Transcription
My name is Billy Grande. I'm the clinical director for Treehouse PDX. Um, one of the main things that we help our clients with is maintaining recovery post-treatment coming through this facility.
One of the main things that we want to discuss is relapse prevention. When we talk about relapse prevention, a lot of people think it's simply about abstinence—not using, that drinking. The reality is that it's beyond that; there's so much more that comes with that. And we want to simply start a conversation: What are things to be mindful about? What things that are going to be essential for you to maintain as part of healthy living? And what things to stay away from to avoid any potential lapses or relapses?
Today we want to simplify that recovery process by focusing on four different dimensions of well-being that we can reinforce and talk through and simply have a path to maintain recovery. So what are the four dimensions of well-being?
The four dimensions of well-being are the psychological dimension, the biological dimension, the social dimension, and the spiritual dimension.
When we talk about our psychological dimension, we're really talking about feelings, emotions; we're talking about our thinking. Something that we struggle with often in recovery are cognitive distortions. We are insecure; we are fearful; we tend to struggle with insecurities that we project to our environment. And sometimes, by not checking that, we start regressing to old patterns—that might be shutting down, that might be isolating. And one of the things that we want to start doing is noticing—taking the time to simply notice: What am I thinking? What am I feeling? What am I experiencing? We have spent a lot of time numbing ourselves, suppressing parts of ourselves. And part of the recovery process is discovering: How does it feel to be myself in my own body? And part of that is to simply notice. So one of the things that I would encourage is to practice self-awareness. And self-awareness can be easily explained as taking the time to ask myself: What am I going through? What am I experiencing? And as I'm starting to notice things, I start taking action if I need to. And sometimes I may not need to take action; sometimes it's going to be important to simply sit and experience.
So when we talk about the psychological dimension of well-being in early recovery, we're simply talking about awareness and self-care and self-compassion. Something that I want you to be mindful about is that sometimes when we start noticing, we tend to be critical of what we discover—that might be acting out. And the goal is to start addressing whatever things might be coming up in our mind so we can start working through that in a healthy way, giving us a better chance for sustaining our own recovery.
When we talk about the biological dimension of well-being, we're talking about our brain and body; we're talking about the neurochemistry in our brain; we're talking about every single system that is within us. So when we have a healthy lifestyle—when we eat well, when we sleep well, we exercise—we are balancing our chemistry. In early recovery, we tend to be challenged with post-acute withdrawal syndrome—a secondary withdrawal that we go through follows the initial one—and our chemistry is out of balance, which affects everything that we do. So when we are taking care of our biological dimension, we're simply helping our body to regulate itself, to work at its optimum functionality. And ultimately, the goal is to help the brain and the body to compare and contrast that: When we're using, we don't work at our optimum self, but when we are actually recovering, taking care of ourselves, we are in that place. And by being in our optimum self, we're able to once again be stable, think better, sleep better, feel better. And that's going to be something that's going to be essential for us to sustain healthy living, as well as sustain our recovery. So the end goal of the biological health is to repair our bodies from the impact that it had from our active addiction.
Um, the importance of the social well-being in early recovery—the social dimension is essential for us to recover and heal and, most importantly, prevent a potential relapse. When we talk about the social dimension, we're simply putting emphasis on the value of staying connected. As human beings, we are biologically designed to want to connect to other people, and it's essential for us in recovery to nurture healthy relationships. And healthy relationships start with your recovery support team—being able to reach out and ask for help, explain what you're going through, vent when you need to vent. And sometimes a social interaction can be as simple as going out with your friends, playing basketball, being able to go out for a simple dinner or a simple interaction, but it's essential for us to be able to come together as a unit to heal together.
Um, when we talk about the social dimension, we're talking about the importance of creating intimacy. Intimacy, at times, is misconstrued with an act of being sexually active, but when we talk about intimacy, I like to describe intimacy as being able to see the authentic self, being able to share what I'm actually going through—instead of saying, "I'm good," but in reality, I'm going through something. I want to be able to create the transparency where someone can really understand what I'm going through by self-disclosing. And by doing this, we can start moving from friendships and creating interpersonal relationships where everybody really knows and understands what I'm experiencing to a depth that sometimes I may not be comfortable going there, and yet it's so essential for my recovery. Moments that you can look back at and be able to laugh, being able to be free, being yourself. And the reality is, when you look back at your memories of your childhood or life experiences, highlights are always the ones you have with people—moments that you created with people. And that's why it's so important for us to not underestimate how important the social dimension is in recovery. And I would go to such length to say that without a strong social component, the chances of recovery will lessen because of that.
When we talk about the spiritual dimension in early recovery, we're talking about our internal moral compass—being able to be aligned with our values, our morals. And part of this in early recovery is to simply start listening to yourself. We all have this internal voice that tells us right from wrong; we all know what to be right or wrong. And the goal of this dimension is to simply become more attuned to yourself and start listening more to yourself so you can start making decisions based on what you know fundamentally to be healthy and right for you. And by doing so, you're going to then complement the other dimensions—your psychological well-being, your biological well-being—and, um, as a byproduct, you're going to start feeling better; you're going to see changes in your life; and ultimately, you're going to become more happy. And by doing that, you're going to learn how to love and enjoy your recovery life—something that is essential for us to keep in mind when we're talking about all four dimensions.
Something that is essential for us to keep in mind when we're talking about all four dimensions is that they complement each other. If one dimension is not balanced, it will affect other dimensions. For example, if my biological dimension is not well—meaning that I'm not sleeping well, I'm not eating well—that's going to affect my psychological dimension; I'm not going to be thinking clearly; I'm not going to be thinking right; I'm going to be struggling with, um, memory retention, whatever it may be; it will affect the way that I simply work on a daily basis. Same thing with other dimensions: If I'm isolating, if I'm going back to old behaviors, if I'm going to unhealthy environments, I'm not going to feel proud about myself; I'm not going to feel content with my recovery; I'm going to start regressing to old patterns that can potentially lead me down that path. So it's essential for us to understand that a balanced life is a healthy life; an unbalanced life is not a healthy life. So the goal is to be able to create homeostasis—great balance in all dimensions of your life—so you have a better chance to sustain your recovery.
Something that is really important to keep in mind is that a healthy lifestyle looks different for everybody. It's not necessarily a traditional, um, makeover as it pertains to externally looking good and kind of meeting these expectations. I think it's about tailoring that approach for each individual. Every person will have that different relationship when it comes to healthy living.
Let's talk about what are the symptoms of relapse. Relapse signs—it's important for us to understand that relapse is a predictable thing; it's something that we can see signs ahead of time; it's something that we can work through. And it's important for you to understand what are your warning signs. It can start with triggers; it can start with cravings; it can start with irrational thinking. And the goal is for you to identify what are the trends. Take a moment to look back at your past attempts to recovery and identify what are the common things that you're noticing. Do you tend to start isolating, and that progresses? Do you tend to go to old friends, and eventually you are influenced in a negative way? And the goal is, once you identify those trends, to now start doing something about those things that you're noticing. And it can be as simple as small changes. Do not underestimate how powerful a small change can be in recovery. Recovery is not meant to be perfect; if anything, we're meant to embrace the imperfection of this journey and learn how to be comfortable with that. And by doing that, we open ourselves to start exploring and discovering other opportunities and approaches to our well-being.