19. Coping with stress important in recovery from chronic illnesses

By Tom O'Connell

Learning to cope with stress is an important element in recovery from all chronic illnesses. Because of this reality, a new intensive five-day Stress and Recovery program has been installed at  the Hazelden Renewal Center in Center City, Minnesota.

Hazelden, known throughout the world for its effectiveness in using the Twelve Step model when dealing with addiction recovery, is instituting the Stress and Recovery program as part of its Chronic Illness Initiative.

Darlene Gish, program manager, explains, "The inability to cope with stress is a common denominator of relapse that underlies both medical and behavioral chronic illnesses, including alcoholism and addiction."

According to Gish, "Learning to manage stress in healthy ways is a major foundation piece in maintaining recovery from addiction and other compulsions or chronic illnesses."

The article on this subject in the newsletter Hazelden Voice explains that stress aggravates the symptoms of most chronic illnesses, including depression, diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Therefore, stress management plays a crucial role in enhancing quality of life for people with these conditions.

Sue Hoisington, PsyD., executive director of Hazelden's regional mental health services, explains, "A good definition of stress management is embodied in the Serenity Prayer. It's really about accepting life on life's terms. So many of us are accustomed to all-or-nothing thinking and feeling, to wanting what we want when we want it. When life gets out of balance, when we try to control too much, that's when our stress level really escalates and creates problems in our lives. Stress management is really about learning balance."

Bowen White, MD, medical consultant for Hazelden's Chronic Illness Initiative  says, "One of the roles that chemicals play in a chemically dependent person's life is that they're a stress management tool. If you no longer have that tool, you need something to replace it with so that you don't revert back to old patterns of behavior in stressful situations." White is known for his expertise in implementing stress management programs for Duke University Medical Center, Mobil, Sprint, Hallmark and the Kansas City Royals.

White says, "From the earliest part of our development we learn to live from the outside in. It begins with sucking at the breast or nursing a bottle. We learn to take in something from the environment to give us a sense of fullness. That's called an external locus of control." And as people look for quick fixes for the discomfort of stress they can move toward addictive behaviors. The healthy approach is to seek an internal locus of control, and live from the inside out.

In the Stress and Recovery workshops at Hazelden, people are learning to use stress as a catalyst for positive growth and change. Some of the stress reducing tools are biofeedback, breath work, meditation, and the development of time management skills.

White explains, "The whole idea is that we're multidimensional beings. Therefore, change needs to happen on all levels--physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually." Fun should be part of the picture too, according to this expert on stress management.

Gloria Gillette, vice president of the Chronic Illness Initiative at Hazelden, emphasizes that the new initiative is staying true to "The Minnesota Model and the Twelve Steps, including the body-mind-spirit connection on which Hazelden is based."

She says the Stress and Recovery program "gives people the freedom to really explore their own needs for behavior changes and facilitates change from within. The program rejects superficial or quick-fix approaches in favor of helping people make more profound, lasting change...so they can stop repeating patterns that have caused them problems in the past."

How about you? How are you doing with exercise, nutrition and rest? What about prayer and meditation? Are you living from the outside in? Or from the inside out? Are you in balance, or close to it? How's your discomfort index? What do you intend to do about it?

White sees our discomfort as a source of energy. "It's a matter of learning to use that energy to do things that are healthy, including a reconnection to a Higher Power. Stressful situations can actually help us remember that we are a child of a Mystery that exceeds our understanding, capable of profound change, instead of simply a child of culture, conditioning and programming."

For more information on Hazelden and its approach to healing, try the Hazelden Web Site at http://www.hazelden.org. Darlene Gish of the Stress and Recovery program can be reached at (651) 213-4041.

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