Category: Australia

toxic relationships

Letting Go Of Toxic Relationships

Articles, Australia, Education, International, Malaysia, Treatment, Understanding Addiction, United Kingdom, United States

This is part one in a two-part series about letting go of toxic relationships.

As A Human Being, You Have To Have Relationships With Other Human Beings

Relationships are an integral part of the human experience. Whether you like it or not, you cannot live your life without having relationships with other people.

Even if you consider yourself a loner who doesn’t need to surround yourself with people, you have at least a few friends, relatives, and co-workers that you interact with regularly. You simply cannot live your life alone. Very simply, you need other human beings to survive. However; you get to choose what kind of relationships you are going to have.

There are two types of relationships – healthy relationships and toxic relationships. The key is to invest in healthy, positive, uplifting, supportive relationships. The problem is, many people who enter recovery are so accustomed to chaotic, destructive, and unhealthy relationships. They truly don’t know how to identify whether a relationship is toxic or not. This is not uncommon.

Having Healthy Relationships Is Vital To Recovery

You can’t recover alone. You need a support system of caring people who are going to support your new way of life – people you can call on when you need help, support, advice, guidance or a shoulder you can cry on.  What you DON’T need are people in your life who will tear you down, create unnecessary drama, bring you negative energy, abuse you in any way, or do anything that will put your recovery in danger.

After years of engaging in self-destructive addictive behavior, it can be difficult to forge healthy relationships and let go of toxic relationships that no longer serve you. Nevertheless, this is something you must do if you want to learn how to live a recovering lifestyle.  

Toxic Relationships Vs. Healthy Relationships

In recovery, you want to stay away from toxic relationships and forge healthy ones. To do this, you must know the difference between the two. If you don’t know how to recognize a toxic relationship, we want to make it easy for you.

You know you are in a toxic relationship when:

  • There is physical abuse of any kind. It is never okay for someone to hit, push, kick, or harm you in any way physically.
  • You feel bad about yourself when you are with the person.
  • There is a lot of anger and hostility involved.
  • Someone tries to persuade you to do something that will go against your recovery like using drugs, having unhealthy sex, gambling, or looking at pornography
  • There is yelling or verbal abuse. While you may have gotten used to people yelling at you, yelling is toxic. Yelling and name-calling are not healthy forms of communication.
  • The person you are in a relationship asks you to compromise your personal values.
  • Someone constantly dumps their chaos, drama, and negative energy on you.
  • There is a lack of respect. Respect means keeping healthy boundaries and respecting your personal space, property, values, and life goals.
  • The person is always high or drunk around you.
  • Someone asks you to break the law on their behalf.
  • There is no care or concern for your well-being and happiness – the relationship revolves completely around the other person’s needs.
  • The person tries to monopolize your time and acts controlling when you want to spend time with other people you care about.
  • Things always feel chaotic and off-balance.

These are just a few examples of characteristics of a toxic relationship. We will talk more about relationships in Letting Go Of Toxic Relationships – Part Two.  

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get sober

Making Peace With The Past

Articles, Australia, Education, Malaysia, Treatment, Understanding Addiction, United Kingdom, United States

Congratulations On Your Decision To Get Sober

If you have made the brave decision to get sober and stop using drugs or alcohol, we want to applaud you. This is a difficult decision. And, the action required of you to stay true to your commitment requires hard work, dedication, strength, and courage. Although recovery isn’t easy, it’s worth it. You deserve the very best this life has to offer. Addiction only brings about negative consequences. Recovery promises an end to the chaotic existence you once knew.

Are Shame And Guilt Consuming You? 

When you enter recovery, you bring some baggage with you. While you were using drugs and alcohol, you made some poor decisions that you aren’t proud of. You hurt people you cared about, but most of all, you hurt yourself.

Feelings of shame and guilt are common for those who make the decision to stop drinking alcohol or using drugs. You probably feel incredible remorse for the things you did while you were in your addiction. Sometimes, the decisions you made can keep you up at night and leave you feeling worthless. You might have even convinced yourself that you are a bad person who doesn’t deserve love and forgiveness. This is not true. You are a beautiful person who is worthy of every good thing this life has to offer.

Coming To Terms With The Past

Coming to terms with the past isn’t easy, but it is something you must do if you want to move forward with your life. You did what you did and you can’t go back and undo it. While you may not be proud of the things you did, you have to accept personal responsibility and forgive yourself.

Remember, you weren’t in your right mind when you carried out the actions of your past. You were sick when you were under the influence. Your mind was dominated by the need to fuel your addiction and it didn’t care about who got hurt in the process. This is not your true nature. It is the nature of addiction.

One of the ways you can make peace with your past is to continue to walk along the road to recovery. If you return to drugs and alcohol to alleviate the shame and guilt you feel, you will be setting the clock back. You will disappoint those you care about yet again, which will only make you feel worse.

Making Amends Sets Things Right Again

When you are in early recovery, there is only one thing for you to do – stay sober. That is all you have to work on and that is difficult enough! But, when the time is right, you will have the opportunity to make amends with the people you have hurt.

When you make amends, you apologize to the people you offended and you take action to right the wrong. If you stole money, you repay it. If you destroyed property, you pay to have it fixed or if you said harsh words, you sincerely apologize. You take responsibility for your actions and you make a sincere promise never to repeat the behavior.

Making amends goes a long way in relieving you of your shame and guilt. In time, you will get there. In the meantime, be kind to yourself. Forgive yourself. Make the commitment that – one day at a time – you are making a better life for yourself and you are letting go of the past.   

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The Cycle of Addiction

A Simple Truth That Can Help Break The Cycle of Addiction Immediately

Articles, Australia, Education, International, LGBTQ, Malaysia, Treatment, Understanding Addiction, United Kingdom, United States
Even Though You Might Have A Problem With Addiction, Denial Will Tell You Otherwise

Many people struggle with the idea that they might have a problem with addiction. This is not surprising. Denial is a powerful force that drives addiction. Whether you have a problem with drugs, alcohol, gambling, sex, or shopping; your mind will try to trick you into believing you don’t have a problem by denying that it exists. Denial is a construct of the mind designed to protect you from the painful truth that you do, in fact, have a problem.

The mind is designed to embrace pleasurable feelings. When you use drugs or alcohol or partake in activities like sex and gambling, your brain produces a feel-good chemical called dopamine. The brain wants more of this chemical, so it will lie to you so you will continue to engage in your addiction because it wants to feel good.

The tricky part of denial is that you don’t realize you are in denial. That’s the whole point! If you do have an addiction of some kind, you have to step out of denial and face the truth. Otherwise, your life will continue in a downward spiral if you don’t get help.

Things Denial Will Tell You So You Will Stay Addicted

Denial is hard to recognize because it manifests in your mind as your own voice. Denial presents itself as thoughts that sound reasonable and rational. Because you want to believe what denial tells you, you will buy into your own lies. Even though there might be a mound of evidence that points to the fact that you have an addiction, you will deny the reality because it’s just too painful.

Here are some common rationalizations that denial will tell you when you start wondering if you have an addiction problem:

  • I don’t really have a problem. I just like drugs/alcohol/sex/gambling/shopping.
  • I can stop anytime I want to. I just don’t want to stop.
  • My family doesn’t understand. They keep telling me I have a problem, but they don’t realize I have things under control.
  • I may be spending a lot of money doing this, but it’s my money – I can do anything I want to with it.
  • There’s no way I am addicted. I have a great job and I pay all of my own bills.
  • I am too strong to be addicted.
A Simple Truth That Can Help Break The Cycle Of Addiction

Here is a simple truth. People who don’t have a problem with addiction don’t sit around wondering if they have a problem with addiction. If you think you might have an issue with substance abuse or a behavioral addiction, you probably do. Most likely, you know in your heart that you have a problem and you need help – you just don’t want to admit it to yourself.

If you will take the brave step out of denial and into the light of truth, you can stop the addictive cycle immediately. As long as you continue to believe the lies your denial is feeding you, you will continue to stay stuck in your self-destructive pattern. When you admit that a problem exists, you can face it head on.

If you want confirmation that you have an addiction, call us. We’ll perform a free evaluation over the phone and tell you one way or the other. If you don’t have a problem with addiction, you can rest easy knowing that your life is on the right track and you won’t have to worry anymore. If you do have a problem, we can get you the help that you need. 

CLICK HERE to get a Free Confidential Addiction Rehabilitation Assessment.

gamblers - gambling addiction

The Reality of Gambling Addiction

Articles, Australia, Education, International, Malaysia, Understanding Addiction, United Kingdom, United States

One recent report shows conclusively that gambling is a real addiction and it is particularly rampant in Australia. We can see that patterns unfold in ways which are strikingly familiar and similar to any other addiction. The gamblers play relentlessly. They go until they are tapped out and like any other addict, they go out to “score” again. For the gambler this means taking out more loans, extending the limit on credit cards, and of course lying to family members about what they are doing.

One person saw this phenomenon as particularly striking in those who play the slot machines. Sitting for hours on end at these digital machines, they feed all of their money into it but by bit. They show no signs of pleasure or enjoyment. They are more like heroin addicts who are bound to couches and beds and move only to shoot more dope. He compared the slot players to an addicts he had seen who did nothing but lay in a cot and sit up periodically to inject morphine. After he shot his dope, he would lay motionless for about four hours until he began to shake, then he would move only to shoot more dope.

Gamblers Hedonic Treadmill

Gamblers, it turns out, are lost in the same cycle as drug addicts. They are victims of what is called the “hedonic treadmill.” Gambling releases dopamine, which is the basic brain chemical at the root of addiction. As people gamble, their brains anticipate the release of dopamine. If the payoff is not what they anticipated, the dopamine levels return to a lower level and they are compelled to repeat the actions again. This goes on and on until it becomes just as unstoppable as drugs and alcohol.
The other feature of this chemical process is that the dopamine receptors actually stop working over time. As with chemical addictions, the gambler eventually loses the ability to feel the pleasure of the rush. At this point, it is a flat-line experience. Gamblers are gambling simply because the gamble. It is just as debilitating as drugs.

Gambling tends to get less attention these days. The problem of heroin and meth has occupied much of the public attention. But it is a real addiction. Based on per capita spending, Australians are the world’s most avid gamblers and the addiction that attends this is everywhere in evidence on Australia today.
Like all addictions, gambling addiction is treatable. Like other behavioral addictions such as sex and porn addiction, gambling can be met with the same forms of intervention which lead people back to a life free of gambling.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) has been clinically proven to be effective in treating gambling addiction. The forms of intervention intrinsic to CBT which ultimately serve as long term learning experiences are extremely effective in countering the destructive behavior patterns associated with gambling addiction. CBT helps repair behavioral disruptions which are the result of addiction. It also addresses the psychological and emotional difficulties which lead to addiction.

CLICK HERE to get a Free Confidential Gambling Addiction Rehabilitation Assessment.

Self-Efficacy

Self-Efficacy as Part of Recovery

Articles, Australia, Education, International, LGBTQ, Malaysia, Treatment, Understanding Addiction, United Kingdom, United States

Self-efficacy is defined as one’s ability to succeed in specific situations or accomplish a task. One’s sense of self-efficacy can play a huge part on how one approaches goals, challenges, and tasks in life. This simply means that how you think is how you behave. There is only one way to start this process, one step at a time. In recovery this means that you cannot take on all your issues at one time, you must take each day, sometimes each moment at a time. There are some basic steps you can take to build your own self-efficacy while in recovery.

First you must look toward the future, not dwell in the past.

You have probably made many mistakes as part of your addiction. It is likely that you have hurt others, whether intentionally or not. This part of your life cannot be changed, but your future can. If there are people you have hurt in a way that it can be corrected then do so, it will help you move forward, if not then let the past go and start building a new life. As you start looking toward the future you also need to set some measurable goals. These goals need to be something you can meet in a timely manner and something that is important to you and your recovery. You must remember that you have full control of the choices you make and even if setbacks occur when working toward these goals. The biggest obstacle we face in life is ourselves. We must take control of our own minds to be successful, even if our goals seem unreachable at first.

Next you must learn to be positive. As the cliché goes, every cloud has a silver lining. Recovery is difficult and there are many changes that will need to take place. Finding the positive in the changes that need to occur is necessary to stay in recovery. In fact, taking this positive viewpoint can change how you achieve as achievement is for those who never quit, who do not stop working toward their dreams and goals. If you can respond to a difficult or negative situation in a positive manner than the obstacles will become something you can overcome.

So now the question becomes What is your goal, your dream for your life? You should also ask yourself What goals are you willing to set? These questions will give you a good start in working toward your new life. Relating back to recovery, you must believe you can stay clean and sober. This will help further your self-efficacy. To further build your self-efficacy, find someone who has done what you want to do. This can be someone who has been in recovery long term or someone who has overcome similar hardships to meet similar goals. This person will serve as a role model.

All of these steps combined will help you to set small, achievable goals. As you meet these goals self-efficacy will build and larger goals will be possible. You have made the choice to begin the journey into recovery so get started on building yourself up and meeting goals.

CLICK HERE to get a Free Confidential Addiction Rehabilitation Assessment.