The Happy Addict: How to be Happy in Recovery from Alcoholism or Drug Addiction

The

Happy Addict

How to be Happy in Recovery from Alcoholism or Drug Addiction

by

Beth Burgess

To all the other addicts who showed me love, acceptance, support and encouragement.

And for showing me recovery.

First published in paperback in the UK in 2013.

Copyright © 2013 Beth Burgess

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles, interviews and reviews.

2014

Smashwords Edition

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

About the Book

If you are an addict who has got clean and sober, and you are now looking to take the next steps to improve your life, this book is for you.

Many people put down the drink or drugs, but are still struggling to be happy and healthy. The Happy Addict teaches you how to overcome the hurdles that often face us in recovery, and how to use your experience of addiction for good.

This book will show you different ways of thinking and being, so you can have positivity and peace of mind, along with your sobriety.

This is an essential book for anyone who feels their recovery could always be improved.

About the Author

Beth Burgess is a Life and Recovery Coach and the founder of Sort My Life Solutions (Smyls) Coaching & Consulting.

Her missions include helping as many people as possible to achieve an amazing recovery and ending the stigma toward people with addictions.

She is the also the author of The Recovery Formula: An Addict's Guide to getting Clean and Sober Forever.

Visit Beth at http://www.smyls.co.uk

Contents

Introduction

Do you Happen to be Best Friends with Doctor Who?

Life's a Bitch and then you Try

The Magical Sobriety Fairy

Turn the Glass Over

Snow White and the Seven Dwarves

I am not a Chocolate Biscuit

It's All in the 'tude

Well I'm Pretty Good at Robbing Banks...

The Bacon Buttie of Contentment

Like a One-eyed Unicorn

Train your Brain Against Relapse

Excuse me - Would you Kindly Stop Pissing on my Rainbow?

That's an Affirmative, Captain...

No Need for Lycra

Clean Pride, Anyone?

Afterword

References

List of Values

Introduction

Idon't know about you, but all the alcoholics and drug addicts I have met are lovely people. They're funny, they're insightful and they have a unique ability to look at personal tragedy with a certain black humour. For the most part, they tend to be sensitive and intelligent individuals, with big hearts. Well, that's when they've stopped drinking and drugging obviously.

In fact alcoholics and drug addicts often have some nicer qualities than their more 'normal' peers. Recovering addicts can be much less judgemental than people you might find in other walks of life; they tend to be more empathetic - and man, they're strong people. To live through an addiction, survive and come out on the other side, despite all your problems, you have got to be of strong character.

In my opinion, recovering alcoholics and drug addicts are a special breed of people; but the problem is, they often don't believe that. If you're anything like me, you may well accept the previous comments to be true of all the other alkies and druggies you encounter, but you don't see it in yourself. That was my own personal experience for a long time. I had huge respect for other people in recovery, but I hated myself and I didn't think I was as good as them. Thankfully, I have worked on myself - and I now respect my own recovery in the same way that I respect that of others.

Now that I am sober and work as a Recovery Coach, I spend a lot of time with recovering alcoholics and drug addicts - and I am always dismayed to see people who may be several years sober still being hard on themselves, still not fully embracing life, and finding it hard to move on. Of course it is important to be vigilant about making mistakes, and to always be aware of your weaknesses, but not to the extent that you punish and limit yourself; not to the extent that you hold yourself back from developing all your positive qualities and becoming someone amazing. And sadly I see that a lot - people not enriching their lives as much as they truly deserve to, because they believe certain negative things about themselves.

It is unfortunate, because all the recovering addicts I see have so many unique qualities and skills - and yet they either don't see them, or they're so held back and limited by their own beliefs about themselves that they're scared to seek success.

Proponents of some addiction recovery methods may tell us recovering addicts to stay quiet, be humble, hide your problems away; maybe in an effort to pretend the past hasn't happened. Or they may make us feel ashamed of ourselves and of our shortcomings. They sometimes tell us to be patient and just wait for the pain to heal. But how can you heal and recover fully if you are hiding away all the time, mired in shame, and effectively denying your past?

It's time to be proud of yourself, and what you've achieved by stopping drinking or taking drugs. You can share this sense of achievement and joy with whoever else you like, but it is extremely important that you acknowledge it to yourself and that you live it.

And before any of you start protesting that we are supposed to be humble and avoid stroking our own egos in recovery, this book is not suggesting that you run around telling everyone how fantastic you are. This isn't about baseless pride; it is about acknowledgement, acceptance, gratitude and the celebration of recovery.

You can live an incredible life, and become an amazing person quite humbly. In fact, what better way to show your gratitude for your sobriety and for what you have now than by doing this very thing?

The mistake most people make when they are trying to recover from addiction is that they see the past as one big mess that they want to put behind them. Many recovering alcoholics and drug addicts have a sense that they would like to atone for any wrongdoing, which is brilliant. A lot of addicts use this atonement as a way of getting rid of their guilt and making things better, so they can stop cringing about things they have done in the past.

Of course there is nothing wrong with making up for your wrongdoing - it is to be applauded. But some addicts also see their atonement as a way of putting the past firmly behind them and not acknowledging it any more. That's all very well and has some value - but what if you could develop an even more powerful and beautiful recovery and feel happier than ever, not by ignoring your past but by using it? What if you could learn from your experience, acknowledge it and use it for good?

After all, what was the point of all that suffering and trauma if it hasn't done you any service or good at all? No wonder people in recovery feel like they have wasted their lives, when they haven't learnt to focus on the good things that their past has given them.

In this book I will give you the keys to making the best that you possibly can of your past, so that you can create a better future than you ever imagined. By embracing the past and actually feeling lucky that you had your addiction, you can heal from the past, feel good about yourself now and build an even more amazing future.

Don't sweep your past under the carpet and ignore it, as that means that you can never really be grateful for your recovery or celebrate your gratitude by living fully.

This is a positive book and it focuses on the positives - and if you're already thinking to yourself that there aren't really any positive things that you can say about your past, then read on. I thought the same way too, until I discovered a much better way of looking at things, and a much better way to approach my own recovery and to be truly happy.

I called this book The Happy Addict because I want to show recovering addicts that they can come to terms with their illness, their past and their present and still be happy. And that they can become addicted to happiness too. And who wouldn't want to be addicted to that?

Who this book is for

I am an alcoholic. I have used drugs during my life, but that was never my particular poison in the end. Throughout this book I will refer to the recovering person as an alcoholic, or an addict, and I will refer to alcohol and drinking more often than drugs. This book is for both alcoholics and people who have had issues with drugs, but it is a lot less clumsy to just stick to the terms relating to alcohol than to write 'alcoholic or drug addict' every single time. But whether drugs or drink was your issue, the problems encountered in recovery that we will be exploring are extremely similar, so I hope the recovering drug users will oblige me for the sake of brevity.

Additionally, this book may well be of help to people recovering from other addictions and issues, such as gambling, eating, sex addiction or compulsive spending. Again, I'm going to stick with addressing alcoholics and drug addicts specifically, but if you identify with any other addiction, forgive me for that - not all of the specific language will apply to you, but the general message certainly will.

So, to start with, I don't care how you found your recovery - whether you went 'cold turkey' with your addictive behaviour or substance of choice, whether you went to rehab, whether you attend AA, NA, CA, CODA or SMART, whether you have regular counselling or go to groups, whether you have a Higher Power or a 'God' in your life or not. My intention is not to tout any method of sobriety. I have used certain modalities and I have cemented my recovery by doing a lot of work on myself. Nothing that I mention in this book is linked to any of those recovery systems and I am not advocating any in particular. This is not about the best way to stop drinking or taking drugs, as that is a separate issue.

We all have to find our own way, the one that works best for us - and I hope that you have found yours. If you are still stuck then I would recommend reading The Recovery Formula: An Addict's Guide to getting Clean and Sober Forever, which is my previous book detailing the framework that you need to achieve long-term sobriety and how you can start taking steps towards recovery. But the book that you are reading right now is about how to achieve a happy, fulfilling and amazing recovery, and how to live an awesome life off the back of that.

In fact, some of you may feel that what this book has to say will clash slightly with your own particular doctrine of recovery, if you have one. Let me just reassure you that this book is designed to complement your other recovery methods. If something you are doing is keeping you clean, sober and content, then for goodness' sake, carry on doing it. But if you are not fully satisfied with your life or wonder if you could be doing anything more than you are already doing, well, that is what the book is all about.

This book is for the person who has stopped drinking or put down the drugs, but who still isn't happy with their life. Or even if you are relatively happy - I mean, we're not drinking or drugging, right? We've got to be happy that we are not stuck in the madness of using. However, if you've never looked at taking your life to any other level, other than just stopping the substances, this book will be important for you.

Maybe you've been plodding along in recovery and you're OK and fairly content, but there is room for improvement. Well this book is for you, too, as it can open your mind to new possibilities and help you see how your recovery can be even better. After all, you spent so much time having a crappy life, why not spend the rest of your time making your life amazing? It seems only fair.

Or maybe you did stop drinking, only to relapse, and you can see no good reason to go back to being sober. Did you find sobriety too difficult because you couldn't get over the past, or because you still hated yourself? Or were you bored and disappointed with your experience of recovery? This will be an extra special book for you, because it may give you that chance to go sober again, when you see how worth it sobriety and recovery really are, and how good life after addiction can be if you do certain things.

Or perhaps you're only just considering getting clean, but you think that recovery has nothing to offer you; or you're concerned that you'll be stuck in your old patterns of thinking and behaving, and you're worried that you can't change or find your way out. This book is for you, too, because it will give you hope that change is possible, and not only that, but it will show you that recovery is the place to be.

Again, I write it from the perspective of someone who is now sober and happy, because that's what I am, and that's what you can be too, whatever stage of your journey you're currently at. Recovery done properly is wonderful and amazing. Recovery done badly is painful and hard. So read on...

What does this book do?

In my Recovery Coaching service, part of my work involves helping recovering addicts to change their attitude to their experiences so that they can be even happier after their addiction than they were before it. They can appreciate their illness, rather than hating it. They can move on and become more productive and fulfilled than they could ever have been otherwise. And this is what I am going to share with you. Although it is not a substitute for personal coaching, I hope that the theories and practical exercises in this book will help you to look