Crystals Can Enhance Your Meditation Routine

Meditation is the key for some who are in recovery. It helps people feel more energized, gain focus and relaxation and can increase consciousness. All of these are important so that the recoveree can maintain a healthy life balance each day. Crystals can assist recoverees with these goals and aid in the discovery of their sober identity.

Amethyst
Amethyst crystal. Photo Credit: The Corner Crystal.

Amethyst

Amethyst distracts you from addictions and withdrawal symptoms. This crystal helps recharge the mind, body, and spirit. It helps recoverees reconnect to their own spirituality, open their minds to wisdom, and wash away negativity.

Carnelian
Carnelian crystal. Photo Credit: The Corner Crystal.

Carnelian

The bright orange Carnelian crystal is used to help those who struggle with overeating and marijuana addiction. The Carnelian is a form of quartz that makes users feel both energized and protected. When the Carnelian is held in the right hand and the Azurite crystal is held in the left hand, users can feel relaxed. Drinking Carnelian infused water or wearing jewelry will ease fears and give you more determination during recovery.

clear quartz
Clear Quartz crystal. Photo Credit: The Corner Crystal.

Clear quartz

This crystal can help those with a history of substance abuse. This not only works for those recovering from opioid and chemical drugs but for those wanting to resist caffeine and sugar. Clear Quartz helps cut down stress, ease withdrawal symptoms, and tries to block addictive thoughts.

lepidolite
Lepidolite crystal. Photo Credit: The Corner Crystal.

Lepidolite

This crystal helps develop hope, trust, serenity, and acceptance within a person. Lepidolite helps transform recoverees by encouraging self-love, patience, and optimism. This stone is especially helpful for people who have PTSD or manic depression because it stabilizes emotions.

Rose Quartz
Rose Quartz. Photo Credit: The Corner Crystal.

Rose Quartz

This crystal is known as the stone of love and can help you see the reality of toxic relationships. This stone is also effective for people recovering from addictions such as nymphomania. Rose Quartz calms and encourages recoverees to rediscover their love of the arts, music, and writing.

Crystals can be used alongside physical meditation activities such as yoga. They help those in recovery transform their mind, body, and spirit. If you are in need of relaxation and meditation, The Council offers weekly yoga classes. For more information, please click here.

12 Tips for Partying Sober During the Holidays

For a recovering addict or alcoholic, holidays such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s can be annual versions of The Bermuda Triangle. To stay out of the danger zone, it is best to prepare yourself for the potential threats to your sobriety before you encounter them. Here are 12 Tips you can follow for partying sober during the holidays:

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Norman Rockwell (1894-1978), “Freedom from Want,” 1943.
Story illustration for “The Saturday Evening Post,” March 6, 1943. Photo Credit www.nrm.org.

1-Prepare your mind

Have a few lines handy for when someone offers you a drink at a holiday party. “No thank you, but I’ll take a Coke.” If you are constantly asked, be repetitive and consistent with your answers and answer firmly, “No.”

2-Volunteer

Spend time helping at a soup kitchen or helping children’s charities. You’ll find that giving your time will feel amazing and still give you the ability to be social during the holiday season.

3-Be the designated driver for the evening

By being the designated driver, this will make you look responsible and will prevent more people from asking you to drink with them.

4-Celebrate the sober life

Host your own substance-free shindig. Arrange games and chances for attendees to win prizes.

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Snowboarding Christmas outing. Photo Credit: Jakob Owens.

5-Have an escape plan

If you are at an event where people have a lot of alcohol, attend the party with a sober friend. If your urges are too strong, set an alternative plan for the night so you won’t feel obligated to stay.

6-Avoid familiar places

Stay away from old hangout areas and minimize the time you spend with old friends if you happen to run into them.

7-HALT

Avoid being too Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired before an event. This can lead to stronger urges to relapse.

8-Follow your recovery routine

Stick as close to your recovery routine as possible during the holidays.

9-Exercise

Exercise on a regular schedule. Dancing at holiday parties can also help keep your mind off of drinking.

10-Relocate

Try to stand closer to the food than the drinks at social gatherings.

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New Year’s Eve celebration with sparklers. Photo credit: Sang Huynh.

11-Do not overeat

Try not to overeat. This can lead to HALT feelings and feelings of guilt. Instead, watch your portions and schedule meals appropriately.

12-Seek assistance when needed

Attend a 12-step meeting before or after the holidays as a reminder that you are not in this alone. The encouragement will help you stay focused on your sober journey throughout the holiday season.

Many of The Council on Recovery’s staff will be unavailable on major federal holidays. However, the building will be open to host meetings and yoga classes. For more information please contact 713.942.4100 or email us here. Happy Holidays!

The Lifelong Quest For Sobriety…The Ultimate Hero’s Journey—Part 18

Guest Blogger and long-time Council friend, Bob W. presents Part 18 of a series dealing with Alcoholism and Addiction from a Mystical, Mythological Perspective, reflecting Bob’s scholarly work as a Ph.D. in mythological studies.

On August 25, 2017 at approximately 10:00PM, Hurricane Harvey slammed ashore at Rockport, Texas, with sustaining winds of 130mph.  Over the next 4-5 days, it moved inland about 50 miles, then turned back out to the Gulf, meandered just offshore Houston and Bay City and finally came ashore again at Cameron, Louisiana.  Over the period of time that it lingered in or around Houston, it dropped approximately 9 trillion gallons of water in the Greater Houston area, Katy to Bay City, the Woodlands to Clear Lake.  To put this volume of water in perspective, if this volume was in a cylinder one mile square, about the size of the Inner Loop of Houston, the column of water such a cylinder would create would be 8 miles tall, a column reaching a higher point than the peak of Mt Everest.

This truly was a storm for the ages…and in its wake a treasure trove of heroic stories were spawned.  Consumption of alcoholic beverages and addictive substances spiked, and I am sure that there were instances of pretty bad behavior resulting there from. But the dominant behavior patterns seemed much more of the heroic, good-Samaritan type where people of all walks of life reached out to help everyone, thousands of people stranded in muddy, putrid water.

The storm affected everyone. The sight of the man of means struggling to salvage precious possessions wading out of his palatial house in waist-deep, flowing water to get to high ground, only to stop to help an elderly neighbor not able to get there, losing some of his possessions in the process. It was all repeated over and over.

The concept of the hero’s journey played out in everyone’s psyche. For the recovering alcoholic or addict, the ability to use the tools of recovery, the boon of the hero’s journey, allowed him/her to stay in the moment, serenely focused on the needs of those helpless souls who were otherwise stranded.  Service in the highest tradition of the 12th Step.  What a great gift it all was for all of us….

Proper Disposal of Pain Medication is a Key Factor in the Opioid Fight

The Addiction Policy Forum recently partnered with a number of local organizations in Ohio, a state hit hard by the opioid epidemic, to distribute free Rx disposal kits. The kits include an Rx disposal pouch and educational materials about the risks of holding onto unused medications. The Addiction Policy Forum hopes that this will become a biannual ritual in the U.S. when Daylight Saving occurs.  

Opioid Clock for the Disposal of Opioids
Opioid clock representing the disposal of old prescription medication during Daylight Saving. Photo Credit: Addiction Policy Forum.

Want to help address addiction in America? Start with your medicine cabinet.

Heroin is involved in many of the opioid-related deaths, but addiction doesn’t always begin with the use of illicit drugs. Studies have shown that two in three people who currently use heroin started out by using prescription pain medications for nonmedical purposes. According to the Federal Government, more than 2,000 teenagers will misuse a prescription drug for the first time today, tomorrow, and the day after that. Many of these first-time encounters with opioids happen in homes with leftover medications that were initially prescribed by a physician.

The Journal of the American Medical Association reported that two-thirds of surgical patients end up with unused pain medications, such as oxycodone and morphine, after recovering from a procedure. Because most of us aren’t educated about the risks of keeping unused medication in our homes, these prescribed drugs are often neither secured nor disposed of properly but stashed in medicine cabinets and bedside table drawers because it seems wasteful to throw them away and we keep them around “just in case.” Getting rid of a bottle of pills may seem like a shuffle step on the long path toward addressing the opioid crisis, but decreasing access to these medications is as crucial as it is easy.

Can I safely dispose of medication without a pouch?

Yes! Follow these instructions to safely dispose of unused medications at home using common household items, or visit the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA’s) website to find an authorized drop-off location close to you.

Proper disposal can be tricky, due to the fact that Rx disposal laws differ by state, some medications require specific disposal procedures, and others can pose a significant threat to kids, pets, and even adults and require urgent disposal.

To learn which medications fall into the above categories, or to get more information about safe at-home disposal, visit the FDA website or call the DEA’s toll-free hotline: (855) 543-3784.

How to for the Disposal of Opioids
Four ways to dispose of old and unused prescription drugs. Photo Credit: Addiction Policy Forum.

What is prescription opioid misuse?

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) defines prescription opioid misuse as taking a medication in a manner or dose other than prescribed, taking someone else’s prescription (even for a legitimate medical complaint such as pain), or taking a medication to feel euphoria (i.e., to get high).

This excerpt was originally published at www.addictionpolicy.org.

To order an Rx Disposal Kit and to join the Addiction Policy Forum’s campaign to properly dispose of old and unused medication, please visit www.addictionpolicy.org. To learn more about counseling and treatment programs for those fighting addiction, visit www.councilonrecovery.org or call 713.914.0556.

Binge Drinking: A Big Problem for Young Adults Not in College

There is a public health crisis plaguing the U.S. once again, binge drinking. People who binge drink may not do so during the regular weekdays, but may consume excessive amounts over the weekend. Binge drinking is the third leading cause of preventable deaths in the U.S. An estimated 88,000 people die from excessive alcohol use each year.

In 1998, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) gathered a task force to solve problems related to binge drinking in college. They analyzed behaviors of college students between the ages of 18 and 24 years of age. Their 2002 study found that from 1999 to 2005, the percentage of college students who reported binge drinking rose from 42 percent to 45 percent. These numbers then declined to 37 percent by 2014. These improved statistics seemed promising, but another demographic became an even greater cause for concern.

Recently, binge drinking for non-college young adults has increased from 36 percent to 40 percent. Young men are twice more likely to binge drink than young women according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

 

CDC chartRepresentation of how many people binge drink in the U.S.; categorized by age. Photo Credit: CDC.

Ralph Hingson, the creator of the CDC study, believes that this group of young adults are binge drinking more because they don’t have as many organizational involvement in their spare time. Binge drinking is not only a problem in adolescents and young adults but in every age demographic in the U.S.

“People often don’t recognize binge drinking as a problem because it’s not a daily thing,” Gregory Smith, M.D. stated in an interview with Men’s Fitness.

The following are signs that a person is a binge drinker:

Becoming a big risk taker

The person may act out of character and make bad decisions that lead to an increased possibility of contracting an STD or getting a DUI.

Drinking heavily every weekend

Abstaining from drinking during the week does not make it a wise decision to drink eight drinks in one night as a reward. Excessive drinking can lead to raised blood pressure, increase the risks of cancer, and interfere with medication.

Exceeding your alcohol limit

If the drinker has difficulty sticking with a planned number of drinks or doesn’t remember how many they’ve had, there is a problem.

Black Out

Heavy drinking interferes with a brain messenger called glutamate which is linked to memory. If the drinker cannot remember events of the night, he/she may have experienced a blackout.

Neglecting your responsibilities

If the person is usually hard-working, dedicated to his/her goals, but has replaced those characteristics with hangovers and drunken happy hours, there is a drinking problem.

About 22 million people need treatment for alcohol or drug addiction, but less than 1% actually receive treatment. If you know someone who needs us, please contact The Council on Recovery at 713.914.0556 for assistance.