Facebook and Twitter.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from Travel – The Huffington Post ift.tt/2ka0RAd

The post Start The Year With A Social Detox appeared first on YachtAweigh.

source http://yachtaweigh.com/start-the-year-with-a-social-detox/ from http://yatchaweigh.blogspot.com/2017/01/start-year-with-social-detox.html

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yachtaweigh · 7 years

Text

Start The Year With A Social Detox

This article first appeared on QuietRev.com

This year, there are several places I plan to revisit solo as well as add a few more:

Russian and Turkish Baths

Jefferson Market Library

Picnic on Roosevelt Island

Visiting a community garden

Ice cream

More from Quiet Revolution:

The Beauty of Life in the Slow Lane

Solitude is Going Extinct: The Stress of Modern Parenting

How to Create Quiet Spaces in Your Home

This article originally appeared on QuietRev.com.

You can find more insights from Quiet Revolution on work, life, and parenting as an introvert at QuietRev.com.

Follow Quiet Revolution on Facebook and Twitter.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from Travel – The Huffington Post ift.tt/2ka0RAd

The post Start The Year With A Social Detox appeared first on YachtAweigh.

from http://yachtaweigh.com/start-the-year-with-a-social-detox/

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imreviewblog · 7 years

Text

Start The Year With A Social Detox

This article first appeared on QuietRev.com

This year, there are several places I plan to revisit solo as well as add a few more:

Russian and Turkish Baths

Jefferson Market Library

Picnic on Roosevelt Island

Visiting a community garden

Ice cream

More from Quiet Revolution:

The Beauty of Life in the Slow Lane

Solitude is Going Extinct: The Stress of Modern Parenting

How to Create Quiet Spaces in Your Home

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from Healthy Living - The Huffington Post http://huff.to/2jXQ5uh

#Healthy Living - The Huffington Post

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