The Recovery Stress List tool was developed by Recovery 2 Day™, (R2D)

The Recovery Stress List tool was developed by Recovery 2 Day

, (R2D) to help point out difficult areas that need addressing while a person treats their substance problem. This tool is an "early stage tool" that helps you access your recovery climate, is it, your recovery, and you need information about who is going to be supportive of it, by those around you now, and in your immediate future?

Common sense is our guide here, who, or what can cause stress, and if we identify stressors, before they happen, then, we can prepare for it. We have an entire chapter on recovery obstacles that mentions other areas that you must be warned about.

When people enter a recovery system the main focus is of course the difficulty of remaining substance free. It feels like a thousand things are happening at the same time, and truthfully, they are. As if quitting wasn't difficult enough. There are areas of your day-to-day life that you need to examine. The problems are overwhelming and the challenges you faced seem impossible. We also know that a majority of men and women enter some form of inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation, some men and women have returned to those treatment centers multiple times. We cannot discount those that have not gone, to treatment, not all men and women have been to treatment and find a solution to their problem without the need of a thirty day or longer treatment.

Some are still searching for help, and finding it can be as difficult as the recovery process itself. So R2D doesn't want to pigeon hole any "one" entrance. But, entrance, is really what happens when you enter recovery.

One of the missing ingredients of a well rounded recovery plan is what happens on graduation day if you attend a treatment facility and what happens when you walk out of the safety of your home if you did not? And why are the failures so high during that first week?

First we need to define "failure," what is considered a failure in a self-help recovery system? The game Monopoly comes to mind, in the "go straight to jail" and you do not get a "get out free card." Interestingly enough, the game and the common recovery systems were created in the same era, 1930s. It seems some want a price to be paid. Personal "morality" carries a big stick in the recovery industry. Historically, failure is viewed as a return to the substance that the person sought treatment for. The street slang or recovery jargon is, slip, as if they fell down. Which brings the judgment of; "you slipped" or the confession of, "I slipped" is the common recovery speak the language or vernacular, used in certain recovery self-help groups. Progress, then, becomes the movement forward, implying that now you get back up, and try again. Some are penalized for the slip if the self-help recovery system bases success on acquiring time, time becomes the marker of success, time between substance uses, then, the penalty of the slip, is you start back at ground zero, bankruptcy of the game, and all time is lost and you become a "newcomer" all over again. It can be quite cruel. As if anything positive you did during that period of abstinence or ground (Real Estate) gained is all lost.

Talk about "stress," there is internal stress, peer-to-peer produced stress, and external stress producers. Internal recovery stress comes from the most innocent of places, what started out as a good intention we suppose, a positive reinforcement strategy, time markers, easily turns into a negative depending on personalities types. Many recovery systems use tokens to mark time as the evidence of success, "How long have you been substance free?" You experience this in chips or coins or key chains, offered in certain recovery self-help groups. "Progress makers," like the Monopoly game, you acquire property, acting as symbols of their efforts to remain substance free, many suffer while they "pickup" multiple "first chips", it's like only owning the cheap seats, Baltic Avenue and not even both properties. Since there is a sense of personal humiliation in this group setting, having to walk that long shame filled walk, in front of new or old friends and strangers, as the self-admission of "I failed again" was not enough, now this has to be done in front of the group. The positive sides, knows there are some that like the attention of applause for an accomplishment, "you got thirty days! Congratulations Johnny! Now come and get your thirty day chip!" The gold star, the award has always been a way to motivate certain individuals. You made it past Go, now collect your two-hundred dollars. What happens if we take your star away? And yes, if you "slip" all chips are off. The negative is also part of the consequences of rewards programs. What have you done for me lately, is a sales term that starts every first of the month.

This commentary is not meant to "throw stones" at people who love chips and rewards, and certainly not Monopoly, who doesn't love a good Monopoly game! It is to show you, the pressure of "first days", the undue stress of watching someone else "pick up chips" can be a stress that is never spoken about. It's somewhat like the feeling of your friend owning Park Place and Boardwalk; you still like them, but now, don't want to visit. One famous Nike ad campaign was build on the theory of rewards and recognition, it works, "I want to be like him."

Stress is real and it comes from the strangest of places. If we know this, then we must see the wisdom of discussing it and inspecting it.

And it is easy to understand from an outsider's view why the term "failure" is the term most sees as fitting. If you or your family paid out, five, ten, twenty or thirty plus thousand dollars for an extended treatment, they, the person footing the bill, have thousands of reasons to expect a "positive" return on their investment. They, "paid for you to get better," and if you "return" to the drug of use, then, they see the money as wasted, and in that sense a failure. And that means we need to follow up with another topic, the difference between a lapses, and relapse.

And if you are "one of those" that has been to a treatment center on multiple occasions, and your family, private insurance, friends, or yourself was the one spending that kind of money, then you most certainly feel the added pressure and stress of, I need this to work, (this time)! And if you have returned to substance use, misuse, or full dependence, then the feeling of self, your esteem, commitment, remorse etc are affected.

But before we can address lapses or relapses, can we avoid part of it, is there something to help you, get past the obstacles you face, in those hours, first days, and weeks would be more beneficial. If we can avoid the lapse or relapse obviously we have moved the success marker forward.

R2D created a simple cognitive tool, called a Recovery Stress List. To address what is going to happen, and how we can prepare for it.

The Recovery Stress List tool was developed by Recovery 2 Day, (R2D)

By: Recovery 2 Day

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