Hi, my name’s Dave Marlon and I have a substance use disorder and I’ve learned that by maintaining abstinence and being in recovery, I have a life better than all my dreams. And if you have a substance use disorder, I encourage you to listen to uh to my discussion about the importance of maintaining your recovery. Now, recovery isn’t just about quitting. It’s about staying free. Free from the compulsions, free from the obsessive thoughts, you know, being bound to having to to drink or use your drugs.
Now, recovery is a long-term process. It’s not a single event. This is a process that I’m going through for my whole life. And if you got a substance use disorder, you know, bad news. You’re going to be going through this the rest of your life, too. Today, we’re going to talk about the stages of change, the risk of replacement compulsions, and the value of maintenance. I hope you’ll check out my podcast on human up where I interviewed Dr. D. Clemente who invented the the five stage of change in the trans theoretical model on addiction and it’s broken up into precontemplation and I was there. I drank more than I should. Most of my friends and family knew but I didn’t. I just thought I like to drink. I was in pre-contemplation. The next stage is in contemplation and I eventually got into contemplation where I started to recognize the way I drank and the way I used wasn’t normal that you know I seemed to one I I drank more frequently than other people and when I did drink I drank more than others.
So I started in contemplation cuz I was thinking about it. Now I had no desire to change but I moved from precontemplation to contemplation. The next stage is stage three, which is preparation, where that is, all right, I know I need to do something to address my drinking. Um, and maybe here’s some of the things that, you know, I I’m going to need to do. Now, that’s a mental process. And each of these first three steps are mental processes. The fourth stage is action. an action was for me, you know, I I went to the airport and I flew to a place where I was going to go into treatment for a period of time and and I actually had to do something about that. I had to arrange for it. I had to clear my schedule. I had to arrange for pet care.
I moved into the action stage of my recovery once I got through rehab and I needed to now move into maintenance because a a short period of time of of sustained abstinence while it’s beneficial unless I do something to maintain my recovery you know all is lost relapse is not a stage but a return to the earlier stages it is common and and it’s not a failure. And if if a recurrence occurs, what you you really need to do is is work to get back into action and then back into uh into maintenance. Now, what is maintenance? Maintenance is a long-term effort to sustain change. It prevents slipping into old habits. It requires daily attention. You know, I have what I call are my daily disciplines, things that I do for every day, including soon as I wake up. You know, I roll out of my bed and I get on my knees and I do my prayers. What I find happens when I do my prayers each morning is when I wake up and I’m in bed, Dave’s there and I’m thinking about myself. Once I get on my knees and I do my prayers, I slowly, you know, release my grip on ego and and I start thinking, you know, what could I do to be a better dad? What could I do to be a better son? What could I do to to be a better employee or a better employer? Those daily disciplines is an example of one of the things that I do to maintain my sustained change. This includes self-care, accountability, structure and purpose. So now what happens after we stop using? What happens is we usually have this vacuum and uh anxiety rises, dopamine drops. You know, I I used to get pretty excited just driving on Fridays to the bar. you know, when I when I told people I was, you know, leaving work, when I was heading to my car, a a state of euphoria and uh higher levels of dopamine were already being released even before that bartender slid me, that cold draft. We crave control. We crave comfort. We crave escape. And this makes us particularly susceptible to new compulsions. So when I cease consuming alcohol or drugs, all of a sudden I find I’m craving food. I’m craving candy, chocolate, and sugar. I I’m also craving sex and relationships. Um the idea of gambling, oo that that’s not putting a poison into me, but it’s still a a compulsive behavior that I’m now winging into. And I recognized there’s a high susceptibility to that being a replacement activity or replacement compulsion. I got into exercise when I got clean and sober and I found that’s a healthy compulsion, but to me that’s even one that we could go too far on and and it needs to be monitored. and scrolling or uh looking at your screens and and porn, those each end up being compulsions that could pop up and you have a higher susceptibility after you’ve entered recovery. Some people, you know, they’ll they’ll be more prone to anger or they’ll uh they’ll engage in what we call chaos seeking behavior. So, if you you can’t you can’t get your your excitement from uh from drinking some beers or some shots, some people, you know, they’ll engage in in chaos seeking behavior or or starting smack because that’s going to get them this this higher level of uh of of excitement. These are coping attempts. Compulsions increase in early recovery because the brain is still wired for dopamine seeking. Stress and emotional dysregulation are high. There’s a void left by substances and that’s uncomfortable. The sooner that I could let peace flow into my body, the better. But during that process, it’s a bit of a roller coaster which you may be going through right now. And without support, we look for anything to numb and distract. How do we approach maintenance holistically this daily structure and daily routines? Like I talked about my daily disciplines, uh meaningful connections.
I you know I encourage everyone to to try some kind of support meeting whether that be at a at your church or spiritual institution through AAMHA some of the anonymous fellowships smart recovery there’s some Buddhist recovery programs being in a group where you have some meaningful connections um perhaps with a therapist or a sponsor or a peer those are helpful and that increases your meaning making, balancing your nutrition, keep exercising. Those two things will also help your sleep and and and your sleep is also an important aspect of of maintaining um of of maintaining your recovery. Emotional honesty is something that comes up because often we had things that we were suppressing and as we as we no longer are are deadening our our frontal lobe with our substances, a a need for emotional honesty on what’s really going on in your life. What are you doing that’s good? What are you doing that isn’t so good? uh those are important things to to get your hands around. Service and then integrating and developing a purpose is one of the great joys of recovery. When when I got into recovery, I realized I had a a God-given talent to help others join me in recovery. That gives me purpose. I avoid white knuckling and using willpower alone to get through this journey. Some self-check questions that are good for all of us to ask ourselves or each other is am I escaping or am I engaging? Is my behavior serving my recovery or is this sabotaging my recovery? And what am I feeling right now? You know, is it joy? Is it peace? Um, we encourage curiosity, not shame.
Recovery is a lifestyle. I’ve lived it every day. And it’s it’s shocking to me that I’ I’ve lived it every day for over 20 years. Even a person who’s genetically predisposed to to addiction and compulsivity, I’ve managed to maintain maintenance, and I believe you can, too. Maintenance is building a life that you don’t need to escape from. We celebrate our progress. We stay alert to the patterns and we stay connected. I’d like to ask you to reflect and say, what is the stage on the stages of change that you are in? What behaviors might be filling the gap that have left by my prior substance use? What does true maintenance of recovery look like for you?
