What is a Healthy Relationship

People in recovery from alcoholism, addiction and co-dependency often  have questions about just what is a healthy relationship. This article will give many people in recovery food for thought.

What is a healthy relationship and how does sex fit in?

In the simplest terms, a healthy relationship is one that makes you feel good about yourself and your partner. Not only do you enjoy being together, but

you can express your true self, and allow your partner to do the same. All relationships are different, of course, but healthy ones have at least five important qualities in common.

The acronym S.H.A.R.E. can help you remember these qualities.

* Safety: In a healthy relationship you feel safe. You don’t worry that your partner will harm you physically or emotionally, and you don’t feel inclined to use physical or emotional violence against your partner. You can try new things (such as taking a night class) or change your mind about something (such as engaging in a sexual activity that makes you feel uncomfortable) without fearing your partner’s reaction.  

* Honesty: You don’t hide anything important from your partner, and can express your thoughts without fear of censure or ridicule. You can admit to being wrong. You resolve disagreements by talking honestly.

* Acceptance: You and your partner accept each other as you are. You appreciate your partner’s unique qualities (such as shyness or emotionality).

You don’t try to “fix” them – if you don’t like your partner’s qualities, you may want to examine your motivations for being with them.

* Respect: You think highly of each other. You do not feel superior or inferior to your partner in important ways. You respect each other’s right to have separate opinions and ideas. This doesn’t mean you have to tolerate everything your partner does or does not do (such as refusing to get help for a drinking problem). Setting limits is a sign of self-respect.

* Enjoyment: A healthy relationship isn’t just about how two people treat each other – it also has to be enjoyable. In a healthy relationship, you feel energised and alive in your partner’s presence. You can play and laugh together. You have fun.

Abusive relationships

The opposite of a healthy relationship is an abusive relationship. Such

relationships involve control, fear, and lack of mutual respect. Typically,

one partner does most of the controlling while the other cowers in

resentment or fear. Signs of an abusive relationship include intimidation,

name-calling, blaming, belittling, guilt-tripping, jealous questioning, and

outright violence.

If you suspect you’re in an abusive relationship, there’s a good chance

you are. Perhaps you know deep down that you’d be better off without the

relationship but are afraid to leave it. You may depend on your partner’s

income, you may fear being on your own, or you may rationalize the

relationship as “better than nothing.” In the long run, however, an abusive

relationship does far more damage to your self-esteem than the absence of a

relationship (and the opportunity to find a healthy one).

Many people who have abused drugs, alcohol or grown up in a home with

unhealthy relationships may be so familiar with abuse that they have come

to believe dysfunction is the norm. This article challenges that belief.

Recovery

The 12 Step programs, Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Alanon

and others are designed to address these issues.

If your sponsor is unable to help, a social worker and/or counsellor can

help you map out a strategy for leaving an abusive relationship and getting

your own life back on track. Or you can call us at Coaching With Substance on 07 56 066 315 and one of our Recovery Coaches can help you deal with this problem.  All assessments are strictly confidential.

Or drop us an email: info@coachingwithsubstance.org.au 

We are Australia's leading award winning addiction treatment and rehab consultants for gambling, drugs, alcohol, sex, eating and internet addiction, along with eating behavioural disorders and co-dependency for Australasia and New Zealand.

Maria Pau is a 4x No. 1 best-selling author on the subjects of addiction and co-dependency and spiritual wellness. She is the Program Director of Coaching with Substance, the first of its kind in Australia as registered public benevolent institution, charity and not-for profit association that focuses on wellness using coaching principles of peak performance. We run a cutting edge holistic addiction treatment program and outpatient rehabilitation consultancy firm that ensures you are released from the shackles of addiction once and for all.

Primary care at CWS is personalised to treat each individual using programs that integrate mind, body and soul. CWS programs are enhanced by highly effective group coaching and therapeutic processes as well as individual coaching, spiritual insights, therapy and extensive aftercare assistance.

All clients are thoroughly assessed by a highly trained and experienced recovery coach, registered provisional psychologist, ordained Monk, mental health officer and certified naturopaths (including Ayurveda and Acupuncturist). Clients may also be referred for psychometric testing and assessment, if needed. International clients welcome.

We welcome enquiries from all English speaking people from Asia, Europe, Africa, India and South America.

Why Drug Stigma Still Matters

More sinned against than sinning?

“Psychological theories of illness are a powerful means of placing the blame on the ill. Patients who are instructed that they have, unwittingly, caused their disease are also being made to feel that they have deserved it.”

- Susan Sontag, Illness as Metaphor

Addiction is always a hot topic, in its way, if only because of an endless supply of fallible starlets. More seriously, valuable research is taking

place in myriad directions - the psychology of addiction, the disease of addiction, the neurobiology of addiction, the neuropsycho- pharmacology of addiction, etc. What sometimes goes missing is any serious analysis of the

stigmatisation of drug addiction.

The UK Drug Policy Commission (UKDPC) is an independent research group comprised of 12 “expert commissioners” charged with providing objective analysis on drug policy matters. The group recently issued a paper authored by Charlie Lloyd of the University of York. In “Sinning and Sinned Against: The Stigmatisation of Problem Drug Users,”  Lloyd set out to pull together the evidence-based research on the effects of stigmatising “problem drug users.” The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) defines problem drug use as “injecting drug use or long-duration/regular use of opioids, cocaine and/or amphetamines.”

According to Lloyd’s analysis of the research literature, the groups most frequently referred to as stigmatised are the disabled, the mentally ill,

minority ethnic groups—and drug addicts. To make matters worse, multiple problems often attach to addicts: “Problem drug users frequently report suffering from other stigmas: being black, female, Hepatitis C or HIV positive, disabled, or suffering from a mental disorder. However, research shows that problem drug user status is the most stigmatising.” The stigma is continuously cemented in place by rhetoric about the “war on drugs.” There is no comparable public war on disability, or mental illness, or ethnicity—at least not overtly.

I cannot vouch for Lloyd’s analysis, but a good deal of it smacks of common sense at the street level. Others have suggested it is logical to assume that the stigma attached to hard drug addiction serves, by example, to deter others. “However,” Lloyd writes, “attempts to scare young people away from drug use have not proved effective. The evidence reviewed here suggests that stigma keeps users away from treatment.”

So this is not a theoretical concern. Stigmatisation “may be a major stumbling block to successful rehabilitation.” Health professionals and hospital staff “can be distrustful and judgmental in dealing with problem drug users but drug users can themselves be aggressive and manipulative.

In the United States staff who choose to work in hospitals serving the most deprived, inner-city populations appear to be more compassionate and patient.”

The prevailing public view, Lloyd writes, is that problem drug users tend to be “dangerous, deceitful, unreliable, unpredictable, hard to talk with and to blame for their predicament. Young people may have more negative views in this respect than adults.”

Of course, drug addicts can be all those things at one time or another. Drug abusers often stigmatise themselves. For the user, these conflicted feelings lead some of them to feel that “the very act of seeking treatment serves to cement an ‘addict’ or ‘junkie’ identity, which can lead to further rejection from family and friends.” This is most commonly experienced by users on methadone maintenance treatment, “who feel particularly stigmatised, in comparison to other treatment types.” Lloyd notes that a lifetime stigma sometimes attaches to heroin and cocaine addiction, continuing “to haunt such ex-users, preventing access to good housing and employment.” As he trenchantly observes, there is plenty of room “to stigmatise users less, without rendering heroin or crack-cocaine significantly more attractive.”

Lloyd concludes that the primary culprit, the complicating factor, is “blame.” Compared to “blameless groups” such as the disabled and the mentally ill, problem drug users, he writes, “are blamed for taking drugs in the first place and are also perceived to have a choice whether or not to take drugs in the future.”

If public and professional stigma has the power to prevent addicts from entering treatment (as it formerly held a similar power over the mentally ill, and before that, the disabled), what can be done about it? Lloyd makes several concrete suggestions, most of which centre, predictably, on

education:

-Drug education in schools should focus on the causes and the consequences of active addiction, rather than relying on scare stories.

-It’s time to teach health care and pharmacy staff about the medical, social, and psychological aspects of drug addiction.

-Treatment agencies need to focus on the whole person, “and not see problem drug users as solely problem drug users. Some drug addicts are also bird-watchers.”

-Users themselves, as well as their families, often benefit from a greater understanding of the mechanisms of addiction. This can have the effect of reducing “the self-blame felt by many drug user’s parents.”

-Finally, “police need to reflect on their practice in policing problem drug users at street level.” ‘Nuff said.

DrugScope, a leading U.K. charity with a membership drawn in part from

the ranks of drug treatment and education workers, praised the report as

“timely and insightful.” Martin Barnes, chief executive of DrugScope, said

that the report effectively “evidences stigma as a barrier to recovery and

reintegration.”

If you or someone you love is in the grips of any addiction don't let "stigmatisation" get in the way, call us today in confidence for immediate help. COACHING WITH SUBSTANCE  PH 07 5606 6315 (7days). Confidentiality and privacy assured.  INTERNATIONAL CALLERS 61 7 560 66315

EMAIL info@coachingwithsubstance.org.au

Website www.CoachingWithSubstance.org.au

We are Australia's leading award winning addiction treatment and rehab consultants for gambling, drugs, alcohol, sex, eating and internet addiction, along with eating behavioural disorders and co-dependency for Australasia and New Zealand.

Maria Pau is a 4x No. 1 best-selling author on the subjects of addiction and co-dependency and spiritual wellness. She is the Program Director of Coaching with Substance, the first of its kind in Australia as registered public benevolent institution, charity and not-for profit association that focuses on wellness using coaching principles of peak performance. We run a cutting edge holistic addiction treatment program and outpatient rehabilitation consultancy firm that ensures you are released from the shackles of addiction once and for all.

Primary care at CWS is personalised to treat each individual using programs that integrate mind, body and soul. CWS programs are enhanced by highly effective group coaching and therapeutic processes as well as individual coaching, spiritual insights, therapy and extensive aftercare assistance.

All clients are thoroughly assessed by a highly trained and experienced recovery coach, registered provisional psychologist, ordained Monk, mental health officer and certified naturopaths (including Ayurveda and Acupuncturist). Clients may also be referred for psychometric testing and assessment, if needed. International clients welcome.

We welcome enquiries from all English speaking people from Asia, Europe, Africa, India and South America.