by A Women in Sobriety | Jun 11, 2015 | Addiction Articles, Sobriety For Women
Don’t Fall in Love in Rehab!
Treatment isn’t fun. It’s necessary, enlightening, a space for growth, and life saving…but it isn’t fun.
I don’t know about all you, but when I went to my first treatment center all I cared about was fun. So, the gears in my faulty brain started turning. They cranked and cranked and came up with the idea of getting a boyfriend while in treatment.
It isn’t going to end like this…I promise
This is called a rehab romance and trust me when I say – don’t do it! Nothing good will come from it. I’m sure most of you reading this are already shaking your heads. Come on girl, you’re thinking!
I know, I know. Anyway, I figured I’d share my experience so that others don’t have to make the same mistakes I did. Enjoy!
5) It Can Wait
This isn’t really a good reason at all, but it’s true. If you meet someone you like in treatment, or if you meet someone who pays attention to you and is cute (that’s all it took for me!), save it for later.
Having a rehab romance will do a lot of things for you…none of them are positive. Plus, it’s usually breaking the rules of the treatment center. That’s addict behavior. We got sober to CHANGE our behavior, remember!
The love of your life might be around when you both get out of rehab. They might not. It doesn’t matter. Just wait.
4) The Other Person is Sick
I feel like this one goes without saying, but I’m saying it anyway. There’s a reason your perfect boyfriend ended up in rehab. That reason, hard as it may be to swallow, is because they’re sick!
Addiction and alcoholism are diseases of selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and failed relationships (romantic, platonic, and familial). So, knowing all this, why would you get into a relationship anyway? It just doesn’t make sense!
3) You’re Sick!
Again, I feel like this one is obvious, but I’m saying it anyway because it wasn’t obvious to me!
If your new prince charming is sick…well just think about how sick you are! I was a lot of things when I entered treatment (insecure, afraid, neurotic, emotionally crippled, emotionally unavailable, jealous, full of resentment, lonely…the list goes on). You know what I wasn’t? Healthy.
Why would I want to get into a relationship with another human being when I’m not even okay on my own? Why would I want to subject another person to the madness that was inside my head at the time?
It just doesn’t make sense. Of course, most alcoholics do things that don’t make sense. Falling in love in rehab, though, takes the cake of most nonsense and silly things to do!
2) It Distracts from Therapy
Why’d you go to treatment in the first place? To get help! If you’re anything like me, you desperately needed help with just about everything in your life.
So, while in treatment, why would you do anything that distracts from getting that help? Of course, hindsight is 20/20, right? I didn’t think getting involved with a boy distracted me from therapy. I thought I was still doing my assignments and learning about myself.
And I was…to a degree. I wasn’t fully present though. Guess what I thought about at night? If you said plans for my future wedding to Bobby from Boston – you’re right!
I wasn’t concentrating on figuring out what made me tick. I wasn’t taking a fearless look inside myself for answers. I was making sure everything looked good on the outside and paying lip service to self-searching, all while dreaming about a boy. Yikes!
1) It Distracts from God
More than anything else on this list, getting involved in a rehab romance puts distance between you and your Higher Power. Do you think God wants you passing notes during smoke break? I don’t know about you, but my God definitely doesn’t!
Alcoholism and addiction are spiritual diseases. The only way to FULLY recover from them is through a spiritual experience. If we’re putting people before God, well, this just doesn’t happen.
If we’re attempting to fill the void with people, attention, compliments, or anything other than a Higher Power of our own understanding, it just doesn’t work. It’s that simple.
What are your top reasons for not having a rehab romance? Let us know on social media!
by Sally Rosa | Oct 27, 2014 | Addiction Articles, Sobriety For Women
The Article Heard Round the World: Amanda Bynes and Mental Illness
Last week, a young writer name Sam Dylan Finch shed a very human perspective on Amanda Bynes and her ongoing struggles with mental illness.
The essay was, simply put, breathtaking. Since being published, it’s gone very viral. Sam explores how we as a culture view, and react to, celebrities with mental illness. Perhaps the best point made is the discrepancy between how we reacted to the death of Robin Williams and how we’re currently treating Amanda Bynes.
Laughter & Mental Illness: A Not So Subtle Hint to Treat Amanda Bynes with Compassion
We treat those with mental illness, and addiction, very differently when they’re alive and when they’re dead. For that matter, we treat average women suffering from mental illness, or addiction, very different from a suffering celebrity.
Why is this? Why do we place celebrities on a pedestal, while also tearing them down? Why do we view Amanda Bynes as the punch line of a joke and Robin Williams as a tragic reminder of our humanity? Why do we treat celebrity mental illness as entertainment instead of a deadly sickness?
Oh dear readers, I wish I knew! I don’t have an easy answer. I don’t think there is an easy answer. I think we’re human and messy and contradictory. I think we like to idolize celebrities and believe fame is possible, only to tear them down and make ourselves feel better.
For that matter, I think we treat celebrity mental illness differently than “normal” mental illness because celebrities seem untouchable. None of us really know what Amanda Bynes is going through. Hell, we don’t even know if she is mentally ill. While it’s clear something serious and tragic is happening in her life, she has yet to confirm any diagnosis.
So, assuming Amanda does suffer from schizophrenia, bipolar, or any form of mental illness, we still don’t understand her struggle (even those of us who have these same mental illnesses!). Maybe we treat celebrity mental illness differently because, surprise, it is different.
Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t think we should mock Amanda Bynes. I hate that she’s the butt of jokes. I hate that I’ve made these jokes. I hate that watching her Twitter is akin to watching TV for some people. Still, her experience with mental illness is very different than mine. Her experience with mental illness is very different than yours. Her experience with mental illness is just that, her experience.
Are We Bad People for Laughing? A Critical Look at Our Reactions to Mental Illness & Death
Sam’s essay made me question my reaction to Amanda Bynes and her public unraveling. It also made me question my reaction to the death of Robin Williams.
When Robin Williams took his life, as a direct result of mental illness, I mourned. I wasn’t alone. Our entire nation mourned. We celebrated too. We celebrated the life, career, and personality of a wonderful man. We celebrated the legacy of a one-of-a-kind comedian and social critic.
Why is it that in death, be it from mental illness or addiction, we mourn the sufferer? Why is it that we wait until they’re gone to celebrate their achievements? Why don’t we try to help while they’re alive?
Again, I wish I knew! I can’t come up with a single reason I haven’t tried to help Amanda Bynes (in whatever small and tiny way I can). I can’t come up with a single reason I don’t have the same compassion for her that I have for a woman who walks into a meeting.
Why is that? Why do we laugh rather than help? Why do we mourn afterwards, instead of offering help during?
Let’s start the conversation with those questions. If we keep asking ourselves why, sooner or later we’re going to have to answer. If we keep the fact that Amanda Bynes is sick, rather than simply crazy, at the forefront of our minds, maybe we’ll show her the same compassion we show each other.
by Sally Rosa | Oct 15, 2014 | 12 Steps, Addiction Articles
Written By: Fiona Stockard
Hardcore Sobriety
I was lucky enough to get sober with a bunch of Big Book thumpers. Actually, scratch that, I don’t know if I’d have gotten sober without them. Really, I was graced enough to be given the gift of sobriety from a bunch of Big Book thumpers.
If you’ve been sober for any length of time, you probably know what a book thumper is. If you haven’t, let me tell you!
Big Book thumpers are individuals in recovery who stress the importance of working the twelve-steps and spreading a message of hope, straight from Alcoholics Anonymous, more commonly known as the Big Book.
These are the women at meetings who aren’t afraid to call bulls**t when they see it. They’re the one’s who’ll crosstalk, giving newcomers the advice they so desperately need to hear. They’re the ones you see smiling and laughing until the conversation turns to the steps, then they get deadly serious.
In short, they’re the ones saving lives.
Going to Rehab & My Introduction to Book Thumpers
I didn’t get sober the first time I tried to. Like many alcoholics, it took me a few tries. That isn’t to say it’s impossible to be a one-chip wonder, plenty of people are. Still, most alcoholics I know needed to be beaten up pretty good before they became willing.
I was living in a halfway house in Delray Beach. I was going to aftercare and twelve-step meetings everyday. I also couldn’t stop drinking and drugging. Eventually, I ended up back in rehab. This was the definition of a blessing in disguise!
While in treatment, a group of women heavily involved in H&I (Hospitals and Institutions) brought meetings in. These were hardcore book thumpers! I didn’t take their numbers, or even talk to them really, but a seed of hope was planted.
Getting Sober Thanks to Book Thumpers
Seeing these women and their passion for spreading the message of recovery, gave me hope. Plus, they were saying things I’d never heard before. They didn’t rehash the same old “don’t drink and go to meetings” slogans. Good things they didn’t! Not drinking and going to meetings kept me sick! If I could simply not drink, I wouldn’t need twelve-step recovery in the first place!
Instead, they were saying things like “Selfishness – self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles” (Big Book, p. 62).
Or, “Instead, the problem [alcoholism] has been removed. It does not exist for us” (Big Book, p. 85).
They were calling themselves recovered alcoholics. What an idea! You mean I had a chance to recover? To get better? Not to sit around, miserable as f**k, until I inevitability drank again?
The 12-Steps & Staying Sober in the Real World
And then came the fateful day when I got out of treatment. I wasn’t in the safe and protected rehab bubble anymore. I was in the real world. Was I going to stay sober?
Well, a close friend took me to a meeting she described as “different.” Turns out, it was a step-study meeting, packed with book thumpers! They weren’t the same women who’d brought the H&I meeting into my rehab, but they preached the same message.
I got involved almost immediately. I asked a woman to sponsor me. A few days later, we sat in Moe’s (great burritos, btw!) and worked the first three steps. It took a total of about fifteen minutes. Then she got me writing. The dreaded fourth step!
It turns out the big bad fourth step wasn’t so bad after all. Neither were steps eight and nine. None of the twelve-steps were scary or hard! Maybe I had that gift of desperation people talk about. I don’t know. I just know that I started to feel better and I was going to do whatever I could to keep that feeling going.
Being a Book Thumper Myself
Six years later, I sponsor women the same way. I’m a book thumper! I get girls into the steps quickly. They get better quickly. Of course, very little of their success or failure has anything to do with me. It all has to do with their level of willingness.
When I was first getting sober, my book thumper sponsor asked me, “are you willing to go to any length for your sobriety?” I had no idea what she was talking about, so of course I said yes. I thought she’d have me go to a lot of meetings or something like that.
Today, I know what she really meant. Going to any length means exactly what it sounds like. It means doing what my sponsor asked. If your sponsor is a book thumper, she’s going to ask you to get into the Big Book. Do it. Trust me, that simple book is the key to a whole new life!
by Fiona Stockard | Oct 1, 2014 | Sobriety For Women
Written By: Fiona Stockard
My Name is Fiona and I’m an Addict
It took me far too long to say those words. It took me even longer to mean them. My road to recovery from substance abuse began the first time I made myself vomit. See, before I could imagine getting better, I had to get worse.
Growing up, I always felt like the weirdo, the odd-woman out (turns out most addicts felt this way!). I was overweight and had low self-esteem. I suffered from anxiety and depression. In turn, I felt like a piece of crap everyday.
My Story
At eleven years old, I made myself throw up and instantly felt better. That’s kind of sick, right?
I didn’t lose tons of weight. I didn’t become suddenly popular. The boy I had a crush on didn’t ask me out. What did happen was that I gained control. On some tiny level, I finally had control over my body, over my mind.
Fast-forward a couple of years, I found out pills worked better than vomiting. Fast-forward a couple of years from that, I found out heroin worked better than pills. Oh, and guess what? Cocaine and heroin worked best.
By seventeen years old (before I was even legally an adult!), I was one hot mess. I was addicted to multiple drugs, living on the street, and alienated from my family. I was more addiction than person. Luckily, my mom just wouldn’t give up on me. She got me a plane ticket and a bed in one of south Florida’s most prominent treatment centers.
That wasn’t happily ever after though. Though treatment was an amazing experience, I relapsed afterward. Life was hell for another year. Eventually, I went to another treatment center and got better. Turns out all I had to do was change everything. Though this sounds hard, it was so much easier than the alternative.
If my story sounds like a bad afterschool special, that’s because it is. I was a statistic. I was the story you told your kids to scare them. Today, well today, I’m much different. I’m writing this, exposing myself, in the hopes that other women might not have to go through all I did.
What I Needed WASN’T What I Wanted
I’ve been around the block when it comes to rehab. I’ve been admitted twice to in-patient, residential programs, and been to more intensive outpatients (IOPs) than I can count. I knew the system. More accurately, I knew how to beat the system.
It wasn’t until multiple therapists, doctors, and addiction professionals had called me on my s**t, that I began to heal. To put it another way, what I needed wasn’t what I wanted.
What I needed was an all women’s rehab, therapists who examined ALL aspects of my life, supportive peers, and aftercare. In my IOP experiences, I received none of the above. IOP works great for a lot of people, I can’t stress that enough. But for this broken woman (for this broken GIRL really), IOP didn’t even allow me to cut down my use.
My first time in residential treatment, I had two of the four. I was in a women’s treatment center and had great peers. What I didn’t receive was comprehensive clinical care, or any aftercare.
My second time in residential treatment, I had four out of four. I was surrounded by incredibly warm and supportive women, the entire treatment team kicked my metaphorical ass, then built me carefully back up, and the rehab looked after me upon discharge. Guess what? As a result of all that, I began to change. I was given hope and I wasn’t trading that hope for all the drugs in the world.
Recovery is For People Who…
Addiction treatment is a vital and necessary part of recovery, but ultimately it’s only the start of a lifelong process. Treatment offers a ton of crucial services (like those I mentioned above), a place to be physically separated from drugs, guidance, and hope. What treatment doesn’t offer is the desire to get better. That has to come from within.
Remember, I drank and used after my first visit to residential treatment. This was largely due to not being provided the safe environment rehab should be, but also because I wasn’t ready to change.
To put it a much simpler way, a woman needs the desire to heal more than ANYHTING ELSE. What women in sobriety need is a fire within their chests, a voice that won’t stop repeating, “you can do better, you can get better, you ARE better!”
