HIGH: Confessions of a Cannabis Addict #health #holistic

Chapter 5: Do everything you can and don’t get caughtA man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do.—Bob DylanI can’t call it a smuggling “career” since I only did it twice—first in February 1969 when I was 19 years old, full of wanderlust (my love of travel is a Sagittarian trait) and dealing small amounts of hashish in Philly. My second smuggling adventure took place late in 1971, after I started working my chosen profession more regularly.The mission in ‘69 was to buy red Lebanese hashish in Israel and bring it back through Kennedy Airport in Queens, NY, down the Jersey Turnpike, and to the streets of Philly. Joe Brodsky, gay and astrologically Capricorn, came with me on the first trip.Israel was a decent source of hash—fourth behind Lebanon, Pakistan, and king of all hashish producing nations, Afghanistan. Oh, and Nepal, which was famous for its powerful Nepalese Temple Balls.Going to Israel for hashish made perfect sense. Our families thought we were going to the Holy Land to discover our roots. Our friends and fellow hash-heads assumed we went to make money. Actually, we needed to go because neither of us could imagine living another day without taking a hit off a pipe filled with dope. There was no hash in Philly or New York. Every dealer we knew was out of stock.We planned to pay for the trip by selling three-quarters of what we brought back and keeping the rest for ourselves. Joe B. and I really didn’t think of it as smuggling—more like just having to go out of the neighborhood to score.We boarded an airport bus at Kennedy filled to the brim with Hassidic and other assorted Jews. We were driven up to the El Al 747 that would fly us 13 hours nonstop to Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv.Joe B. and I had met when we were in a few plays at Olney High, as members of The Footlighters theater group. After having sought the spotlight, we now were aching to play the invisible man, or Harvey the rabbit.To make this trip, we had each taken a semester off from our studies at Philadelphia Community College, where we spent more time focusing on getting high than achieving a higher education.Our return flight was in three weeks, when we would be cruising though the New York airport named after our most recently assassinated and much-loved president. Both of us returned to the U.S. with 600 grams of hash stuffed in our pants . . . well, not exactly in our pants. The night before our flight back home, we went to a lady’s intimate apparel store on the main drag in Tel Aviv and purchased flesh-toned girdles (nothing sexy about these embarrassments). They were not the whalebone rib-crushers with leather laces but the thigh-to-ribcage, super-slim kind so popular with women who wished to appear more svelte.“I’m buying this for my girlfriend,” I explained. “She’s built just like me.”“So’s mine,” said my accomplice in deception. The shopgirls either took our word for it or knew we were neophyte hash smugglers.The next morning, we helped each other slide the three 200-gram canvas-wrapped bricks into our girdles. Fifty years ago, there was much less airport security, even in Israel. The era of skyjackings didn’t start until 1971. We boarded our return flight unmolested and then realized we had both forgotten to buy silver-plated mezuzahs like normal tourists would. A half-day later, we were back in U.S. airspace.When our plane started to descend to Kennedy Airport, I leaned over Joe’s lap to look out the window at the teeming populace of Long Island—7.5 million people. From his crotch, I could smell the distinctly subtle aroma of red Lebanese hashish rising into the stuffy airplane air. Subtle to humans maybe, but like a runaway slave to a Confederate soldier’s or a customs inspector’s German shepherd. We had talcum powder with us, and through my teeth I said, “You’ve got to go to the bathroom and use more talcum powder. But don’t let any fall on the outside of your girdle and descend like snow out of your pant leg, onto your Florsheim shoes, and leave a trail all the way to Rikers Island.”Bringing in drugs from outside the country is serious business. It’s called “smuggling.” I remember waiting in the customs line that I held my breath almost as often as I breathed. It wasn’t anything floating in the air outside my nostrils that triggered the response. It was the fear inside my bones. That fear gripped me the entire time.The shepherds must have been having a lunch break when we came through. As I cleared customs, I could picture the ump behind home plate at Connie Mack Stadium yelling, “Safe!” Joe got through safe and sound also.Once I was back home, selling the hash was no problem, until I was dealing my last quarter ounce to some guys in a friend’s basement in the Kensington and Allegheny neighborhood of Philadelphia. Instead of reaching into their pockets and pulling out money, they each reached into their belts and pulled out a handgun.One of them put a revolver to my head. The other pressed a .45 automatic to my heart. I remember looking at the revolver pressed at my temple, seeing bullets in all the chambers, and deciding not to give them an argument, or say anything funny. You know the expression, nervous laughter? Well, imagine frightened-to-death, about-to-shit-in-my-pants nervous laughter. Yet I acted calm and nonthreatening. I wanted them to feel happy—happy about their career choice and not trigger happy.Many thoughts went through my mind. The one I remember most vividly: If I ever get an acting role that requires me to be scared to death, this experience will come in handy. Having done plenty of neighborhood theater, this thought was not as far-fetched as you might think.They took the hash plus the two hundred dollars I had with me and then slowly walked me to my car. I wanted them to know that I wasn’t going to panic or do something stupid. I also wanted them to know that I was taking them seriously, and I wasn’t making light of being ripped off. Deciding they were unconcerned with either issue, I kept my mouth shut.As I drove slowly off, tears started streaming down my face, realizing how my life could have come to an end during the loaded drama I had just lived through. At that seminal moment, I came to a firm and unshakable realization and formed an irreversible resolve.Never again, I said to myself, I’m never selling drugs in that neighborhood again.It never entered my mind to quit selling drugs. Before long, it would become my livelihood, my full-time occupation, my raison d’être. Drug dealing was in my blood. A calling if you will. Capitalism in its purest form, just like the cocaine I would soon buy and sell for 13 years. Excerpted from HIGH: Confessions of a Cannabis Addict by Leonard Buschel.

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Alcoholics Anonymous Welcomes Queer Members – But Is It Enough? #health #holistic

Every day, in thousands of church basements, community centers, and clubhouses across America, people who can boast anything from a few hours to many decades without alcohol gather to collect one more sober day. Nearly all these meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous begin with members collectively reciting something called the AA Preamble, a statement of purpose for the AA group and reminder that AA’s “primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety.”I first heard the Preamble in 2009, during my earliest attempt at sobriety, and have heard it hundreds more times since. The Preamble is so ubiquitous in the AA program that almost all members can recite it by heart. The Preamble is short, just two paragraphs comprised of five sentences. Until last year, it was exactly 100 words. It is now 98. The loss of three words, and addition of one, might seem small, almost meaningless, to anyone outside of the AA program. But for an organization that has stubbornly resisted most edits to its doctrines and covenants since its genesis over 80 years ago, it is earthshaking. And for those of us who want AA to change – who hope the program that did so much to save our lives can adequately respond to new, more inclusive cultural norms – it is a sign that AA is not a relic or a curiosity but a living, evolving thing, still in search of the best way to carry the message.For 74 years, the Preamble told members that AA is “a fellowship of men and women who … help others to recover from alcoholism.” Here’s the big change: “men and women” has been dropped and replaced with “people.” There’s a poetic simplicity to this that shouldn’t undermine its significance. No longer does AA’s self-constructed statement of purpose reduce members to men or women, Box A or Box B, this or that. AA is full of queer, trans, and non-binary addicts who for decades were greeted at every meeting with a recitation that excluded them. That is no longer the case.To understand why the change to the Preamble is so important, you first must understand just how rooted in antiquity much of AA is. I’m a gay atheist, and my first few years in “the rooms” were spent largely trying to see how, or if, I could fit in. No easy task. The central text of Alcoholics Anonymous is the “Big Book,” originally written in 1939 by famed AA founder Bill Wilson with assistance from other founding members. The Big Book’s first 164 pages, the pages thought of as the “nuts and bolts” of the AA program and authored primarily by the near-mythic Bill W., have remained largely set in stone, subject only to grammatical and semantic edits. Wilson’s vision of a set of principles and practices to get and keep a drunk sober remains intact. And many of those principles read as outdated at best, and offensive at worst, to modern eyes.Consider the chapter that caused me the most distress. “We Agnostics” purports to be the AA welcome wagon for the irreligious, but it is deeply condescending to those who don’t believe in God. The chapter begins reasonably enough, with sympathies toward those who have found organized religion corrupt or otherwise distasteful. It then turns toward AA’s unique, somewhat incomprehensible notion of spirituality, a vague sense that there is a “God of our understanding” who is in some way “bigger” than us. This can all be read metaphorically, which most godless AA members do, as a call to get out of our own heads and kill our egos. But there is a hard religious turn toward the end, a nod to our “Creator,” and a parable of a drunk redeemed through faith that wouldn’t be out of place on a megachurch’s Instagram feed. The overall message of “We Agnostics” is: Perhaps you don’t believe in God now, but you will, if you want to get sober.Arguably worse is “To Wives,” chapter 8 of the Big Book. As the title might have tipped you off, “To Wives” is sexist, heteronormative nonsense. Written in a confessional style, “To Wives” purports to tell the story of the long-suffering wife of the alcoholic – “Oh, how she cried!,” that sort of thing. The unspoken assumption is that alcoholics are men, and AA membership is mostly men, and these members are straight and married to women. In that sense, the old Preamble – written eight years after the Big Book and when AA was becoming more established – sounds downright progressive in its inclusion of both “men and women.”None of this should be surprising. Wilson was the product of both his time and his spiritual biography. In 1939, women had only been voting for 20 years, and the teaching of evolution could still be outlawed by states. For his part, Wilson had put down the bottle with the help of the Oxford Group, an anti-hierarchical, but explicitly Christian, sect focused on adherence to high moral standards and surrender to God. He incorporated many of the Oxford Group’s teachings into the Big Book. The roots of AA are Christian ones, and as a result, there is a religious lean to much AA literature. Some members are happier about this than others. When I was first trying to stay clean, I told a longtime member I was an atheist. He responded, missing the point entirely, that this was fine: “All you need to believe is there is a God, and you ain’t Him!”Both “To Wives” and “We Agnostics” remain, unchanged, in the Big Book today, although there have been unsuccessful movements to remove or rewrite them. It is no exaggeration to say that the change to the Preamble is the biggest move toward modernity AA has taken in perhaps its entire history. How did it happen? Well, making a complex process simple: any AA meeting can propose changes through their elected representative, who then takes those proposals to an annual conference, where they are voted on by all the area delegates. (There are 93 “areas” in the US. Some states have one, bigger states have more – New York has four.) It is at these General Service Conferences where the big decisions about the most fundamental tenets of Alcoholics Anonymous are made.The Preamble vote took place at the 2020 Conference. One New York area delegate put together a charming PowerPoint presentation, appropriately titled “AA In A Time of Change,” laying out the broad procedural steps, and I am cribbing from that here. AA groups in New York, D.C., and Louisiana pushed to have the change debated at the Conference. One committee initially voted down the proposal, finding that they needed “more information.” And that could have been where the change died – smothered in committee and consigned to next year’s conference.It wasn’t to be. As per the delegate, “in rapid succession,” members brought four floor actions. A floor action is discouraged at a Conference – it is outside of the normal “process” by which change is made within AA, and can be voted down immediately. There is a radical bent to a floor action, and for a body that requires 2/3 majorities to pass anything, the Conference process is nothing if not deliberative. But “I guess we’re alcoholics,” notes the welcomingly wry delegate, and members pushed. And so, after a “spirited” debate, the floor actions passed, and on May 1, 2020, Alcoholics Anonymous formally voted to make the Preamble inclusive of non-binary recovering alcoholics. It was announced in Grapevine in 2021, and was introduced at AA groups throughout the summer and fall.I wanted to find out just how spirited the conference debate was. The voting debates at the General Service Conference are not public, even to other AA members. While writing this article, I reached out to six area delegates to hear their recollections of the Preamble debate and vote. Only one responded, and he declined to speak. I anticipated their hesitancy – one of the most religiously observed creeds of Alcoholics Anonymous as an organization is its refusal to engage in what it deems “politics.” This is so important that it is even part of the Preamble itself, which states, “AA…does not wish to engage in any controversy [and] neither endorses nor opposes any causes.” And so, AA takes no position on medication, health coverage, drug legalization, or any of the other myriad policy debates that directly touch on addiction.But this is a country that bans trans people from public restrooms, that mandates genital inspections for children to play sports. In that context, yes, making the Preamble queer-inclusive was “engaging in controversy,” and it is silly to pretend it isn’t. Certainly the opponents of the change, in private Facebook groups, attacked it in political terms. “Extraterrestrials are going to feel excluded now.” “More Cancel Culture, Politically Correct BULLSHIT.” One member’s post I saw bluntly stated that her group would refuse to read the new Preamble. And again and again, members expressed annoyance that AA would take up what they call an “outside issue.”The “outside issue” trope is an old one in the program, drawn from the language of the Tenth Tradition, which tells members that AA “has no opinion on outside issues,” and thus will “never be drawn into public controversy.” It is deeply connected to AA’s refusal to engage in “politics.” The justification here is that anything not explicitly related to sobriety can alienate addicts from the program, and thus keep them mired in active addiction. But there’s an equally salient point – by not engaging in the everyday realities of members’ lives, AA can seem distant, naïve, and unfeeling. Plus, as in the case of the Preamble change, the ban on outside issues can be weaponized by bigots.Addiction is inherently bound up in issues of class, race, sexuality, religion, and yes, gender – the exact “outside issues” that AA members are taught to check outside the meeting room doors. AA teachings discourage these discussions in any formal or public setting, and so, newcomers living in poverty are told that this is no barrier to a spiritual awakening, minorities are told to overcome their “victimhood,” and old timers – usually white men with decades sober – often spitefully attack any mention of drugs other than alcohol in meetings. Yes, even drug use is considered an “outside issue” by many AA members. As it has with the Preamble, the outside issues rule is vague enough to be targeted at any inter-group discussions some members don’t like.Try as I might, I could not get an AA representative to comment on the record for this story. I had a lengthy chat with a very nice employee at AA’s General Services Office who asked me to forward some questions and refused to be quoted. Those questions were not responded to. I wasn’t surprised – I’ve written about AA and politics in the past, and was castigated by some for even identifying myself as an AA member in public. There is an overarching fear of sunlight in AA that is at odds with our current cultural moment, where institutions both private and public are held accountable for their internal rules and processes.The Preamble’s change is a sign that the tide is turning in Alcoholics Anonymous. As older addicts are replaced by younger ones, the wall AA has built around its teachings weakens a little more. As one Facebook commenter put it: “Stop debating queer and trans members because we’ve been here and stayed sober even when we weren’t included, don’t get it twisted nothing any of ya’ll have to say will change my sobriety date.” Exactly.

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Healing Family Relationships: How to Get Started, and When to Step Away #health #holistic

With vaccinations on board and safety measures in place, more of us are cautiously getting together with our families, celebrating postponed birthday parties and weddings. When you discuss these plans with friends or colleagues, however, you might notice a trend. Although most people have some excitement for family gatherings, there’s also an ever-present current of dread. For every sweet moment, there’s an awkward or irritating conversation with a family member — or, even worse, a sense of things left unsaid. These moments can be amplified in families that are touched by substance use disorder or mental illness.It’s easy to fall into a cycle of ignoring family dynamics, thinking that they’re never going to change. However, that doesn’t have to be the way. Addressing negative family dynamics can change the patterns among your loved ones and make for more meaningful connections. Here’s how to get started.Identify the issue you most want to address. When it comes to family, there are probably plenty of things that annoy you. Unfortunately, this isn’t the time to come in with a laundry list. Think about the one thing that would make the biggest difference in your relationships with your loved ones. Maybe you want to ask them not to make comments about your substance use or recovery. Perhaps you’d like to break the cycle of talking about other family members behind their back. Whatever it might be, take time to identify what would be most beneficial to the relationship.Once you have that in mind, talk with your loved one. In most cases it’s best to have a one-on-one conversation, but in some families a ground dynamic is better. Bring up your request gently, without blaming your loved one. Emphasize that you’re looking to move toward a better relationship.Make amends. Many recovery programs emphasize the need to make amends and heal past wrongs. This can be particularly important if you’re early in recovery, perhaps having just gotten through your first sober holiday. Again, it’s important to keep it limited. Think about the thing that you’ve done that’s eroded trust from your relationships. Next time you’re together with your loved one, apologize for that action.It’s important to make amends without expectations. You can’t assume that because you’ve said sorry your relationship will instantly change. You have to resist the urge to expect your loved one to apologize in return for the hurt they have caused you. Remember, they might not be doing the same personal work that you’re doing, so making amends should be something that benefits you in and of itself, regardless of whether your loved one responds in an ideal way.Define your boundaries. People tend to put up with a lot of unkind or unacceptable behavior just because it’s coming from family members. Buck that trend by defining boundaries. This is something you must think about on your own before you get together with family. Once you’ve defined your boundary, decide what the consequences will be if someone violates it. Next comes the hard part: communicating the boundary with your family member and sticking to your resolve if they violate it.Your boundaries are entirely up to you. Maybe this year you’re unable to be around people who offer your drinks, those who have different approaches to COVID precautions, or those who make off-color comments. Let your loved ones know, and be prepared to leave the gathering or otherwise respond if they don’t respect your boundary.Know when to stop. Sometimes, family dynamics are so toxic that they cannot be fixed. For some people, cutting off contact or having limited contact with family members is the healthiest option. This is most often the case when your loved one has repeatedly violated your boundaries.There is a huge stigma around family estrangement. But an estrangement that is thought out and not made out of anger is a healthy choice, not a failure. If your family members continue to impact your health and wellness in a negative way, it’s entirely fine to distance yourself.That might mean skipping the post-quarantine dinner, or going no-contact.Family relationships can be a lot. Remember that no one has the right to negatively impact your health and wellness, even if they are your family. Taking steps to heal relationships, putting boundaries in place, and possibly distancing yourself from family can make for a happier and healthier recovery.Learn more about Oceanside Malibu at https://ift.tt/2YrFRKm. Reach Oceanside Malibu by phone at (866) 738-6550. Find Oceanside Malibu on Facebook.

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How Long Should a Recovering Alcoholic Wait Before Dating? #health #holistic

If you’re in early recovery, you’ve probably spent a lot of time lately focused on yourself. You’ve recognized your problems with substance use, and made the brave step of going to treatment. You’ve got your housing and job in order, and established a routine in recovery. Now that you’re clean and sober you might feel better than you have in a long time, and if you’re single you’re probably keen to share the new you with someone else. With Valentine’s Day on the horizon, it might be time for your first sober date.But if you mention a desire to find love or even just companionship to other people in recovery, you may get a side eye. Dating is usually discouraged in early recovery, and there’s little consensus on how long a recovering alcoholic should wait before dating.Here’s what you should think about before you start sober dating, and how you might know you’re ready to jump in.Dating in Early RecoveryIt’s common to come out of rehab, or your first few weeks of meetings, feeling like a new person. But before you sign up for a sober dating website, it’s a good idea to take some time to focus on yourself. Traditionally, 12-step philosophy teaches that people shouldn’t start dating, or make any other major life decisions, during the first year of sobriety.That probably sounds like a really long time, but hear it out. The first year of sobriety is a risky time. Relapse rates are high, and even if you manage to stay sober, you’re learning to cope with the ups and downs of life without turning to alcohol.Dating — which is stressful under the best of circumstances — can add to that rollercoaster. Breakups, being stood up, or even the euphoria of a great date can disrupt the balance of sobriety that you’ve just painstakingly established. So, take the first year after ditching alcohol to build a rock solid foundation in sobriety. Then you’ll be ready to find a partner to create a life with on that bedrock.Do I Really Have To Wait A Year?Deciding when to date is an incredibly personal decision. While a year of sobriety is a good benchmark to keep in mind, that won’t be right for everyone. Perhaps you are hoping to have children and feel your biological clock ticking. Maybe you have a timeline for other reasons, and waiting for a year just feels unrealistic.In that case, you should take a close look at your motivations for dating, and honestly evaluate whether you are ready to be in a relationship. Ask yourself:Why do you want to date now? What mental, emotional or physical need are you trying to fulfill with dating? Are you really just afraid or uncomfortable with being alone?Are you secure in your sobriety? If you’re confident in your sober life, and not still figuring it out on the fly, you might be ready to date.How will you cope with upset? Dating can be rough. Think about how you’ll feel when things don’t go well.Will dating affect your recovery routine? When you’re in a relationship, will you still be able to put your recovery first?If you decide to begin dating before a year of sobriety, proceed with caution. Remember that if dating right now feels overwhelming or begins to dominate your life, you can always pause and start dating again later.Sober Dating TipsWhen you are ready to rejoin the dating game, you might find yourself feeling a bit rusty. After all, you’ve likely had a year or more off of dating. Because of that, it’s a good idea to go in with few expectations. Allow yourself to simply get to know people and have fun, rather than looking for The One.Now that you’re abstaining from alcohol, dates might be different than outings you had in the past. Brushing up on sober dating tips can help.This starts before you even go on a date. Take some time to reflect on who you are and how that has changed since you got sober. An added perk: this will help you fill out your dating profile, and make more meaningful matches.Before you date, think about the following:What are you looking for? Casual dating looks very different than dating with the intention of getting married or having kids.What do you want to share? Think about your recovery story, and how you will discuss it on your first date. You don’t have to get into the details, but it’s likely to come up and it’s best to be prepared. This can be as simple as saying, “I don’t drink,” or much more complex.Who do you want to date? You probably have your preferences in mind for a partner, but now there’s a new choice: do you want to date someone who is also in recovery? Are you alright with dating someone who uses alcohol? Both decisions come with benefits and drawbacks.It’s normal to want to get back into the world of romance as soon as possible after getting sober. However, taking time to focus on yourself and establish your recovery can make you a more desirable partner, and help you have a happy and healthy relationship long term. 

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Dry January: Should You Do It? #health #holistic

More than a week into the New Year, you might still be feeling the residual hangover from the holiday season. Too much food, too much socializing and too much alcohol can all take a toll during the busy months of November and December. That makes January the perfect time to reevaluate your relationship with alcohol, and maybe even participate in a Dry January. It’s not too late to jump into the challenge, which can have wide-ranging health benefits for the whole year.What is Dry January?Dry January is a challenge where people who are not normally sober commit to not using alcohol for the 31 days of January. The challenge was started by the awareness group Alcohol Change UK, and it’s since become a global phenomenon with millions of participants.Although the month has already started, it’s not too late to start the challenge. You can even extend it into February to make up for lost time and cover the full 31 days.The timing isn’t necessarily important. What is key is taking the time to reflect on your relationship with alcohol, and become more mindful about how, when and why you drink. For many people, drinking becomes a habit that we engage with rather mindfully. Taking an intentional break from alcohol consumption can shed insight into your alcohol use. That rings true whether you take a break in January, July, October or any other month.“The brilliant thing about Dry January is that it’s not really about January. Being alcohol-free for 31 days shows us that we don’t need alcohol to have fun, to relax, to socialize,” said Richard Piper, CEO of Alcohol Change UK. “That means that for the rest of the year we are better able to make decisions about our drinking, and to avoid slipping into drinking more than we really want to.”A quick safety note: It’s healthy for most people to scale back on their alcohol use, but stopping cold turkey can be dangerous for very heavy drinkers. If you are dependent on alcohol, it’s best to seek professional treatment to stop use, according to Sunshine Coast Health Centre.Benefits of Dry JanuaryA month is short — just four Friday nights spent sober. And yet, it can have a big impact on health. In 2018, researchers from the UK published a study on Dry January in the British Medical Journal. The paper found that moderate to heavy drinkers who abstained from alcohol for a month saw a reduction in insulin resistance, weight and blood pressure, as well as fewer biomarkers for cancer growth.Dry January can also leave you feeling better, mentally emotionally and financially. Another 2018 study found that roughly 70% of people who participate in Dry January reported getting better sleep, and having more energy. No surprisingly, there was also monetary benefit to laying off the booze: 88% of participants said that they saved money during the challenge.Those benefits last longer than just the month that you’re abstaining. The same 2018 study found that people who started the year with a Dry January were still drinking less in August, suggesting that taking a few weeks off from drinking can result in a lasting change to one’s relationship with alcohol.Dry January During the PandemicDuring the pandemic, many people have been drinking more, often when they are stuck at home. Alcohol stores have even been exempt from many mandated closures. With dreary news about the pandemic spreading with the omicron surge, Dry January could potentially help people from skipping into even more problematic drinking patterns, according to Sharon Wilsnack, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at the University of North Dakota."Dry January is a useful tool in telling to what extent we have become dependent on alcohol during the COVID-19 pandemic," Wilsnack told TODAY.Most participants in Dry January reported that the challenge made them think more closely about their relationship with alcohol. More than 70% reported that they realized that they don’t need to drink to have fun and relax. During a time when the negative health implications of alcohol use are on the rise, that can be a welcome change in perspective that helps usher in a new year of health and wellness.Sunshine Coast Health Centre is a non 12-step drug and alcohol rehabilitation center in British Columbia. Learn more here.

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Connection Can Strengthen Your Recovery #health #holistic

Now that the holidays have passed, many of us feel relieved to be done with those obligatory get-togethers and other social functions (Zoom or otherwise). But despite the cookies, and perhaps the cocktails, all that socializing isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact, connection can strengthen your recovery from substance abuse or mental health conditions, and even help with physical wellness. So, before you complain about your next social engagement, take a moment to think about the positive impact that connection has on your life.The science of connectionHumans are social creatures. To be our healthiest, most of us require some social connection."One's social life matters above and beyond what we already know about the 'quick fixes,’” like dieting or exercising, researcher Yang Claire Yang told Livestrong.Connection might also be more effective. People with close friends, in general, have their life expectancy extended. Having close connections has as big of an impact on your life expectancy as quitting smoking. In short: it’s super important.Why does connection help keep you healthy? Scientists are still working to answer that, but research has shown that people who have close friendships are less likely to have high blood pressure, and more likely to have healthy immune systems. If you participate in healthy activities like hiking or walking with your friends, the impact on your health can expand even more.Connection as an antidote to addictionHaving a meaningful, fulfilling life can help insulate you from the impact of mental illness and substance use disorder. On the other hand, suffering from loneliness can put you at higher risk for developing behavioral or emotional health issues, because you might not have a meaningful life without personal relationships, says Geoff Thompson, PhD, program director for Sunshine Coast Health Centre in British Columbia.There are two types of loneliness to consider. Situational loneliness is what we’re all familiar with during the pandemic – the inability to see our friends or loved ones in person. Situational loneliness can be painful, but we’re still able to lean on loved ones and friends for support.The more serious type of loneliness, where you feel that you don’t have any close personal relationships. And here’s the thing: you can experience chronic loneliness even when you’re putting yourself out there in the community.“Research suggests that merely increasing social contact—encouraging young people to join the dragon-boat club or arranging card games for the elderly—may not be enough,” Thompson says.Instead, you need to focus on finding meaning in a few core relationships to combat chronic loneliness. Remember this when you’re shuffling around various parties and social functions. When it comes to staying connected, quality is more important than quantity. Take a few minutes to really connect with your friend, sibling, or aunt over a deep conversation, rather than exchanging pleasantries with more people at the party.Social safety netHaving connections, whether friends or family, can help you feel secure that someone will help you if you need it. Relationships can provide a sort of social safety net – you have someone you can call for small things, like picking up a child when you’re running late, or large things, like feeling that your recovery is faltering.Sometimes, especially with family, the people we can count on aren’t necessarily the ones who we feel closest to. You might not be up to date on your brother’s dating life or latest hobby, but you know he would be there if you called in the middle of the night. That’s a different type of connection, but one that is still important.When health means distanceHaving personal relationships can help support health. Unfortunately, not all relationships are healthy ones. If you have connections with friends or family that make you feel drained or unhealthy, rather than invigorated and grateful, you may need to reconsider the role that those people play in your life.While family bonds run deep for many people, you are not obligated to compromise your health or put up with toxicity for anyone – even family.This new year, take time to think about which relationships bring you the most joy. Those are the bonds that will help keep you healthy and support your recovery. Spend more time tending to those relationships, while allowing yourself to step back from relationships that no longer feel meaningful to you.Sunshine Coast Health Centre is a non 12-step drug and alcohol rehabilitation center in British Columbia. Learn more here.

from Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Recovery News | Resources – The Fix https://ift.tt/3n1eH7h
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