Defining Recovery

What's the difference between abstinence, sobriety, and recovery? 

Transcript

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time again for Doc Jock, your addiction lifeguard podcast. I am Dr. Jock DeBruyckert, a psychologist, licensed professional counselor, and addiction specialist. If you are suffering from addiction, misery, trauma, whatever it is, I'm here to help. If you're in search of help to try to get your life back together, join me here at Doc Jock, your addiction lifeguard, the addiction recovery podcast. I wanted to be real clear about what this podcast is intended for. It is intended for entertainment and informational purposes, but not considered help. If you actually need real help and you're in need of help, Please seek that out. If you're in dire need of help, you can go to your nearest emergency room or you can check into a rehab center or call a counselor like me and talk about your problems and work through them. But don't rely on a podcast to be that form of help. It's not. It's just a podcast. It's for entertainment and information only. So let's keep it in that light. All right. Have a good time. Learn something and then get the real help that you need from a professional. Definition of sobriety. That's a good word, sobriety, and it means something in general. Many different languages. I guess you could translate it into different languages. But the word sobriety versus abstaining or recover. I'm in recovery. I'm abstinent. I'm sober or clean. And the words that we use, they mean something, of course. And so when we try to figure out how to use the right words for the right situation, trying to understand about the word sobriety. And discussions can happen between... People who are trying to help individuals get into a state of not using sobriety, recovery, abstinence, whichever word they choose. And we start with the discussion about the language and the use of the words and the selection of words. So what I wanted to review for you is the difference, the comparison, contrasting the different words that we use in recovery. when we're working on addiction. And so recovery, sobriety, clean, and abstinence. The best way that I could explain it is the difference between the two of those words, recovery not being one of them, but abstaining and sobering. Are you abstaining or sober? Well, they're two different things because abstinence really is an action. That's a word that describes an action. I'm abstaining, so I'm not using. It's kind of an opposite of a verb, right? I'm going to actively do nothing. So abstaining is an action. Sobriety is something else. All right, so then if we try to compare sobriety with recovery. Recovery. You are recovered. You've returned to, right? You've recovered what you lost. Sobriety, well, I mean, were you sober before you were an addict? No, because you weren't an addict yet, right? So are you in essence recovering your sobriety? No, unless you were attempting over and over again to get sober. sober and you keep losing it okay then you could say you're in recovery that makes sense but if you've never been in recovery you've never been abstinent you've never been sober how do you recover what you have never had in the first place so those two don't quite work together either do they so now we're just talking about sobriety and clean and clean is the word we use when it's drugs but sober is what we use when it's alcohol so i'm just going to stick with sober okay so if you want to substitute Sobriety and clean, sober and clean. You can do that, but I'm going to use the word sober just for the sake of this podcast. So if you're a sober, sober is a state of being. I see it as a way of being rather than a non-action. A sober person has, sometimes we'll describe somebody as being very sober, implying that they are very even keeled. They're very serious, sobering thoughts, right? Opposite of crazy. Perhaps in that way. So if you're sober, you're the opposite of crazy. But in the context of addiction, sober would imply that you're not using. And I think back in the day, let's say in the 30s, 40s, 50s, if somebody was sober, they were just simply saying they hadn't been drinking. And I think that the use of drugs and alcohol, and alcohol in particular, was so normalized in society that when you said he's sober, you just meant he wasn't drinking. So if you're of a certain age, over the age of, I don't know, 60, 70, 80, 90 years old, you would refer to being sober as just abstinence. They didn't use the word abstinence, really. They used sober. Are you sober today? Yes, I am. Meaning you haven't been drinking. So... That doesn't quite fit with today's language. So if we use the word sober, to me, that means that there's a purity of mind, of spirit. It's a spiritual change. It's an emotional change. It's not the lack of an action of bending your elbow or snorting something or the opposite of that. It's actually a mindset change. It's a spiritual change. So I always think of abstinence as being a head game and sober being a heart game. So sobriety is from the heart and abstinence is from the head. Anybody can be abstinent. You have to be at some place and you can't be drinking or high so then you don't use that day. So you are in essence then abstinent. But that doesn't mean that you're sober. So they're not interchangeable. Being in recovery, we're going to come back to that in a few minutes. But I just wanted to clarify that. Just being sober in the old language would be abstinence. Abstinence is not sobriety. Abstinence is simply not using. So what I prefer when I'm talking to people who have addiction issues is the correct usage of the words. And I will correct people into what I'm thinking, and this is based on my experience and my education, my training. I would rather correct somebody and try to get them to use what I believe is the correct usage of the language based on ideas. And I'll explain it to them as to why there needs to perhaps be a change. And it's really interesting. I've never really had anybody argue an opposite point. and say, well, that's not correct. You shouldn't make abstinence something that it's not. And I don't do that. So there's never really a debate discussion going on. Rather, it's an understanding of the terminology. So I use sobriety, meaning a place that you are going to reach a way of being that you're going to reach that's a spiritual cleansing. It's a healing. And for me as a Christian, it's a godly thing. I think that that's a gift that you get after all that work to get there. So sobriety is something that happens after years of attempt of abstaining and trying to change lives your mind, your body, your spirit, your emotion into sobriety, from abstinence into sobriety. Now, recovery is an interesting word to debate because the word recover, as I said previously, would imply that somehow you're getting back something that you lost. So it's retrieving it, recovering it, it's getting it again. had uh have had over the last two or three weeks discussions with multiple people multiple clients about so the use of recovery um really is something that they don't use very much and it's i suppose it's because there's a bit of shame attached to it uh we we will um Kind of weaponize that word, recovery. It seems kind of, I'm in recovery. I'm not using, I'm not drinking, no thanks. It's like, I'm in recovery, is automatically self-labeling, self-shaming. they think, that's how they kind of view it. So that's a word that maybe perhaps is reserved for working within the community, the recovery community and saying, I'm in recovery. So how and when do you use the words that you use and why do you use them? The word sobriety, I'm sober. is a place that you get to when you have finally reached the point where drugs and alcohol are no longer in the forefront of your brain. They're not affecting you. You can perhaps even be around them and not use them and you're fine. It's peaceful. And I've said that before, like the opposite of being an addict is being peaceful. So if you're sober, based on that it's because you're peaceful and being peaceful allows you to experience that lack of usage the clarity of mind and heart and spirit in a way that's very different so two years in on working and recovery if you've been abstaining for that time or for majority of the time you might have an accident here or there but abstaining during that time allows you the opportunity to really understand and experience being peaceful sober and i think that the um the telling sign of that is when i have people that will come and they they come to my office and they've been struggling for a while they've been working for a while trying to get to that point of being sober and they realize how difficult it is and how much of a challenge it is to try to get there and I will describe to them what it's like if they continue going to meetings. In the 12-step program, people will engage in the giving of chips, right? And if you're not familiar with AA or NA... Give chips or key fobs. In NA they do that. But in AA they give chips. And each chip is for a time designation. So you got a 24 hour chip. And a 30 day chip. And a 6 month chip. And so on and so on. And you get to that one year chip celebration. And it's a big deal in AA. And so most times. If you have a sponsor. They will make it a big deal. Because they know exactly what that big deal is all about. So you get your first like. brass chip it's usually brass it's got a porcelain inlay and somebody will buy it for you and they give it to you or they'll give you one of theirs and you get that chip and um Depending on the meeting and the sponsor, there might be a celebration. They might have a presenter that will come and speak. I've been there where it looks like a birthday party. They have a cake and they make a big deal about it. I went to one where there were probably, I don't know, 150 people there that showed up for that chip celebration meeting. There were two or three people that received them. And each one of them spoke, and there was a presenter that spoke as well, and the sponsor spoke on behalf of the people receiving the chip. So depending on your meeting, it could be a big deal. In any case, you get your chip, and typically it is passed around the room. And each person gets it, and they pray over it, and they hand it to the person next to them. So by the time you get it back after you've received it, it's been filled with... the prayer and uh you know like the holy spirit has been pushed into that chip and you get it back and and it's a big deal right so describing that to my clients that about the ceremonial part of the the chip uh celebration and they under it suddenly they don't they just it's funny they just sit there and listen to it and they don't really have much of a response they don't their talkativeness their discussion points they want to bring up they don't seem to be there as it sinks into them that it's like wow okay so that's really what happens yeah that's what happens that's chip celebration that's one year because they know everybody in that room knows who's reached that point and is past that that the one year chip celebration means that you're actually probably going to make it and you can you can call yourself sober at that point It's pretty intense when they think about it. The fact that sobriety has now just occurred to them and they realize it. And the word abstinence and recovery suddenly become less important and sober means something. And I think perhaps when you are trying to understand your own recovery and process of working through your addiction to where you're free from your addiction, you're no longer plagued by it. That if you can focus on the idea of being sober, of coming from the heart and receiving from the heart that healing, that gifting of that healing, that's when you can start to really embrace and change as a person. So perhaps the word recovery at that point, you've recovered your humanity. Um, like most of us who, uh, have, we began our journey of, of addiction through harsh, uh, destruction and pain. And it was just a horrible experience. And, uh, we reflect back on that and we think back about those times that we were passed out drunk or high and, and unconscious or gone into, uh, an overdose and we'd been Narcan back or whatever. Um, You know, it's a tough idea. It's a tough thought that that's where you are. And that your life started that way. And for most of us, it started early. It didn't start later in life. Sometimes later, but it started early. You trace your roots back to your addiction, back to your teenage years, usually. my case it was pre-teen but uh teenage years and and then you from there teens on to 20s and 30s and 40s and 50s and 60s and 70s or whatever whether it's alcohol or drugs and you get to that point where you realize wow the destruction really started early in my life what the heck are you recovering well you're recovering your humanity you're recovering being a whole person that you never got a chance to be perhaps And in those cases, like mine, the chance to be a whole person is something that you get. So perhaps it was recovered from never existing. So being sober is a different thing. It is a state of being. It's a wellness of spirit and mind. And when we think about sobriety, we think about not usage. We think about the recovery from the traumas that got us to our addictions. And we think about the ways that we can keep that sobriety. So it's living a whole life, living a whole different life. And being forgiving and caring of yourself and other people, being peaceful. And when you want that, you can have it, but it's a long journey. And it's a tough one, frankly. And sometimes it is one that is traveled where there are many accidents and failures along the way. The amount of time that it takes for somebody to get sober from alcohol, for example, just the national kind of averages that we see, it's about five years of ongoing attempts at various things in recovery. You're working on recovery for about five years for one year of... Kind of a daunting task if you look at those numbers. For opiate drugs, it's much worse. The national average in the United States for completions of residential treatment before you actually get clean from opiate drugs is six times. And that's the top of the bell curve. So if you're at the top of the bell curve, that's the median. That's the average. six times now there are some outliers that some of them went once I met somebody who had gone through I don't know 12 15 times more with opiate drugs yeah there's those but the national average but so you know six times that's six times of 30 60 90 120 day programs in residential where you are there's a barrier between you and your drug of choice and you get out and you go back so Many times it's because there has not been that head part of it. It's the head. And you can't get there using just your head. You have to open your heart and heal. So working on it, it's a journey and it's a long one. But it's not quick and it's not going to happen overnight. And that's called magical thinking when you think that. And it's also something that you can't do by yourself. You will not do it by yourself. You have to have people with you doing it. So as we move our way through the adventure of recovery, we have to move with our hearts, not our heads. Our heads probably actively get us busy. that direction but the work of actually getting there is through our hearts and when you're working on recovery make sure that you pay attention to that well i hope you've enjoyed this somewhat shorter version of the doc shock your addiction lifeguard podcast and if you are in need of help Get that help. You don't have to be suffering and slogging around in the misery of addiction. Go to rehab. Go to a meeting. Talk to a counselor. Get the help that you need. And get sane, stable, and sober. Remember, it's not worth ending your life. To save your addiction. That's crazy, man. What are you doing? So go get the help right when you need it. It's really going to make your life so much better. Relationships and everything else. So until the next episode, this is Doc Shock, your addiction lifeguard, saying see ya.