The Lifelong Quest For Sobriety…The Ultimate Hero’s Journey – Part 5

Guest Blogger and long-time Council friend, Bob W. presents Part 5 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.

In the movie, The Matrix, Morpheus, the leader of a rebel group, is trying to recruit a young neophyte, Neo, into joining him in a revolutionary plot to destroy the Matrix, a simulated system that has enslaved the human race.  Morpheus offers Neo a choice between taking one of two pills, a blue pill or a red pill.  He says:  “This is your last chance, Neo. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill—the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.  Remember:  all I’m offering is the truth.  Nothing more.”

This is wonderful analogy for the choice that those of us living in the fantasy of an addictive brain must do in our efforts to get and stay sober.  Do we accept the challenges of those standing by to help us, our sponsors, and take the red pill, or do we turn away, take the blue pill and stay in Neverland (where nothing is ever real) forever? The red pill takes us deep down into the labyrinthine passageways of our own brain, where pathologies of decades, simulated fire-breathing dragons and cruel prickly demons, may be lurking to derail our pursuit of Sobriety.

Neo takes the red pill and wakes up in a pool of gel, a pod where every enslaved member of the human race is locked in a comatose state. Being conscious of the Matrix now, he breaks free and begins the journey to understand the depths and terrors of the Matrix.

For us, this begins the process of taking inventory of our lives in the grasp of addictions, a journey into the depths and breadths of the horrific experiences we heaped on ourselves and countless others when our disease was running rampant.  This process of taking inventory is difficult, tedious to say the least, but we must be honest, rigorously honest, to make progress in freeing ourselves and our loved ones from the Matrix-like terrors of our addicted lives.

Lecture Series | The Family Hour Focuses on the Family System, April 8th, 10-11:00AM

The Family System is the topic of the next Family Hour, the popular new lecture series at The Council on Recovery, Saturday, April 8th at 10 AM. The lecture
will focus on how family systems are impacted by addiction and mental health issues. Participants are invited to discover what family systems are and how they survive through these issues.

The Family Hour, held on the second Saturday of each month, is a lecture and Q&A series that focuses on the disease of addiction and its inevitable impact on the entire family. Hosted by The Council’s Center for Recovering Families, the Family Hour is facilitated by the Center’s Clinical Director Lori Fiester, LCSW-S, MAC, CIP.

This community series is free and open to all families, loved ones, and members of our community who seek up-to-date, accurate information about addiction and related issues.  Registration is not required, but seats do fill quickly, so plan accordingly. Adult-themed.

For listing of upcoming Family Hour lectures at The Council, click here.

The Lifelong Quest For Sobriety…The Ultimate Hero’s Journey – Part 4

Guest Blogger and long-time Council friend, Bob W. presents Part 4 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 the third day in the belly of the whale, Jonah finally surrendered.  He had traveled across the known world of the time trying to escape the mandate of his God,  that he travel to Nineveh and tend to its people. His flight was fraught with calamity, culminating with being devoured by a whale and suffering in its belly.  His surrender enabled his deliverance and the opportunity to engage his ministry.  Jonah’s experiences in the whale are not unlike the conflict with the multitudinous demons that we sufferers of the tragedies of addiction faced in the throes of our acting-out.  These demons took all forms and shapes and, in their capacity to enslave us, they seemed all powerful and eternal.

Like Jonah, we had been pursuing a distorted and fallacious life course. To get sober, to escape the demons, we had to surrender, to a higher power of our own choosing, in order to begin the ministerial work on our own Journey.  It is the work to pursue our very own Journey to Sobriety. As in the Hero’s Journey, we encounter guides and mentors, here in the form of sponsors, who introduce us to the processes of dealing with the terrors of our past.  In essence, the Journey is one to recognize the totality of our disease in all its aspects, the steps of admission, acceptance, and surrender.

In the Arthurian Legends, the Knights of the Round Table all pursued their own journeys, to find the Holy Grail, the gift of spiritual enlightenment.  They encountered tragedies and demons along the way, not unlike those we faced in our addicted lives and in the process of working to unravel the pathologies of those lives.  In recovery, the help of guides, sponsors, to show us the way, is tantamount.  These women and men embraced the process of working with us as a means to help themselves.  They are not unlike the Fisher King in the Arthurian Legends, who was charged with keeping the Grail safe, in a secret castle.  The Fisher King was also suffering a long festering wound that could only be ameliorated by the progress of the Knights seeking the Grail.  He is like our sponsors who achieve some relief from their own maladies in the process of helping others.

In every way, this Journey of ours, now begun in earnest, pursuing a life and process of Recovery, is like the Journeys of countless heroes in Mythology, in mythological stories that attend all of human society in every form and every culture, throughout history and around the globe.  We really are now pursuing a heroic quest…

People with Substance Abuse Disorders More Likely to Have Mental Disorders…and Vice-Versa

People with a substance use disorder are more likely to experience a mental disorder and people with a mental disorder are more likely to have a substance use disorder when compared with the general population.Co-Occurring Disorders Head 1

According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), about 45% of Americans seeking substance use disorder treatment have been diagnosed as having a co-occurring mental and substance use disorder. Those findings, reported in SAMHSA’s National Survey of Substance Abuse Treatment Services, support integrated treatment approaches like those used by The Council on Recovery’s Center for Recovering Families.

The Center for Recovering Families goes beyond conventional outpatient programs by utilizing the integrated approach for treating co-occurring mental and substance use disorders. Integrated treatment addresses mental and substance use conditions at the same time and requires collaboration across disciplines. The Center’s integrated treatment planning addresses both mental health and substance abuse, each in the context of the other disorder. This planning is client-centered and better addresses clients’ goals by using treatment strategies that are acceptable to them.

Recent research, including the 2014 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, shows that integrated treatment is associated with lower costs and better outcomes such as reduced substance use, improved psychiatric symptoms and functioning, decreased hospitalization, increased housing stability, fewer arrests, and improved quality of life.

For individuals and families dealing with co-occurring mental and substance use disorders, the Center for Recovering Families’ integrated treatment approach is creating new hope in the healing process. Contact the Center for Recovering Families at 713-914-0556.

Does Alcoholism Run in Your Family? Are You at Risk?

NIAAA Provides Answers to an Age-old Question

Alcoholism in the Family Tree

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse & Alcoholism (NIAAA) is providing answers to people who have a parent, grandparent, or other close relative with alcoholism who wonder about their risk from this family disease.

A Family History of Alcoholism: Are You at Risk? provides useful information based upon scientific studies about the genetic factors that influence alcoholism. These findings show that children of alcoholics are about four times more likely than the general population to develop alcohol problems. Children of alcoholics also have a higher risk for many other behavioral and emotional problems. But, the research also shows that many factors influence your risk of developing alcoholism. Some factors raise the risk while others lower it.

For those who personally affected by the disease of alcoholism, the NIAAA provides useful information and additional resources for getting help.

If you or a loved one has a problem with alcoholism or other addictions, The Council on Recovery can help. As Houston’s oldest and largest non-profit organization providing the full spectrum of prevention, education, intervention, treatment, and recovery services for individuals of all ages, The Council on Recovery is committed to helping Houstonians through a focus on family healing and long-term support that is equally accessible to all in need.  For more information, visit www.councilonrecovery.org.

 

The Lifelong Quest for Sobriety…The Ultimate Hero’s Journey—Part 3

Guest Blogger and long-time Council friend, Bob W., presents Part 3 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.

In the early days of our Quest for Sobriety, we experience extreme highs and lows of spirit.  The realization that we are actually abstaining from the destructive substances or behaviors gives us a lift, a real sparkling of joy, here and there.  But the pain of the emotional and physical withdrawal comes and goes as well…and sometimes it crashes on our heads as unbearable torment.  The Journey we have begun must now proceed in earnest…

The various treatment systems provide a road map for us to travel.  Accepting the seriousness, the powerlessness and uncontrollability of the disease is the first critical step.  In concert with this, we must also accept that the disease and the power to recover are beyond our own individual resources. In the terms of the Hero’s Journey, these steps begin a journey to the Underworld, confronting the demons and trials therein, not unlike Jonah in the Belly of the Whale.  The examinations thus begun are necessary to determine the core truth of the outer and inner worlds before us.   For the addict, this part of the Journey is to travel over the past, down, down deep into the events of our addicted lives, to see in a clear light all that happened in the world we thought we ruled.  And in the process, as this Journey progresses, we begin to discover who and what we really are…