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Daily writing is one common element of addiction recovery plans. To some people, the reasons for this will be obvious. Others may be skeptical, especially if they don’t think of themselves as writers or they are skeptical of self-expression in general. However, daily writing can be a potent and versatile element of your recovery plan. Here are some different writing exercises and how they can help you stay sober.

Journaling

The writing exercise most people are familiar with is keeping a simple journal or diary. This is just sitting down for a few minutes every day and writing whatever you feel like. You might just write down what you did that day or what happened that was notable. Or you might go into depth about something you’re thinking about or challenging emotions. This simple practice can help you in several ways.

Most notably, it helps you relieve stress. Instead of stewing over a problem, you get it down on paper where you can think it through. You will probably find that after you write about something that’s been bothering you, you will feel better about it, even if you didn’t come up with a specific solution. Just writing about your day, your thoughts, your emotions, your challenges, and so on will help you spot patterns in your life. And, of course, you can also incorporate any of the following exercises into your daily journaling session.

ABCs

ABC stands for activating events, beliefs, and consequences. It’s a framework developed by psychologist Albert Ellis, one of the pioneers of cognitive therapy. The central idea is that events only bother us because we have certain beliefs or assumptions about those events. For example, if someone cuts you off in traffic, there’s no reason to be angry about it for the rest of the day.

That only happens if you have an irrational belief about it. You may think that guy shouldn’t have done that or that it was a deliberate insult to you. In reality, it was probably just a mistake; it happens all the time. 

The ABC exercise is a way to practice identifying the beliefs that disturb us. Whenever you feel angry, anxious, depressed, and so on, write down exactly what you’re feeling. This is C, the consequence. Next, identify the activating event, A--the guy cutting you off in traffic or the remark by a coworker, or whatever. Finally, identify the belief, “He shouldn’t do that,” “Everyone at work is against me,” and so on.

This is the trickiest part since we are often unaware of our own assumptions. You may need a therapist to help you identify your irrational beliefs at first. In fact, his exercise is often given as a homework exercise in therapy. You can use it that way or you can try it on your own. Either way, it’s a good way to get in the habit of identifying and challenging irrational thoughts.

Gratitude

In recent years, research in positive psychology has identified a range of benefits of gratitude. It improves relationships, lowers stress, improves sleep, makes people feel more optimistic, increases your sense of wellbeing, and it might even help you live longer. The problem is that when you’re starting out in recovery, you might not feel very grateful. Your life is likely at a low point and you have a lot of work ahead of you. The good news is that there are two easy writing exercises that studies have shown, can boost your gratitude. 

The first one is to keep a gratitude journal. This is simple and only takes a couple of minutes. Just write down about three things you were grateful for that day. It’s fine if they’re small--you slept unusually well, the weather was nice, you got a text from a friend you hadn’t talked to in a while. Not life-changing stuff but they make your day a little better.

Since we’re hardwired to notice pain and threats, training yourself to notice more of the good things makes you happier and more optimistic. You might want to do this exercise daily for about two weeks, then switch to doing it weekly so you don’t get overly accustomed to it.

The second exercise is to write a gratitude letter. This one takes a bit longer but research shows the effects last longer too. Think of something someone did for you that you never really thanked them for. Again, it doesn’t have to be huge, just something you truly appreciated. Describe in a letter what they did and what it meant to you. You can deliver the letter or not. Research suggests you get a happiness boost either way.

Anxiety

Writing is an excellent way to relieve anxiety. It takes those amorphous fears that are haunting your mind and gives them some definite form on the page. This is true whether your anxiety is caused by a past or future event. A number of studies have found benefits from expressive writing. This is where you choose a stressful event, one that’s at least six months in the past, and write about it on four consecutive days.

Set a timer for 20 minutes and write the whole time without censoring yourself or worrying about spelling or grammar. No one will read it but you. This exercise has been shown to reduce anxiety and even improve physical health over the following months. 

What’s more, an abbreviated version of this exercise can help relieve anxiety about an upcoming challenge. Research has shown that having students spend a few minutes writing about their worries just before a test reduced test anxiety and improved test scores. A similar strategy can help with other tasks, such as going to your first 12-Step meeting or going to a job interview.

Writing alone won’t replace therapy and solve all your problems but it can be a helpful tool to manage your mood, analyze your patterns, and generally understand yourself better. A regular writing practice can be a powerful element in your recovery plan.

At The Foundry, we believe that a strong recovery is built on mental health and self-knowledge. We use a variety of evidence-based methods, including CBT, DBT, family therapy, mindfulness meditation, and others to help our clients understand themselves better, regulate their emotions, and manage their behavior. For more information about our approach to treatment, call us at (844) 955-1066. 

Self-awareness is the degree to which you are aware of your own tendencies, your strengths and weaknesses, your values, your interests, and how you respond to various situations. Self-awareness is the foundation of addiction recovery and good mental health in general. It is a key skill of emotional intelligence and is the basis for the other skills of self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. 

However, self-awareness is also deceptively difficult. We all assume we know ourselves well because we have unique access to our own thoughts, emotions, and personal history. While that is true, we are also constrained by biases, blindspots, and cognitive distortions. What’s more, it’s hard to understand ourselves when we don’t really know what it’s like to be anyone else. Despite these challenges, we can all improve our self-awareness and reap the benefits in addiction recovery and in life. Here’s how.

Therapy

The most direct route to greater self-awareness is therapy, both group and individual. Both can help you become more aware of your blind spots and biases. Individual therapy can help you dive deep into your personal history and explore your cognitive distortions. For example, if you have a habit of focusing on the negative or discounting the positive things about yourself, you may have an unfairly negative view of yourself and your abilities. Or perhaps you have unfair expectations of other people or the world in general. You may never even consider these possibilities without expert guidance. 

Group therapy can be especially helpful for increasing self-awareness since you can get many different perspectives on your problems. Perhaps most importantly, in group therapy, you learn to give and receive feedback and generally improve your communication skills. These can help improve your self-awareness outside of the therapeutic setting as well.

Asking for Feedback

As noted above, getting feedback from different people is a great way to improve your self-awareness. In the context of therapy, this is relatively easy since much of your therapist’s job is to help you in this regard and create a healthy environment for sharing in group therapy. However, outside of a therapeutic environment, soliciting feedback becomes more challenging.

The people who know us well and spend a lot of time around us, whether they are friends, relatives, coworkers, or romantic partners are often reluctant to be completely honest. It’s uncomfortable to hurt someone’s feelings--even with the best of intentions--and then have to live or work together. 

To get around this obstacle, you have to find ways to give them permission to be honest. This might start with choosing the right medium. For example, people typically find it easier to be honest over text or email than face-to-face. Also, make it clear that you are seeking honest feedback and not just testing them. You might also give them an opportunity to say something nice about you to offset the constructive feedback, something like, “What would you say is my greatest strength?

What is my greatest weakness?” Or, in a work environment, you might ask something like, “What’s one thing I could work on to most improve my performance?” People tend to feel more comfortable answering specific questions rather than making a judgment on you as a person. Just be sure you aren’t deliberately shielding yourself from the feedback you don’t want to hear.

Mindfulness Meditation

One way to improve your self-awareness on your own is to practice mindfulness meditation. This is a simple practice; just set aside 20 or 30 minutes a day, and during that time, try to remain present. You typically do this by paying attention to your breath, listening to ambient sounds, or feeling for sensations in your body.

Inevitably, thoughts and emotions will arise on their own and you can use these opportunities to practice observing them without judgment. So, for example, an unpleasant memory may suddenly come to mind. Instead of trying to ignore it or think of something else, you might try tracing the chain of associations that led to that memory.

Or you might pay attention to the emotions the memory evokes and ask yourself why you respond that way. The more you learn to accept your own thoughts and emotions, the more you will be aware of what's going on in your own mind.

Journaling

Journaling is another great way to improve self-awareness on your own. Part of the reason is that writing about what happens and how you feel about it helps you make connections that you might not notice otherwise. Just the act of writing about your feelings can change your brain in ways that make you more aware of your emotions. However, journaling can go far beyond that.

For example, just keeping an accurate and relatively detailed record of what you do all day can yield surprising insights into your behavior. If you’re skeptical, try estimating how much time you’ve spent on your phone today and then check it against your actual screen time in your phone’s settings. Writing is a way of keeping ourselves honest about what we’ve actually done, thought, and said.

Writing about what happens and how you feel about it will reveal a lot of patterns. Even if you never go back and read what you’ve written, you’ll probably notice you spend a lot of time worrying about your work situation or complaining about your parents, or whatever else.

Self-awareness is an ongoing project. Not only is it a big challenge in itself, but we are always changing and growing. Knowing yourself better requires that you make a consistent effort, keep an open mind, and learn to accept constructive criticism with equanimity. 

At The Foundry, we know that overcoming addiction isn’t just a matter of abstaining from drugs and alcohol; it’s a journey of self-discovery. We use proven methods such as dialectical behavioral therapy, group therapy, and mindfulness meditation to help our clients better understand themselves and live a fuller life. For more information, call us at (844) 955-1066.

Living with depression is never easy and that’s especially true during times of stress. At the moment, we’re all coping with the coronavirus pandemic. Although the quarantine is beginning to be lifted in some areas, the virus remains a threat and the economic impact has been huge. However, it doesn’t take a global pandemic to cause a personal crisis.

We all go through stressful times and whether it’s buying a house, getting a divorce, or being quarantined at home, stress can trigger a depressive episode, especially if you have a history of depression. If you have struggled with depression in the past, or are struggling with it now, here are some tips for keeping it together during stressful times.

Stick to Your Treatment Regimen

First of all, if you are already on a treatment regimen for depression, keep it up. Keep taking your medication, if that applies to you, keep doing your writing exercises, keep meditating, and keep exercising. If you’re seeing a therapist, keep seeing them, even if you have to see them remotely. If you haven’t been seeing your therapist lately, now is probably a pretty good time to resume. Reach out either through the phone or email and see if they can fit you in.

Set a Strict Limit on Media

This especially applies to news and social media. While it’s understandable that you want to stay informed, it’s easy to get sucked into the vortex of divisiveness and negativity that is the 24-hour news cycle. Set a strict daily limit on how much time you spend consuming news. Try to remember that in a week, 90 percent of it won’t matter anyway. 

The same is true of social media. When you don’t have anything else to do, it may be especially tempting to endlessly scroll through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, and so on. A number of studies have found that excessive social media use is terrible for your mental health, mainly because it promotes comparisons and fragments your attention.

One study found that participants who limited their social media use to 30 minutes a day for three weeks reported significantly lower levels of depression and loneliness by the end of the three-week study.

Try to Follow a Routine

Sometimes, when you’re feeling depressed and overwhelmed, all you can do is put one foot in front of the other. Having something like a regular routine can help you get through the day in several ways. First, a regular routine reduces anxiety because you feel more in control and less uncertain about what’s ahead. Second, a routine breaks your day into manageable chunks.

The whole day might be too much to think about all at once but maybe you can think about just taking your shower, then just having breakfast, and so on. Your regular activities can serve as signposts throughout your day.

Get Some Exercise

Getting a bit of exercise is one of the most important things you can do if you feel depressed or if you want to avoid feeling depressed. Exercise helps improve your mood and it improves your stress tolerance. Many studies have found that exercise improves mental health outcomes overall. Of course, when you’re depressed, summoning the energy to do anything, much less exercise, is a big ask. Whatever you can do, even if it’s just a five-minute walk, will make you feel a little better.

Eat Healthy

There are now quite a few studies showing that diet has a significant effect on depression and depression risk. A number of studies have shown that dietary interventions can even improve depressive symptoms. The most beneficial diets typically include mostly whole foods, such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, beans, legumes, and fish. They are also low in processed meats, refined flour, sugar, and fried foods. It may be that such a diet helps reduce inflammation, which recent research suggests may be a significant factor in some forms of depression. 

Look for Ways to Help Other

Part of the trouble with depression--especially during the current pandemic--is that it too often leads to isolation. You end up sitting alone feeling awful and even feeling awful about feeling awful. You may feel like you have very little control over the situation or anything else in your life. One way to fight both of these feelings is to look for ways to help other people.

For example, in the current crisis, just staying home helps, but you may also be able to do other things, like check on neighbors and relatives, donate to food banks, or sew masks. This helps take your mind off your own problems and allows you to contribute in some way, which boosts your sense of self-efficacy.

Try to Stay Present

As noted above, operating on a short time horizon can help you get through your day. The more you can stay in the present moment, the better you will feel in general. It’s too easy to get swept up in ruminations about past mistakes or worries about the future. The more you can stay present, the less you will fall into either of these traps. This is easier said than done.

It may help to practice mindfulness meditation, which is essentially just training yourself to be present for 20 or 30 minutes a day. In a pinch, you can also use grounding techniques, such as closing your eyes and paying attention to all the sounds around you or feeling sensations such as your breath or your weight in your chair. These things help you connect to the present moment and worry less about the past or future.

Avoid Drugs and Alcohol

If you’re recovering from a substance use disorder, this one is obvious, but if you feel depressed, trying to cope with it using drugs or alcohol is a huge red flag. Depression significantly increases your risk of developing a substance use disorder. One study found that among people with mood disorders such as major depression or bipolar disorder, 32 percent also had substance use disorders--nearly four times the risk than in the general population. 

Men are especially prone to self-medicating depression with drugs and alcohol. Even if you don’t have a substance use issue, drugs and alcohol are likely to worsen depression. If you quit drinking, for example, you’re likely to feel better pretty quickly. If you can’t quit drinking, reach out for help, whether it’s to a therapist, a 12-Step group, or an addiction treatment program. If you have substance use issues and depression, you will need a program that can treat both.

At The Foundry, we know that substance use disorders are usually accompanied by other mental health challenges, such as trauma, anxiety, and depression. We use a variety of proven methods, including dialectical behavioral therapy, or DBT, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy, or EMDR, and mindfulness meditation to help our clients heal and sustain their recovery long term. To learn more, call us today at (844) 955-1066.

Learning to set and maintain healthy boundaries is an important part of addiction recovery. Maintaining healthy boundaries means that you respect other people’s values and autonomy and you expect them to do the same for you. Unhealthy boundaries are typical in dysfunctional relationships and these are often one of the factors driving addictive behavior. 

For example, a physically abusive relationship is a situation where one person uses violence to control the other. This violates their right to personal safety and their right to make their own decisions. What’s more, physical abuse often leads to depression and substance use. If you are in an abusive relationship, the best thing to do is usually just to leave and get as far away from your abuser as possible. This is a very clear boundary, using physical distance. However, other relationships may be more complicated, and learning to maintain boundaries is a healthy behavior to learn in general. Here are some tips.

Know Your Values and Priorities

First of all, if you are going to set boundaries, it helps to know why. Start by identifying your core values, whether they’re family, integrity, honesty, learning, kindness, or whatever else. It might help to take some online tests to help you clarify your values or you may spend some time writing about it. Perhaps look back through the major decisions you’ve made in your life and see what your guiding principles have been.

For example, maybe you turned down a job that paid well because you felt you were being asked to do something dishonest. That indicates that you value honesty above money. That’s good to know and it indicates honesty is a value you are willing to protect. Knowing what’s really important to you can help you figure out where to draw the line and give you a boost in courage when you need it most. 

Listen to Your Gut

Another way to identify your values and to recognize when someone might be violating your boundaries is to listen to your gut. We often react emotionally before we fully understand a situation rationally. That doesn’t mean your gut is always right, just that if you feel weird about something, pay attention to the feeling and don’t dismiss it without consideration.

For example, if you feel confused by what someone is telling you, it could be they are trying to manipulate you--a clear violation of your boundaries. Take a step back and don’t make any decisions until you are seeing things more clearly. Or perhaps you just have a bad feeling about a situation. That might indicate that you should move away from that situation. Our instincts have evolved to keep us safe so give them some credit.

Communicate Clearly

No relationship is perfect and there will be plenty of times when you just disagree. Boundary issues don’t always imply sinister intent; often people just go along with things and the other person has no idea they don’t want to do them. This happens every day in big and small ways. It’s your responsibility to be clear about what you want and don’t want.

That means learning to communicate clearly. No matter how well the other person knows you, they aren’t psychic and they may not know what you want unless you tell them. The key is to do it politely. Not every disagreement has to lead to an argument. In fact, most disagreements can be worked out pretty easily if both parties are willing to listen.

Keep in mind that this goes both ways. It’s important to communicate clearly about what you want and it’s also important to listen to the other person and respect their values and autonomy. 

Learn to Say No

In many situations, especially when you’re recovering from addiction, learning to say no is a skill in itself and it’s one of the first skills you should learn. When you leave treatment, people may offer you all sorts of things. Since drinking is so common in American culture, there’s virtually no chance you won’t be offered a drink from time to time, usually by people with good intentions. That’s why a polite but firm no is a crucial skill to master quickly. 

Work With a Therapist

So far, we’ve discussed some important considerations in setting boundaries, but there may be deep-seated psychological reasons why setting boundaries is difficult for you. If you grew up in an abusive household, for example, or if you’re currently in a codependent relationship. Sometimes people lose touch with their own needs and desires entirely and sometimes they feel like setting boundaries is just impossible for them. If that’s how you feel, you need to talk to a therapist. They can help you figure out what you want and need and help you develop the skills to assert yourself. 

Family therapy is also great for this since it focuses specifically on family dynamics, clear communication, and healthy boundaries. Getting the relevant people to work through their relationship issues can make a huge difference. However, not everyone has to participate in order for family therapy to be effective. Just changing the behavior of one or two family members can change the whole family dynamic.

Get Reassurance from Your Support System

Finally, it’s always harder to set and maintain boundaries when you feel isolated. This is especially true when you’re first trying out a new behavior that you’re not really sure about. It feels like a big risk. However, if you have a strong support system behind you, you don’t feel quite so alone, even if your support system doesn’t happen to be with you at the moment.

This is one reason going to 12-Step meetings is helpful, even after you’ve completed a professional treatment program. You may also want to consider attending Al-Anon or Nar-Anon meetings, for family members of people with substance use disorders, since you may fall into that category too. If you do have a family member or close friend with substance use issues, these meetings can give you a different perspective on setting boundaries with them.

Boundaries are crucial not only for recovery but for being your own person and directing your own life according to your core values. Setting and maintaining boundaries means knowing what your values are, listening to your gut, and learning to communicate clearly and respectfully. It’s also important to keep in mind that maintaining values requires practice. You’ll get better the longer you keep at it.

At The Foundry, we know that much of recovery from addiction is about learning practical skills to improve your relationships and manage your behavior. Great relationships are especially important for a strong recovery. We use a variety of evidence-based practices, including CBT, DBT, and family therapy to help you improve your communication and relationship skills. For more information, call us at (844) 955-1066.

In recent decades, more people have become aware of the importance of emotional intelligence, and it is especially important for recovering from addiction. While cognitive intelligence can help you get good grades in school and excel in certain jobs, it won’t protect you from developing a substance use disorder. In fact, some studies suggest that IQ correlates with a greater risk of substance use issues.

The problem is that cognitive intelligence has little influence over emotions. And once you develop a substance use issue, you mainly use your intelligence to get more drugs and alcohol. That’s why they often say in AA that “your best thinking is what got you here.” In a way, recovery from addiction is all about strengthening your emotional intelligence. The following are the five standard components of emotional intelligence and how they contribute to sobriety.

Self-Awareness

Self-awareness is the foundation of all emotional intelligence. It means being aware of your own strengths, weaknesses, blind spots, biases, and triggers. It means knowing what your core values are, what you enjoy, and what you don’t. Having relatively good self-awareness is like having a good map of your own mind. It helps you accomplish the things you want to do.

Unfortunately, self-awareness is not easy. As noted above, well all have biases and blind spots and these are usually most extreme regarding ourselves. This is compounded by the illusion that we know ourselves very well. Luckily, you can improve your self-awareness. The best tools for doing that are group and individual therapy.

These provide the rare opportunity to get objective feedback about your personal history, your beliefs, and your thinking habits. Another way to improve self-awareness is just to ask for feedback from people who know you well--friends, family members, coworkers, and so on. However, these people may be reluctant to be too honest, so you have to make it clear that you’re trying to better understand yourself, including your weaknesses.

Self-Regulation

Self-regulation is when you put your self-knowledge to good use. It’s the ability to keep yourself from lashing out in anger or from pouring a drink when you feel stressed. It’s the ability to cope with feeling overwhelmed or comfort yourself when you’re feeling anxious.

When you know yourself, you know what kinds of situations are likely to trigger cravings and which people you have trouble saying no to. Self-regulation is the main area where the rubber meets the road in addiction recovery, where the self-discovery you did in therapy is put to practical use improving your real-life behavior.

Self-regulation, like self-awareness, is a never-ending process and each depends on the other. Again, therapy is the single most powerful way to improve self-regulation. You learn many cognitive and behavioral strategies to help you cope with challenging emotions and make better decisions.

Some therapeutic methods, like dialectical behavioral therapy, or DBT, specifically use group sessions as a safe space to practice new skills before you have to use them in the wild. For example, it’s a good place to practice hearing constructive feedback without becoming angry or defensive. 

Motivation

Motivation is being able to motivate yourself and others to do what needs to be done. In addiction recovery, self-motivation is most important, but it can also be a way to support fellow group members and possibly even mentor others later on. People often start out in recovery feeling motivated because they are desperate for change. However, motivation often wanes as people encounter unexpected challenges or start to feel complacent about recovery. Knowing how to motivate yourself can make the difference between sticking to your recovery plan and gradually sliding toward relapse. 

Motivation is mainly about three factors: remembering why sobriety matters to you, remembering how bad things were when you were actively addicted, and overcoming your doubts about whether you can succeed. There are various ways to address each of these but a good place to start is by connecting sobriety to your highest values. Having a why can keep you going through tough times.

Empathy 

Empathy is the ability to put yourself in someone else’s place, to be able to have some idea of what they’re feeling and thinking. It’s the basis of compassion, which is empathy plus the desire to relieve someone’s suffering. In the context of addiction recovery, empathy is most important for its role in strengthening relationships--both with friends and family and with your sober network. The more connected you feel to others, the easier it is to stay sober. Socially connected people feel less stressed, less lonely, more accepted, and more accountable. 

Increasing your empathy is mainly a matter of making a consistent effort to understand other people’s perspectives. This is especially important for people you don’t especially like or get along with. It helps to start by identifying the things you have in common. For example, you both want to be happy, you don’t want to be in pain, you want to feel like you matter, and so on. Recognizing these universal needs can help you understand what other people are going through.

Social Skills

Social skills are built on empathy and they are important for many of the same reasons as empathy is important. However, just as self-awareness is the foundation of self-regulation, empathy is the foundation of social skills. Much of our stress in life comes from interpersonal conflict, and much of that comes from poor communication. By improving your communication and conflict resolution skills, you can eliminate a lot of stress and irritation. 

Improving your social skills is a huge subject, but it all starts with being a good listener. Give the person you’re talking to your undivided attention--which means put down your phone for a minute. Use reflection to show you’re listening and figure out whether you’ve understood correctly. Reflection usually involves phrases like, “So, what you’re saying is--” Validate what the person is saying and try to understand points of confusion or ambivalence. 

Although some people are born with more emotional intelligence than others, we can all improve our emotional intelligence. What’s more, some people are stronger in some areas than others. You might have loads of empathy but poor self-awareness or vice versa. Correcting your weaknesses can help you have a better, longer recovery and be happier overall.

At The Foundry, we believe that overcoming a substance use disorder is really part of the larger project of living a better life. We use methods like DBT, group therapy, and mindfulness meditation to help our clients live fully realized lives, free from drugs and alcohol. For more information about our treatment options, call us at (844) 955-1066.

When you have a loved one with a substance use disorder, sometimes you get to a point where you’ve done all you can to encourage them to get help and all that’s left is to stage an intervention before it’s too late. If you do decide to stage an intervention, it’s essential to do it with the help of an intervention specialist, someone who has training and experience in running interventions.

There’s a lot more to it than just getting everyone together in a room and asking the person to get help and the specialist can help with the planning and facilitation. Everyone participating in the intervention will be asked to read an intervention letter. There are several reasons it’s important to write a letter rather than just making it up as you go.

First, an intervention is a form of public speaking with pretty high stakes and you don’t want to get stage fright and forget what you intended to say. On the other end of the spectrum, you also don’t want to start going off on tangents and taking up everyone else’s time. You want your remarks to be focused and effective. Finally, an intervention is an emotionally charged situation. You want to say what you have to say without getting drawn into arguments that might sabotage the whole process. The following are some tips to help make your intervention letter as effective as possible.‍

Start From a Place of Love and Support‍

First, make it clear that the reason you’re participating in the intervention is that you love the person, you’re worried about them, and you want to help them. None of you would be there if that weren’t true, but your loved one might not see it that way. Their defenses will probably be up and you’ll want to do what you can to establish that you’re on the same side. It’s often a good idea to share a happy memory of the person or describe something about them or something they did for you that you’re genuinely grateful for.

Say That Addiction Is a Disease and Treatment Is Possible

The next thing is to make it clear that you see a clear difference between the way your loved one is really and how they act while in the grip of addiction. Make it clear that you understand addiction is a disease, that it’s not their fault, and that treatment is possible.

Describe Specific Times When Drugs and Alcohol Caused Problems

The main event of an intervention, the part we’re all familiar with, is when you describe the negative consequences drugs and alcohol have had on your loved one and the people they care about. This can easily turn into a laundry list but there are several important factors to keep in mind if you want your letter to make an impact. First, only describe events that you have firsthand knowledge of.

These should be things that affected you directly or that you personally witnessed. This helps to avoid credibility issues that may arise if you relied on secondhand accounts or rumors. Second, there is a room full of people waiting their turn to speak and they’ll probably cover those other incidents themselves. 

Next, be sure to stick to facts. Avoid generalizations, value judgments, and attributing motives to your loved one. Again, these all open the door to arguments and rationalizations. The idea of an intervention is that the accumulation of hard facts gradually becomes overwhelming and undeniable. Avoid statements like, “You’re always getting drunk and yelling at me and the kids.”

Instead, say something like, “The police have been called on us three times this year and all of those times, you had been drinking.” You might want to start by brainstorming all the ways drugs and alcohol have hurt your loved one and then narrow it down to three to five of the most potent incidents to include in your letter.

Ask Them to Accept Help

After you have described exactly what addiction has done to your loved one, as well as their friends and family, reiterate that you believe addiction is a disease, one that experience shows they can’t deal with alone and ask them to accept help. Affirm that they can’t keep going on like this but that life can get better with treatment.

State the Consequences of Not Accepting Help

An ultimatum is only advisable in a small percentage of cases. Your intervention specialist will determine whether you should include consequences for your loved one refusing help. However, if you do include an ultimatum, you have to be prepared to follow through.

If you’re telling your child, “If you don’t get help, I’m not going to keep paying for college and I’m not going to support you financially,” then you have to follow through, or else it will undermine any future efforts you make to persuade them to accept help. They’ll know your threats are empty and they can do what they want.

Get Feedback and Make Revisions

Finally, don’t be satisfied with the first draft of your letter. To paraphrase Hemingway, the first draft of everything is, well, not good. After you’ve written your first draft, put it away for a day or two, if possible, then read it aloud to yourself. This will make any mistakes or awkward phrases jump out at you. This is especially important because the ultimate purpose of the letter is for you to read it out loud, so make it easy on yourself. 

Next, show it to some people whose judgment you respect and see if they have any feedback. Don’t take criticism personally; keep in mind you’re all working together to try to help your loved one. Finally, make sure to get some feedback from your intervention specialist. Ideally, you will do a full rehearsal so you can all read your letters and get feedback, but at the very least, they should be able to read it over and give you suggestions. Keep in mind that this person has a lot of experience in interventions and has most likely been the subject of an intervention themself, so their feedback is especially valuable. 

An intervention led by an experienced specialist has a good chance of getting your loved one into treatment. You can do your part by writing a compelling letter and being a team player. Always write from a place of love and support and when discussing the consequences of your loved one’s substance use, stick to undeniable facts. 

It’s always hard to see a loved one struggle with a substance use disorder but life can get better. At The Foundry, we know that evidence-based treatment, healthy lifestyle changes, and family support are keys to a sustainable recovery from addiction. To learn more about our approach to treatment, call us at (844) 955-1066.

Boredom during addiction recovery is both common and dangerous. There are several reasons boredom is more common when you’re starting recovery. First, you may discover that you suddenly have a lot of extra time on your hands and you’re not sure what to do with it. Most people don’t realize how much time drugs and alcohol can devour. You may also be trying to distance yourself from friends who use drugs and alcohol, so your social activity may be temporarily diminished. 

Boredom is also amplified by what’s going on in your brain when you first get sober. When you use drugs and alcohol, you’re essentially overclocking your dopamine system and this may go on for years or decades. When you quit, your brain is underwhelmed by things that might normally be interesting and enjoyable. Your brain is only sensitive to things related to drugs and alcohol. As a result, a lot of things will seem boring during the time it takes your brain to recalibrate. 

This can be dangerous because boredom is stressful and during active addiction, it’s a problem you likely solved with drugs or alcohol. Therefore, it’s important to learn to deal with boredom in addiction recovery. Here are some tips.

There Is No Quick Fix

These days, most of us immediately reach for our phones when we feel the slightest bit bored but this is really only a superficial solution. It turns down your boredom from a distressing eight to a tolerable six. As a result, you may end up wasting hours doing a moderately boring activity like scrolling through Facebook or Reddit rather than doing something that might actually be fulfilling or productive. These kinds of time-wasters are fairly mind-numbing and will probably only make you feel more agitated in the long run.

What Is Boredom?

Keep in mind that your boredom may be trying to tell you something. Your problem is usually not that you have nothing to do, but rather that no available option seems appealing, engaging, or satisfying. Your brain may be trying to tell you something. Perhaps your usual activities don’t promote ends you really care about or perhaps your values or priorities have changed in ways you haven’t acknowledged. Boredom is an opportunity to think these things over and possibly consider new directions. Just be careful that you don’t fall into negative rumination.

Examine Your Thinking About Boredom

Boredom is not fundamentally different from any other challenging emotion. It’s typically some mix of restlessness, dissatisfaction, and lethargy. You want to do something but you’re not sure what. You can cope with boredom and the distress caused by boredom using the same techniques you would use to cope with other challenging emotions like anger or anxiety. If you have been through an addiction treatment program, you probably learned quite a few of these techniques while participating in cognitive behavioral therapy or dialectical behavioral therapy. 

One common approach is to examine your underlying assumptions. For example, you might have trouble engaging with an activity if you’re thinking something like, “I’ll never get better at this,” or “there’s no point in doing this anyway.” Or perhaps you’re feeling distressed because of how you think about boredom, maybe something like, “It’s unfair that I feel bored; I shouldn’t feel this way,” when in reality, everyone feels bored occasionally. Spotting these faulty beliefs and challenging them can help you feel less bored or at least less bothered by boredom.

Do Something Boring

This one seems paradoxical, but if you try it, you might find it helpful. Part of the reason boredom is irritating is that we do something with the expectation that it will be fun and interesting but then it doesn’t deliver. However, when you vacuum the living room or put away your laundry, you don’t expect it to be fun; you just want the result. If you’re bored and nothing seems to engage your attention, pick something on your to-do list and do it. You may still find it boring but you’re bored anyway and this way, you’ll at least get something done. What’s more, you may find that doing something--anything--gets you out of your rut.

Rearrange Your Schedule

Occasional boredom is unavoidable. Maybe you’re stuck in another pointless meeting at work or your dentist is running behind schedule. However, if you’re frequently bored, you may not have enough to do. See if there’s something you can add to your schedule to keep you a little more busy--a 12-Step meeting, a standing coffee date, a workout, an art class, whatever. The trick is to structure your days so that you have enough to do that you’re not bored but not so much to do that you feel stressed and overwhelmed.

Set a Timer

Finally, when nothing seems satisfying, try setting a timer for 10 minutes or so and sticking with an activity for the whole time, even if it feels tedious and pointless at first. Many activities, especially complex and productive activities, take a certain amount of effort and focus for them to be engaging. It may take a few minutes to get into a novel you’re reading or to remember where you left off on a project.

If you give up after a couple of minutes of feeling disinterested, you’ll never get into it. Sometimes you just have to persist until you overcome that initial resistance. Try picking something you want to do and sticking with it for a certain length of time no matter what. If you’re still not into it after 10 or 15 minutes, try something else.

Boredom is a real problem in recovery, but it’s no different from other challenging emotions. Remember that, like other emotions, boredom is just information. It’s an opportunity to think things over and it doesn’t have to be distressing. It can also be an opportunity to do something useful and to practice overcoming inertia.

At The Foundry, we understand that recovery from addiction isn’t just about abstinence from drugs and alcohol; it’s about living a happier, more fulfilling life. We use a variety of proven methods to help our clients tolerate and manage stressful emotions as part of a holistic treatment program. To learn more, call us at (844) 955-1066.

It’s hard when you have a loved one who is struggling with a substance use disorder. Not only are you constantly worried about their health and welfare, but their substance use and resulting behavior probably affect you directly in various ways. They may get belligerent, ask to borrow money, keep strange hours, bring around suspicious people, and disrupt your life in countless other ways.

You want to help them but they may not be ready for help yet. The situation is a source of chronic stress as you try to deal with your own conflicting motivations. If you have a loved one with a substance use disorder, the following are some ways to take care of yourself.

Know That It’s Not Your Fault

First of all, know that whatever struggles your loved one is dealing with, it’s not your fault. Addiction is complex, typically involving genetic factors, mental health issues, childhood environment, or trauma. Sometimes these things combine in just the wrong way and most of the relevant factors are beyond anyone’s control.

Maintain Healthy Boundaries

Maintaining healthy boundaries is good for both of you. Healthy boundaries mean you expect your loved one to respect your values and autonomy and you respect theirs. Healthy boundaries are also a safety issue. If your loved one is going to live with you, they need to respect certain rules, like not bringing drugs or alcohol into the house, not bringing people over, and so on. They also need to respect you and your property by not trying to manipulate you, lie to you, or steal from you.

Boundaries are a way of protecting yourself and a way of not enabling their addictive behavior. Maintaining healthy boundaries may also be a way of improving the situation. Dysfunctional family dynamics, including poor communication and weak or nonexistent boundaries, often contribute to addiction.

Stay Healthy

Dealing with a loved one’s addiction can wear you down and take a toll on your health. Chronic stress produces hormones like cortisol and adrenaline that weaken your immune system and make you more vulnerable to various health issues over time.

To reduce stress and maintain health, three things are most important: sleep, diet, and exercise. Try to get at least eight hours of sleep every night. Even a modest sleep deficit can lead to increased anxiety, poor concentration and memory, poor planning, and lack of self-control. Over a longer period, a sleep deficit increases your risk of major depression and anxiety disorders.

Diet is the next important aspect of staying healthy. There are now many studies connecting a good diet with better mental health. One meta-analysis with data from more than 45,000 participants found that a healthy diet significantly reduces your risk of depression. Healthy diets in the various studies typically included mostly whole foods such as fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, with very little processed grain, meat, or sugar.

Exercise is the third leg of the stool. It improves your physical health, especially your cardiovascular health, and helps you maintain a healthy body weight. Perhaps more importantly, it helps improve your mental health, particularly by making you less reactive to stress. All you really need is to walk 30 minutes a day to notice improvements.

Find Ways to Relax

Some people have trouble relaxing because they feel like it’s just doing nothing. However, relaxation helps you reduce stress and recover from the stress of the day. Find something that works for you whether it’s meditating, listening to music, reading, or taking a hot bath or shower. Schedule some time to relax every day.

Talk to a Therapist

Having a loved one with a substance use disorder is a difficult situation to deal with. You may have trouble dealing with guilt or setting boundaries. You may have trouble coping with the associated stress or communicating effectively. A therapist can help you with all of these issues.

As noted above, family dynamics often drive addiction and it’s possible that by improving your communication skills, learning to set and respect boundaries, and resolving your own issues, that you might have a positive effect on your loved one.

Seek Social Support

Finally, seek social support. One of the hardest things is feeling like you are dealing with this situation on your own. People with substance use issues will sometimes deliberately try to isolate you as a means of control. Connect with others who are facing the same challenges.

Consider attending Al-Anon or Nar-Anon meetings in your area. You can talk to people who have been through the same thing and understand. Having that sense of connection makes you feel less stressed and more confident about dealing with the challenges related to your loved one’s addiction.

Having a loved one with a substance use disorder is always a difficult situation. It’s hard to know to help without enabling. Many people feel personally responsible for their loved ones’ addiction and recovery and the ongoing stress can have a serious effect on your health. While it’s great to want to help your loved one and encourage them to get help, remember that ultimately, they have to make their own decisions and that you can’t help them if you are sick and depressed. At The Foundry, we know that family is one of the most important elements of a strong recovery and we want you to play an integral role in your loved one’s treatment. To learn more, call us at (844) 955-1066 or explore our website.

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In recent decades, meditation — especially mindfulness meditation — has gone from a sort of fringe practice to the mainstream. Workers practice mindfulness to boost their productivity and reduce stress, and mental health professionals regularly incorporate it into their treatment methodologies. Mindfulness is an integral part of dialectical behavioral therapy, or DBT, a method of therapy used to treat tough conditions like borderline personality disorder, eating disorders, and suicidal depression. Mindfulness can help people cope with physical pain and emotional distress.

It can give them insight into their thinking and behavior. While mindfulness is frequently in the media, there are many persistent misconceptions about it. This is partly due to conflicting information and partly due to people conflating mindfulness with other forms of meditation. Here are some popular misconceptions about mindfulness.

“Mindfulness means having no thoughts.”

Perhaps the biggest misconception about mindfulness and meditation in general is that the goal is to empty your mind entirely. This may even sound pretty appealing. If you struggle with any mental health issue, you may feel like your thoughts are constantly attacking you and you would welcome even a temporary break from your own mental chatter. Unfortunately, mindfulness doesn’t work that way. For one thing, stopping your thoughts is nearly impossible. Thinking is what your brain does.

For another thing, flipping the “off” switch is not necessarily the best way to deal with painful thoughts and emotions. On the contrary, sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself is to become more aware of your thoughts and emotions. This way, you can better distinguish between challenging emotions and you have more insight into how thoughts and emotions are connected. Our most challenging emotions are often caused by irrational thoughts. Seeing your mental life more clearly is a big asset in therapy.

Finally, while mindfulness meditation doesn’t stop your thoughts, it does change your relationship to your thoughts. We tend to take our own thoughts far too seriously. In reality, thoughts are sort of like guesses about the world. Instead of reacting to them as if they are all true, we should ask whether they are true. Mindfulness helps you take a more realistic view of your own thoughts.

“Mindfulness means blissing out.”

While there are forms of meditation that are intended to help you cultivate certain states of mind — including bliss — mindfulness is not one of them. The problem with blissing out is that at some point, you have to come back. In that way, you would be substituting the escapism of drugs and alcohol with the escapism of mediation.

Mindfulness is rather about cultivating awareness and acceptance. Research shows that people who are more accepting of their negative emotions are less likely to suffer difficulties like depression as a result of emotional stress.  

“Mindfulness makes you passive.”

One criticism of mindfulness you often hear is that it makes you passive. Since the whole point is to let go of attachments, be less judgmental of yourself and others, and be more accepting of situations beyond your control, it’s easy to make the mistake of thinking that you might become inert or willing to accept bad things that you might be able to change.

However, that’s not quite how mindfulness works. There’s a difference, for example, between being judgmental and having judgment. The former is a sort of ego-reinforcing exercise and the latter is a form of discernment. Often, our behavior and emotional reactions result from years of habit and conditioning and we aren’t even aware of it.

This is perhaps nowhere more obvious than in addiction. Mindfulness allows you to distinguish between what you really want for yourself and others instead of allowing yourself to keep going on autopilot, which is really far more passive.

“Mindfulness is just a way to relax.”

If you look at a group of people practicing mindfulness meditation, it probably seems very peaceful. They’re all sitting there quietly, relaxed, perhaps with their eyes closed. Indeed, mindfulness meditation can be quite relaxing and practice even begins with some deliberate relaxation. Even if mindfulness meditation were just a way of relaxing for 30 minutes a day, you would probably still get a lot of benefit from it.

However, there is far more to it than that. As discussed above, mindfulness is more about becoming aware and accepting whatever is going on in your mind. This is quite often the opposite of relaxing and can be quite intense. When your defenses are relaxed, troubling thoughts, emotions, and memories might come up, in which case, the last thing you are thinking about is relaxing.

This is a space where you can experience these things and learn not to be afraid of them. This is also why it’s typically a good idea to learn mindfulness meditation under the guidance of a trained instructor or therapist, who can help you out when troubling emotions and memories arise.

Mindfulness is just something to do when you feel like it.

Finally, a lot of people seem to have the idea that mindfulness meditation is something you do intermittently as needed, the way you might take the occasional mental health day off work or bathe your dog. To get the most out of mindfulness meditation, you need to practice every day, even if it’s just for a few minutes. Our brains are highly adaptable, but they only change through persistent effort.

Occasional meditation might be a nice thing to do on a hike or after a stressful week, but it won’t change your relation to your thoughts. The real value of mindfulness is being more aware and less reactive, and that takes consistent effort, especially on the days when you don’t feel like it.

Mindfulness is everywhere these days, but it is often mischaracterized and therefore generally misunderstood by the public. Mindfulness isn’t thoughtless, blissing out, or passivity. Nor is it a panacea for everything wrong in your life. It can help you become more aware of what’s going on around you and inside your own head, making it great for addiction recovery because it can improve your relationships and make you more aware of the connections between your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. At The Foundry, mindfulness is one of several modalities we use to help our clients break their dependence on drugs and alcohol. To learn more about our program, call us today at (844) 955-1066 or explore our website.

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If you have a loved one with a substance use issue, it can be hard to understand why they won’t get help. It may be obvious to everyone that their drinking and drug use is having a negative effect on their lives and the lives of everyone around them, but they still refuse to do anything about it. If you care about someone, it’s important to encourage them in a supportive, nonjudgmental way to get help for addiction. To that end, it helps to understand some of the most common reasons people give for not seeking help, as identified by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

Most Don’t Believe They Have a Problem

Of all the people with substance use issues of various degrees, relatively few seek help and even fewer get the help they need. Of the people who never get help, more than 95 percent just don’t believe they have a problem. Why they believe that is a whole other issue. Many could be in denial. It’s hard to come to grips with the idea that you’ve lost control of your substance use and that it's a problem that you can’t solve on your own.

Rationalization is also a defense mechanism that protects addictive behavior. The remaining five percent of people know that drugs and alcohol have become a problem but they either haven’t sought help or they have sought help but were unable to get it for some reason. The remaining obstacles apply to both groups, although not necessarily in the same order.

Many Just Aren’t Ready to Quit

Of people who know they have a problem but don’t get help, the bigger group is the one comprising people who know they have a problem but haven't sought treatment. This can be incredibly frustrating for loved ones because it seems so obvious that if drugs and alcohol are a problem, you should seek help to quit. However, it’s crucial to understand your loved one’s ambivalence.

If they know their substance use is hurting them but they keep doing it anyway, there is probably a reason. Often, people with substance use issues are self-medicating for trauma or mental health issues. They feel like getting sober would deprive them of their only coping mechanism. Whatever their reasons, it’s important to listen and try to understand.

Cost Is Often an obstacle

We tend to think that addiction treatment is only for the rich and famous. We hear about celebrities doing long stints in rehab and assume it’s not for regular people. However, treatment is more affordable than most people realize. First, there is a continuum of care, ranging from outpatient services to extended inpatient treatment and most people can afford some level of professional care.

Even if it’s not the level of care you think you need, it’s important to know that any amount of work put towards recovery is worth it in the end. If you can only afford to go to 12-Step meetings, then do that and supplement with therapy if necessary. Many therapists work on a sliding scale for people who need it.

Second, there are more ways to pay for treatment than there have ever been. Most insurance will pay for at least some of treatment and quality treatment centers typically accept several forms of insurance. Recent changes in the law also allow federal money, such as from Medicare and Medicaid to be used for more addiction treatment options. Before you assume you can’t afford treatment, call some programs you like and see if they’ll work with you.

Many Are Afraid It Will Affect Their Jobs

There are several ways that treatment might affect your job. The most obvious is that people are afraid they’ll get fired for taking a month or more off of work to get treatment. According to the Family Medical Leave Act, your employer can’t fire you for taking up to 12 weeks off for addiction treatment. That doesn’t protect you from violations such as drinking or using drugs on the job, but it does guarantee time off for treatment.

Many people can’t afford to take time off work, even if they can afford treatment. In that case, it’s important to be aware that most treatment options don’t actually require you to miss work. An intensive outpatient program, for example, allows you to live at home and work while still receiving a high level of care.

The Stigma of Addiction Is Real

Many people are just afraid of being stigmatized as an “addict.” They don’t want their friends, neighbors, or coworkers to know they have a problem. Unfortunately, addiction is a progressive disease and at some point they will likely find out due to circumstances beyond your control. Declining work performance might lead you to lose your job, for example, or you might get a DUI.

It’s better to address the problem on your own terms. Keep in mind that addiction treatment programs have to follow the same strict privacy rules as hospitals and doctors offices, so there’s no reason anyone needs to know you’re getting treatment.

It’s Hard to Know Where to Get Treatment

These days, it feels like we’re constantly inundated with ads for addiction treatment. There are more than 14,000 addiction treatment facilities in the US and it can be hard to choose. Many of these facilities are mediocre and some are really bad. If you want your loved one to get help, you’re probably going to have to do most of the research to find them a good program. Look for accreditation, qualified staff, and evidence-based treatment methods. Good programs will want a lot of information about potential clients to know whether they are a good fit.

Some Want to Handle It on Their Own

Finally, some people don’t seek help because they think they can handle the problem on their own. This is another form of denial, since addiction is typically characterized by trying to quit but being unable to. When someone insists on handling it on their own, they are either stalling or they are slightly delusional about the amount of control they have over their situation.

As they often say in AA, your best thinking is what got you here. If you want to get sober, you will have to tolerate some level of discomfort and loss of control in the short term.

There are many reasons people don’t seek help for addiction; these are just some of the more common ones. When encouraging a loved one to seek help, it’s important to listen without judgment and try to understand what substance use does for them, what’s stopping them from getting help, and what might motivate them to get sober. At The Foundry, we know that every client is different and that individualized care is essential to long-term success. To learn more about our treatment programs, call us at (844) 955-1066 or explore our website.

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