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Lesson 1
Creating and Implementing a Strategic Recovery Plan
INTRODUCTION
Businessmen and women, as well as other professionals involved in management, know the value of planning in addressing business problems. Management involves planning and guiding one's efforts to achieve some desired goal. Both the function of management in general, and strategic planning in particular, can be applied to the development and maintenance of recovery from an addictive disease. From our perspective, the same knowledge and skills that have been developed in your occupational life can be applied to the management of your recovery and the development of lifelong sobriety.
The process of management generally involves a number of functions, including planning, anticipating, strategizing, problem solving, evaluating, organizing, monitoring, influencing, and maintaining. These functions are also important in the development and maintenance of sobriety. Although you cannot directly control the expression, manifestation, and nature of your addictive illness, you can take responsibility for managing your recovery and the processes that facilitate remission of the disease and achieving maximum physical and mental health in recovery. Management skills, knowledge, and tasks all have the purpose of helping you achieve a desired goal—in this case sobriety. Tasks such as planning, goal setting, decision making, and communicating all have a role to play in the maintenance of sobriety. We believe that the maintenance of sobriety occurs one day at a time. Putting this objective into operation involves management tasks and skills.
Look at how certain management tasks can apply to the recovery process:
- Planning is involved when, for example, you structure your day to include prayer and meditation, attendance at an AA meeting, and a meeting with your sponsor, and when you structure your daily activities to minimize stress and to maximize personal satisfaction.
- Goal setting is also implicit in managing recovery. You no doubt have the overarching goal of lifelong abstinence and sobriety one day at a time. This is actually a good example of effective goal setting. This goal is specific, measurable, and has a time frame. This and other goals you may have in recovery can guide all of your daily efforts and decisions.
- Decision making is another vital management function that can be utilized in the service of recovery. Good decision making involves a six-step process:
- Defining the problem
- Gathering information about it
- Analyzing the information
- Developing options to deal with the problem
- Choosing and using the best option
- Monitoring the outcome and the success of the option you chose to address the problem
It is clear how sound, effective decision making is important in recovery, just as in the business world. For example, say you have to attend a business function early in recovery that involves alcohol use among colleagues and customers. You may define this as a problem. If it is, you first gather information:
- Who will be in attendance at this gathering?
- Is it absolutely essential that you have to be there?
- How long will it last?
- Will any expectations to drink be placed upon you?
- What will be the dynamics of this social/business gathering?
- How will it impact on your job?
Next, you analyze the information so you can clearly see the potential threat to your sobriety and develop options to deal with the problem. For example, you may decide to avoid the meeting entirely, or you may want to reduce anticipated social awkwardness by coming up with a rationale for your not drinking, such as a medical problem. You might stay at the meeting a brief time and then excuse yourself. After looking at these options, you choose the best one and implement it.
The next step is for you to monitor the outcome:
- How well did you handle the situation?
- How much internal discomfort did you have?
- Did it trigger any urges to drink or use drugs?
- It is a situation you can handle again with a minimal amount of discomfort and inconvenience?
- Did it seem to have an appreciable effect on your business and personal relationships?
This is just one simple example of how the management skills you have honed over the years can be used in the service of managing recovery. Of interest is the fact that physicians and other health care providers are beginning to apply these same management principles and strategies to the treatment of the full spectrum of diseases. This is an area known as disease management.
Other concepts involved in management are useful in understanding and carrying out recovery plans. For example, managers are interested in the value they create for customers. For a recovering individual, it is important to keep the value of recovery in mind. Continuous recovery from addictive diseases is a prerequisite for happiness and quality of life. Nothing has greater value than abstinence and sobriety for a chemically dependent individual. Profitability is another concern for a manager. In our case, it is important to think of personal profit. A life free from the bondage of addiction is indeed a profitable life. It is important to keep in mind the many advantages and benefits of sobriety. The sober individual has the opportunity for good physical and mental health, happiness, and greater freedom in life. “The sky is the limit.” Conversely, the costs of a return to active addiction are immeasurably high. Remember what you learned in inpatient treatment: untreated addiction inevitably leads to total incapacitation, incarceration, or death. Managing recovery involves a continual appreciation of both the benefits of recovery and the costs of active addiction.
Managers are also concerned with performance. Performance is enhanced through proper planning. Proper and effective planning in recovery can help recovering individuals perform recovery maintenance tasks regularly and effectively. Performance involves execution of recovery maintenance tasks and strategies. There is a saying in business: “Plan your work and work your plan.” If you have solid goals and objectives and you are mindful of executing recovery maintenance strategies and recovery tasks with subsequent monitoring and evaluation of your performance, you significantly enhance your chances of lifelong recovery.
Communication is another vital management task. It is important to communicate your needs and concerns to others during recovery and likewise to develop good listening skills, particularly in the twelve-step meetings, in groups, and in individual counseling sessions. Using some basic communication skills such as “I” statements and active listening skills are paramount to ward off potential emotional discomfort.
A good manager is also aware of his or her own limitations and the resources available in the environment. Sometimes it is important to outsource, to reach out to others who have vital skills and knowledge that can help you maintain recovery. Reaching out to others and securing necessary help and resources is often difficult for recovering professionals. Knowing when you need help, knowing how to ask for it, and developing the confidence to execute the process is crucial.
GOAL SETTING IN RECOVERY
Determining your recovery goals is an easy process. Keeping them in mind on a daily basis and using them to guide your daily affairs is more difficult. Writing your goals down and referring to them daily keeps you more focused on achieving them. In this section, you will determine your recovery goals in five areas:
- Physical/medical
- Psychological/emotional
- Spiritual
- Social
- Occupational/work
Determining Your Physical/Medical Goals
As you learned in inpatient care, taking care of the body is extremely important, especially during the first year of recovery. The neurotoxic effects of drug and alcohol abuse can linger for months after the initial treatment experience. Because of this you need, first and foremost, regular and deep rest. Obviously, you also need proper nutrition, regular exercise, and dynamic activity to keep your life in balance. You really need to avoid acquiring deep fatigue. This means that you should not overwork, that you should get to bed early, and in general that you should have a good, regular daily routine. The first year of recovery is about the stabilizing and purifying effects of abstinence.
Studies on the neurological and cognitive effects of addiction clearly show that most neuropsychological damage incurred during active addiction is at least 80 percent reversible during the first year of abstinence. After that, the benefits of complete abstinence level off. Clearly, in the first year of recovery you should do everything physically possible to stay abstinent and avoid relapse to active addiction.
The following are examples of goals and strategies for physical health in recovery:
| Physical Goals | Achievement Strategies |
• I will avoid becoming deeply fatigued. | I will get eight to ten hours of sleep per night. I will take regular breaks during the day at work. I will work no more than forty hours per week. |
• I will achieve optimal physical health. | I will exercise for at least one half-hour three times per week. I will take vitamins and other nutritional supplements. I will see my doctor for medical monitoring every three months. I will eat a balanced diet. |
In Worksheet 1.1 list your physical recovery goals and fill in your ideas on achievement strategies.
Psychological/Emotional Recovery Goals
You learned in inpatient treatment that the regular use of alcohol and psychoactive drugs of abuse leads to emotional mismanagement and can also lead to severe problems with mood. Addicts in active addiction regularly feel extreme anxiety, fear, depression, despair, grief, shame, guilt, and other negative emotions. The neurotoxic effects of alcohol and drugs on the nervous system directly cause much of the emotional turmoil associated with addiction. With abstinence and rest as well as proper therapy many of these emotional and mood problems resolve without difficulty during the first few ...
