Posts Tagged ‘coping skills’

Vacations and Addiction

Thursday, December 31st, 2009

Taking a vacation is (hopefully) an enjoyable experience.  It can also be a stressful one.  Just as unpleasant or unfortunate events can cause us stress, so can the pleasant ones, like a vacation.  I have heard people say they
thoroughly enjoyed the vacation but are glad it is over, because always having to be “on” for friends and/or relatives is tiring and stressful.

There are times when not being able to deal with this stress, or the people that “cause” it, can result in our turning to addictive behaviors as a method of coping with the stress.  And it is not always the stress.  Sometimes
people feel that they deserve it, that they now have the right to engage in the chosen addictive behavior.  It may that we cannot cope with the situation, or that we make excuses.  Either way, we turn to addictive behavior.  We become and act like a dry drunk.

We may feel we need a break, that we need a vacation.  So we take a vacation.  That is fine.  That does not mean that addictive behaviors, that acting as a dry drunk, need be part of that break or vacation.  Nor does it mean that we need to make excuses.

We need to learn to learn the coping skills that will enable us to better deal with the expected, the unexpected, the pleasant, and the unpleasant.

We have all had to deal with the good and the bad.  That is life.  We need to learn to deal with those things in a manner that is not detrimental to ourselves or to others.

Death and Addiction

Thursday, November 19th, 2009

It is not at all pleasant when a friend passes away.  It does not matter how long the person had been ill, how well “prepared” we might be for the death.  It is, nevertheless, stressful.

What then becomes a crucial is how we cope with an issue, such as loss.  Whenever someone close passes away, there is a loss;  there is a vacant space in your mind, your heart.

We can cope with the death, the loss, in one of two ways.  One way is to face the loss, and deal with it.  This is the preferred method, and there are five basic stages to it:  denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.  This is a process, and the length of time it takes varies with the individual involved.

Or, we can choose to avoid dealing with the issue, the loss, attempt to escape from something we might perceive as unpleasant.  This is what is done by the dry drunk.  It involves the use of some addictive behavior.  An attempt is made to fill the void left by the loss, the death, with the behavior(s), instead of facing the reality of what has occurred, no matter how unpleasant that reality may be.