Stress Management in Recovery
by Charles N. Roper

The Fantasy: Get sober, and everything will fall neatly into place.
The Reality: Get sober, and watch your stress level explode.

One of the many paradoxes surrounding recovery is that it can bring out the best and the worst in alcoholics and addicts. This is especially true of those who operate under stressful conditions.

Before slipping into recovery, alcoholics and addicts had a sure-fire antidote for stress: Get high. Stressed out? Open a cold beer or pour a stiff drink. Had a hard day? Roll up a joint. Feel beat? Lay out a couple of lines. These solutions didn’t work in the long run, of course, but they sure did offer temporary relief. In other words, they worked.

Then along comes recovery, and "poof"—the temporary relief is gone. What now? The answer is stress management.

Stress management is not the same thing as stress relief. Stress management is a long-term solution to millions of short-term problems. A true stress management "program" focuses more on internal sources of stress (the ones we create for ourselves in our own heads) than it does external sources (the ones we see around us and blame for the way we feel).

In order to understand the true nature of stress and stress management, it helps to conceptualize the issue in terms of 1) The Problem, and 2) The Solution, as follows:
 

The traditional approach to dealing with stress is to blame the external sources of stress for the way we feel and then to rely on stress reduction techniques to deal with them. That approach never has and never will work.

Effective stress management requires two basic things:

1. Alter our lifestyles to accommodate healthy daily practice.
2. Go inside of our own heads and confront and change our dysfunctional thinking.

The first task is by far the simplest. It follows common sense. Regular exercise, healthy diet, plenty of rest and sleep, putting first things first, etc. will prepare us to handle the circumstances of our lives with more efficiency and energy.

The second task presents the real challenge. This is especially true for alcoholics and addicts, whether in recovery or not. Alcoholics and addicts are notorious for narrow, close-minded, self-centered, self-righteous thinking. Nevertheless, there are solutions, and they do work.

When I started studying Zen Buddhism some years ago, one of my teachers told me that the first thing I needed to do was to acknowledge and accept the fact that everything I knew "for a fact" was incorrect. He said that I could take a shortcut through the spiritual learning process if I would just discard everything I knew "for a fact" and start over with a fresh, uncluttered mind.

When I resisted his assessment of my knowledge base, he challenged me thusly: "Carefully consider the source of your information." At that point I had to really stop and think about where and from whom I had learned my beliefs, opinions, and attitudes. The sources were less than reliable. They included my alcoholic parents, the public school system, a judgmental southern protestant church, my alcohol and drug abusing friends, television programs, and so on.

By the time we reach adulthood, our heads are filled with what Albert Ellis, a noted psychologist and researcher, calls "common upsetting beliefs." And these common upsetting beliefs have everything to do with stress and stress management. Indeed, they are at the heart of the matter.

The following list of statements suggests some of the beliefs that most people carry around in their heads, at least in some form or another:

• "I should be competent in most or all respects."
• "Some people are bad and deserve to be punished."
• "Events in my life should always go the way I want them to."
• "Events, circumstances, and other people are what cause my upset feelings."
• "People should mind their own business and leave me alone."
• "I have a right to worry and feel upset about dangerous and unjust situations."
• "It is easier to avoid difficulties and responsibilities than to face them."
• "My early childhood experiences control my feelings and behavior as an adult."
• "I have a right to feel upset over my problems or over other people’s stupid behavior."
• "There is an absolute right and wrong concerning every situation."
• "The world should be fair, and in the end, justice must prevail."
• "There are some things that I know for absolute certain are true."
• "Some people should be different than the way they are."
• "I have the right to seek revenge on people who hurt me."

Many of the situations that we encounter on a day to day basis threaten our attitudes and beliefs. When this happens, we typically react defensively and/or angrily and/or fearfully. Hence, upset feelings and stress.

Does the following attitude/belief sound familiar? "That idiot cut me off on the highway. He’s stupid and wrong. He’s dangerous; he scared me, and he could have hurt me. I have a right to feel upset and angry. If I ever see him again, I’m going to give him a piece of my mind." The idea here is that in reality, the driver did not cause me to feel upset. My thinking did.

This conceptualization of internally generated stress makes even more sense when considered in terms of "negative self-talk." We almost continually "talk" to ourselves, whether we are consciously aware of it or not. A lot—perhaps most—of that talk has a negative twist to it and represents some variation of the common upsetting beliefs listed above.

Consider the following list of negative messages and possible positive counterparts.

The most powerful stress management tool in the world has nothing to do with eliminating stressful situations from our lives. It doesn’t even have anything to do with other people "acting right" or "doing things my way." Indeed, when stress levels are considered within the framework of "stressful thinking," it becomes apparent that there is no such thing as an inherently stressful situation. There is only stressful thinking, and stressful thinking is a by-product of our attitudes, opinions, and beliefs. To manage stress, then, we monitor our self-talk and alter its content.

Of course, learning to consciously listen to and confront our common upsetting attitudes and beliefs and our negative self-talk takes practice. One extremely helpful tool is to carry with us at all times one or more questions that we ask ourselves whenever we feel upset, angry, and stressed out.

Examples of good questions include the following:

• "What am I telling myself about this situation that is causing me to feel this way?"
• "What are my negative thoughts, attitudes, and beliefs about this situation?"
• "What are my (unreasonable) expectations about this person or this situation?"
• "What are my (unreasonable) expectations about myself in this situation?"
• "How am I taking this situation too personally?"
• "How am I taking this situation too seriously?"
• "How could this situation possibly turn out to be in my best interest?"
• "How am I judging myself or someone else?"
• "How important it this—really?"

At it’s best, the process works as follows:

1. I encounter a situation.
2. I feel stressed out (angry, afraid, etc).
3. I accept responsibility for those feelings.
4. I ask myself the intervening question.
5. I answer the question honestly.
6. I shed the stress.

Ah, yes…if only it were so easy. Obviously, it’s not. But it is that simple.

The bottom line is that we are responsible for the way we feel. We are responsible for whether or not we feel stressed out. We have the power to choose serenity over stress.

The question is, "Am I willing to walk the walk?"