Is Online Therapy As Good As Being In A Therapist’s Office?

While the country is starting to open up again after an extended period of stay-at-home orders, not everyone is ready to take the risk. For many people recovering from alcoholism and substance use disorder, the situation is particularly dicey. After all, alcohol and drugs can have a severe impact on your physical health. Many chronic illnesses brought about by addiction can put you at high risk for complications from the coronavirus.

Nonetheless, you need to continue with your treatment to stay mentally healthy and avoid relapses. Many support groups and meetings have continued online to great effect. But what about individual therapy?

Individual therapy is incredibly important for your continued recovery. It is where you can share your struggles, vent, and do impactful work on yourself. Your therapist will probably see you online. But is online therapy really a worthy alternative?

There are a number of reasons people are skeptical about online therapy. The main qualm is that your therapist cannot read your body language without you in the room. However, there are also benefits, and many people have found online therapy to be as helpful, if not more so, than traditional therapy.

Let’s take a look at the various factors which determine the impact of online therapy.

Body language

Any good therapist will tell you that they often get more information from your body language than from what you are actively telling them. They can detect when you are misrepresenting something, even if you do not realize it yourself. They notice how your body reacts to certain statements, what makes you retreat into yourself, and what draws you out.

This is probably the most commonly cited problem with online therapy. Even if the therapist can see you, their view is limited. Furthermore, you can see yourself and, consciously or unconsciously, curate what your physical appearance is communicating.

However, contrary to what most therapists have assumed, body language can play an even bigger part in online therapy than it would in an office. The main reason for this is that therapists will regularly check in with what their clients are experiencing physically. You become more aware of how your own body is reacting and have to relay this to your therapist.

Sure, there are things you will miss or even specifically leave out, but even in person you curate your physical reactions to a certain extent. When your physical responses become an active part of the therapy process, there is a whole level of data to delve into.

Another important factor is that you as the client feel more comfortable with certain physical responses. Responses you would repress or block out in person. This is particularly useful when discussing sexuality. Clients who would avoid allowing themselves to experience physical arousal at all costs in person can let go in the safety of their own homes.

The physical distance can make this feel not only more comfortable but safer as well, for both the client and the therapist. Therefore, issues which you might never raise in person can become a crucial part of your therapeutic journey.

This is not to say that online therapy is necessarily better in terms of the physical than in-office therapy. However, each has its pros and cons, and the lack of in-person body language doesn’t have to make therapy worse.

Other issues with online therapy

Body language is not the only difference between online and traditional therapy. It is the most clear-cut factor, but there are other considerations.

Most pressing is the lack of privacy some people worry about when it comes to having therapy at home. This is especially problematic in relationships where abuse is taking place. You might not feel safe enough to share openly even if you are alone in a room. The possibility of someone else hearing your session can paralyze your ability to be vulnerable.

If this is true for you, it may be best to find a way to see your therapist in person, safely. Make sure that their office is sanitized after every session and that hand sanitizer is available. Wear a mask and be careful not to touch your face. Wash your hands thoroughly after the session.

Another more mundane factor is technical issues. People who struggle with technology can have a tough time getting used to video calls. Also, a poor internet connection can make the session choppy. This can be incredibly disruptive and, for some people, unsettling.

Try to ensure that your internet connection is stable before any sessions, and ask for help if you have trouble with the technological admin.

Online therapy is crucial in the time of COVID-19, especially for recovering addicts with compromised immune systems or chronic conditions. It is a somewhat different experience, but it certainly has its benefits, and can be as good as, if not better than, the alternative.

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Should I Keep My Time In Drug Rehab Secret?

While you’re in alcohol and drug rehab, it is relatively easy to speak about your experience. You are among a group of people who have been through similar things as you. Your addiction is why you are there, after all. But what happens once you leave rehab? Should you keep your time in drug rehab secret?

This is a complex matter that has no simple answer. There are compelling reasons to speak openly about your time in drug rehab. However, there are also practical reasons to keep it secret.

Here are some of the factors you need to consider.

Have you owned your addiction?

Denial is both a symptom and enabler of addiction. People struggling with addiction deny that they have a problem even to themselves. That denial prevents addicts from getting treatment. Even as it becomes obvious to everyone else that you have a problem, you may not see it.

But without accepting that you have a problem, you are unlikely to recover. The steps towards recovery take work and commitment, which no one will undertake if they think they have things under control.

This is one of the problems with keeping your time in drug rehab secret. While you may have conceded that you have a problem in going to rehab in the first place, the instinct to lie about it hints at a difficulty in owning your addiction. Of course, stigma may be the main reason for your secretiveness, but denial to others can lead you back into a state of denial to yourself.

When considering whether or not to tell people about your time in rehab, ask yourself whether you have truly owned your addiction. If you believe you have, ask yourself the real reasons you want to keep it secret. Are these reasons practical?

Who do you want to keep your addiction secret from?

The question of who you want to keep your addiction secret from will be revealing. If you are trying to keep it secret from family and friends, this hints at your difficulty in owning your problem.

While in rehab, you should come to accept your problem without self-judgment, and to find pride in your recovery. Outside of rehab, this becomes more difficult, as your friends and family have not been through the same process as you. However, revealing your problem to them will be a declaration to yourself and to them that you have come to terms with what you have been through.

Keeping your time in drug rehab secret from family and friends can lead to bigger problems down the line. A pattern of secrecy is one of the damaging symptoms of alcohol and drug addiction. The temporary feeling of shame in sharing your experience is a small price to pay for maintaining your recovery.

But what about employers, colleagues, and networks?

What about your career?

Unfortunately, sharing that you have spent time in drug rehab may be damaging for your job or job prospects. America’s working world has not yet accepted on a broad scale that addiction is a disease. Many employers may reconsider hiring someone based on their experience in rehab.

When it comes to your career, keeping your time in rehab secret might be the most practical choice. As long as you are doing so to improve your prospects or keep your job, the secret should not become too toxic. However, if it no longer threatens your career, keeping it secret out of shame can lead to that cycle of denial.

In terms of your career, the line between secrecy for practical purposes and denial is somewhat clear. That line becomes blurred in a romantic setting.

What do you tell your date?

Dating is difficult for recovering addicts. You are going to be meeting new people who you want to impress, in a context that is often facilitated by alcohol. Furthermore, any relationship based on secrecy and lies is bound to become toxic.

On the other hand, telling your date from the get-go that you are a recovering addict may be too much for them to process. It starts the relationship off with a level of intimacy most couples work up to over time.

The reality is that, when you start dating, it may be wise to keep details about your addiction to yourself. If a first date is going particularly well, you might feel like it is the right moment to share this part of your life. Otherwise, filling the person in on one of the first few dates is advised. At this point, you have gotten to know each other better, and if you continue to keep your time in rehab secret, it will only become a toxic elephant in the room.

Keeping your time in rehab secret is not ideal, but it can be necessary for practical reasons. Assess each case in context, while trying to be as open and honest as possible.

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How Mindfulness Can Give You Perspective In Recovery

“Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference” – the Serenity Prayer

In the Serenity Prayer, we ask for the wisdom to know the difference between what we can and cannot change. Without that wisdom, we can get stuck trying to “fix” things we need to accept or accepting things about ourselves that really can be changed. The question many recovering addicts ask themselves is how they can achieve this sense of wisdom.

It is a tough question for addicts to answer, considering that we have made decisions that led to terrible consequences. Can we really learn to trust our instincts over what we can and cannot change?

One of the most popular strategies in treatment of addiction and mental illness today is mindfulness. However, without a proper understanding of mindfulness, you are probably wondering how sitting in meditation can help give you perspective.

But mindfulness really is the key to implementing the lessons in the Serenity Prayer. Here is how mindfulness can give you the perspective you need in recovery.

The attitude of Non-Judgment

Jon Kabat-Zinn, the father of Western mindfulness practice, speaks about 9 attitudes of mindfulness. One of the most important is that of Non-Judgment.

Non-judgment requires you to put aside your ideas of “good” and “bad.” Usually, we think or feel something and immediately assign a value judgment to it. We feel happy, and consider it good. We feel guilty, and consider ourselves bad. Mindfulness tells us to try to reserve judgment.

Judgment and reactivity

If you are trying to be a better person, non-judgment may seem counterintuitive. Don’t you need to know good from bad to make the right decisions? However, the automatic judgments we make do not make us better. They only make us more reactive.

Think about the following scenario. You meet someone you have hurt in the past while under the influence of substances and you feel guilty. This guilt leads you to think that you have been a bad person. You immediately try to make up for what you did in the past.

Chances are you forget about the present and begin to obsess about what you did. Instead of finding a way forward together with the person or letting the past go, you over-apologize, buy gifts, make promises you can’t keep. You are not actually helping the person. Rather, you are trying to get rid of the bad feeling of guilt, along with the sense that you are bad.

Non-reactivity

Only by being non-judgmental can you see things for how they are. In our example, you would feel your guilt and acknowledge that it relates to something you did. You acknowledge to yourself that you hurt the person. You even acknowledge the internal instinct towards self-loathing and self-punishment.

Then you see what your instincts are telling you to do. Instead of simply reacting, you take an objective look at how you would react and what that would do in the situation. Would it change anything for the better? Is there actually anything you can do to make the situation better?

This is where you begin to generate “the wisdom to know the difference.”

Wisdom

The mindfulness attitude of non-judgment is one of the most significant aspects of wisdom. While it is tempting to think that our automatic judgments of good and bad indicate our moral rightness, it is actually the opposite. Those automatic judgments are simply reactions based on instinct.

Mindfulness tells us not to take those judgments too seriously. You can’t suddenly stop yourself from having judgments, but you can acknowledge them and let them go. This will give you the space to become wise, seeing reality for what it is, not what you want it to be.

As addicts, we get used to making judgments about ourselves and the world around us. By letting these judgments go, we are not letting our moral compass lapse. On the contrary, we are allowing ourselves to put our flawed worldview aside and decide what needs to be done.

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Am I A Statistic? How To Deal With Addiction As An Individual

Something very disconcerting has been happening over the last couple of months in the midst of COVID-19. Instead of speaking about people, everyone has begun talking in numbers. Politicians, health experts, and the everyday person all have opinions which weigh up the numbers of dead. Some insist we must do everything to limit the number of dead. Others argue that economic collapse will cause more deaths than the virus.

The reason this disturbs me so much is this: for the individuals who make up those dead, the numbers don’t matter. If I die, the amount of people who died at the same time does not factor into my personal experience. In other words, when speaking about these numbers, we’re making flippant assumptions about deep philosophical and existential considerations.

I’m not going to discuss whether there is a “correct” way to speak about the numbers of infected and dead. But this has brought up something that used to bother me tremendously when recovering from addiction. Did I have control or was I just a statistic?

The addiction numbers game

The National Institute on Drug Abuse reports that 40% to 60% of people with substance use disorder relapse at some point after treatment. This number used to terrify me. I was determined to get clean and stay clean. I had committed to never use substances again. I had made promises to family, friends, and myself. But so had each individual who made up that 40% to 60%.

The numbers proved to me something I’d had no intention of accepting. I did not have control. No matter how hard I tried, I might end up becoming part of that number, even if treatment had worked.

Turns out, this discovery was not a bad thing. In fact, without it, my recovery would have almost certainly been cut short.

Acceptance and control

A crucial aspect of recovery from substance use disorders is the relinquishing of the control we think we have. As addicts, we thrive on denial. We see the world and ourselves as we want to, rather than as they are. We continually insist that we have control, even when it is clear to everyone else that we do not.

When I entered recovery, I had not relinquished my supposed control. Yes, I had accepted that I had a problem and that I had no control right now, but I intended to wrestle back that control in rehab.

Every recovering addict can relate to the terror of starting at day 1. Once you have made it one day sober, you still have the rest of your life ahead of you. The thought of having to survive until you die sounds like no life at all. And this is exactly the reason giving up control now and in the future is crucial.

One of the mantras of the 12 Step Program is that we do it “just for today.” This is an assertion that all we have is the present. Whatever happens tomorrow cannot retrospectively change what happens today.

Relapse

Relapse happens. The numbers reflect that reality. As an addict, you have to accept that you may well be among those numbers at some point in the future. And you have to accept that it does not matter right now. Yes, you will do everything you can to augment your recovery. But if you do eventually relapse, you can only deal with that reality at the time.

The current crisis has had me thinking about numbers and statistics a lot. These numbers are just one indication that we do not have control. No matter what we do, we may end up a part of them. However, as recovering addicts, acknowledging this reality is what gives us hope. Only when we stop obsessing about what we cannot change can we find peace in what is happening right now.

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Is Drinking Coffee An Addiction?

Do you drink coffee every day? Is it the first thing you do after you wake up? Would you find it hard to function without coffee?

Is drinking coffee an addiction?

Every coffee drinker thinks about these questions at some point. But for recovering addicts, the implications are different. The caffeine in coffee certainly builds dependence, and after a while it is impossible to stop drinking coffee without withdrawals. This rightly triggers certain associations to drug and alcohol addiction.

However, many recovering addicts particularly enjoy drinking coffee. At times it can even act as a crutch while one gets used to living without substances.

The topic of coffee and caffeine addiction is a complex one. Let’s take a look at the different sides of the debate.

Dependence

No coffee drinker can deny that after a while one becomes dependent on coffee. Just try going a day without it. You may experience headaches, fatigue, and general moodiness. You will find it difficult to concentrate.

Furthermore, many people drink coffee in order to wake up fully and focus better. To continue to get these benefits after a period of time, you need to drink more cups. This points to the fact that one builds a tolerance to the caffeine in coffee.

Clearly, coffee drinking has many of the hallmarks of addiction. Does this mean recovering addicts should give it up immediately?

Is coffee dangerous?

We have established that coffee is addictive. But does it matter? Studies have shown that drinking coffee daily actually has health benefits. It also does help people concentrate better throughout the day.

On the flipside, coffee is not thought to be harmful to your health in any way if you drink it in moderation. So, once you start drinking more than four or five cups a day, you may run into issues. But coffee drinking does not become this habitual for most people. Unlike most harmful addictions, its tolerance building does not usually lead to a major increase in consumption.

Furthermore, recovering addicts find drinking coffee a comforting habit. It should not replace previous addictions, but it can become a harmless daily ritual that makes one feel more grounded.

In summary, the differences between coffee and other addictions are:
coffee-drinking is not harmful to one’s health
coffee does not cause problematic behaviors
most coffee drinkers can cut down on coffee consumption much more easily if necessary for health or other reasons

Is drinking coffee an addiction?

Drinking coffee may be addictive and you can build a dependence, but it is not harmful in the same way that addiction to drugs or alcohol is. On the contrary, it can have health and behavioral benefits if consumed in moderation.

Recovering addicts should speak to their health care providers if concerned about coffee consumption. However, most recovering addicts need not worry about trying to kick this habit.

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3 Famous Singers Who Beat Addiction

Most of the narrative around addiction in the media focuses on the tragedies. Stories about people who succumbed to addiction make for much more drama than stories of hope and forgiveness. We are therefore more likely to hear about a celebrity going into rehab than coming out sober. Unfortunately, we are also more likely to hear about overdoses than successful recovery.

This is often true with musicians as well, who make a lot of great music about their struggles with addiction. However, there are many famous singers who have beaten addiction and gone on to make moving, hopeful music.

The following 3 famous singers have beaten addiction, giving us some incredible songs in the process.

Anthony Kiedis (Red Hot Chili Peppers)

Red Hot Chili Peppers have been making music for almost four decades. But the band’s existence could have been cut short if Anthony Kiedis had not successfully battled heroin addiction. Original guitarist, Hillel Slovak, sadly died of a heroin overdose in 1987. Kiedis describes in his autobiography Scar Tissue how the death of his friend impacted him. It was one of a number of turning points that helped him eventually find his way to recovery.

The song Under The Bridge is one of the band’s most honest and beautiful songs about addiction.

Demi Lovato

Demi Lovato’s struggles with addiction have been well-documented, for better or worse. A major factor in her personal battles has always been the public nature of her personal life, from when she was a child star until now. Lovato has had a long and complex recovery story. In 2018, she revealed that she had relapsed, releasing the incredible song Sober. Shortly after that, she overdosed.

Thankfully, she has since recovered, recently gifting us with the gorgeous Anyone, a moving track which is also a call for help.

Elton John

For a great movie that deals with themes of addiction, watch the recent Elton John biopic Rocketman. The movie itself is quite a lot of fun at times, with Taron Egerton doing a great job of playing a young Elton John, both in the acting and singing department. Sir Elton John publicly battled addiction for a long time, suffering an overdose in 1975. However, he recovered and became an advocate for people struggling with addiction.

The song My Elusive Drug is a sweet ballad about finding love that once seemed impossible.

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Tips For Staying Safe From The Coronavirus In Rehab

The coronavirus is the big media story of 2020 so far. Originating in December 2019 in Wuhan, China, the virus has spread across the entire world. Recently, it has started spreading more rapidly in the US.

Many people are panicking, while others can’t quite see what the big deal is. As always, the appropriate response is somewhere in between. While other illnesses certainly kill more people, we have more understanding of them and better ways to curb their spread. Thus far, the numbers of people infected by the coronavirus are rising rapidly, and it is not clear yet just how deadly it is.

The good news is that if you pay close attention to hygiene and follow some simple habits when going out in public, you should be safe from contracting the virus.

However, if you are going into rehab, you might be a little bit more concerned. You will be living in close contact with other people, who will each receive visitors regularly. Nonetheless, rehab is not just something you can delay for later.

There are ways to prevent the coronavirus spreading in rehab. Follow these tips to ensure you are less likely to contract the virus.

Don’t share cigarettes

For better or worse, people in rehab smoke a lot. It is in many ways an understandable habit for those of us who are quitting our main addictive coping mechanism. In rehab, therefore, people share cigarettes without a second thought.

Unfortunately, sharing saliva with someone who has the coronavirus is a surefire way to contract the illness. Even if you simply take the cigarette from between their fingers, you are putting yourself at risk by subsequently putting it between your lips.

As great as a rehab community is, exercise some stronger hygiene boundaries and only smoke your own cigarettes.

Stay in separate rooms if possible

If your rehab is crowded, you may have no choice but to sleep in the same room as others. However, make sure the staff spreads residents apart as much as possible. Ideally, you’ll be able to stay in a room by yourself. If not, separated beds are a much better option than bunk beds.

That said, symptoms of the coronavirus include coughing and fever. If someone exhibits signs of perfect health, there is little risk in sharing a room with them. There may be many reasons a person is coughing (including the aforementioned smoking habit), but at the moment, someone with a cough should take extra precautions for the peace of mind of other residents.

Wash your hands

This is another hygiene matter that becomes a little bit trickier in rehab. Hand sanitizers are alcohol-based, and not really an option among recovering addicts. However, by washing your hands thoroughly with soap throughout the day, you should be able to maintain good hygiene. Wash for at least twenty seconds (or twice the time it takes to sing happy birthday).

Most importantly, do not touch your face. The coronavirus can only be transmitted via oral or nasal ingestion. As long as you keep your hands away from your face, nothing will be transmitted by them.

Comfort from afar

There are going to be a lot of emotional moments in rehab, and your instinct may be to hug a person or share a tissue. Try and resist the urge to do so. Comforting someone without touching them is in itself an important skill to learn. It forces us to be more at ease with someone else’s emotions since we are unable to “hug” the pain away.

Importantly, throw away any tissues and wash your hands.

Don’t panic

While all of this seems like a lot to take in, there is no reason to panic. As long as you’re following these steps, you are unlikely to contract the virus, even in close quarters with other residents. And if you do contract the coronavirus, you will likely recover within a week or two.

The coronavirus may dominate the news for the next few months, but it is no reason to delay your rehab journey. Armed with the requisite information, you will be well-prepared to stay safe.

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