12 Steps and Post Traumatic Stress

12 Steps and Post Traumatic Stress

Applying the 12 Step Approach to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Powerlessness

On the surface, this idea seems a simple one for trauma survivors. You feel totally helpless and overrun by your trauma and your trauma symptoms. In fact, when you were traumatized [whether this was child abuse, a robbery, battery or an explosion…to name a few], you were helpless in the face of an overwhelming event.

Whether your trauma was last month or 30 years ago, you feel helpless in the face of your symptoms. You struggle with issues of control and mastery. You wish you could control your symptoms. And when you are alone, you wish you could go back in time and somehow prevent or stop your traumatic experience.

Applying the twelve-step program of Alcoholics Anonymous requires an admission of powerlessness that is quite different from being overwhelmed by the traumatic force(s) that shattered your being and sense of safety.

In this instance, you admit that you could not control what happened to you. Also, you admit that you cannot manage the symptoms you experience. You hit a bottom in your experience of your life as it is. So that you can become willing to take the actions suggested in the remaining steps.

In essence, the difference between your admission of powerlessness and the helplessness of your trauma is one of a willingness to take action. Trauma helplessness is passive. Recovery powerlessness is active.

* This is a paradox. You admit you are powerless; so that you are able to take action.

Spirituality

Many trauma survivors have a problem with spirituality. In fact, you have one or more of the following issues with spiritual beliefs and a Higher Power concept.

* Where was God?

* What do I believe in now?

* How do I reconcile a belief in God with what has happened?

* How do I face the reality of my fragile life?

* How can I trust God again now that I know bad things can happen to me?

* I cannot forgive my perpetrator

* I am lacking in my faith.

* Why???

* How can I believe in a Higher Power when there is evil and cruelty in the world?

* How does God view suffering in the world?

* What is the meaning of what happened?

* I don’t feel safe anywhere.

* My life no longer feels predictable

* I am angry with God, is He angry with me?

* I feel like God abandoned me.

* I feel betrayed by God.

* What is my relationship to God now?

* I feel ashamed; God wouldn’t want me anymore.

* I feel dirty; so, I cannot get close to God.

* I feel distanced from the community now that this happened.

* No one will ever understand.

* Am I at fault?

* I feel so powerlessness.

* What do I believe in now?

* How do I make sense out of what happened?

* I no longer understand the meaning of life.

* Where is there value in my suffering?

* My perpetrator was never punished, what now?

* I don’t feel like I belong anywhere anymore. Goodness doesn’t protect anyone.

* How can I believe in a loving, all-powerful God after what happened? How do I resolve my feelings of guilt with a faith in a Higher Power?

* I still feel God abandoned me.

* It is difficult to think of God as a loving Father after what my own father did to me.

These are very deep questions.

You have a right to this difficult struggle with ideas related to faith and belief in God. Your struggle doesn’t prevent you from working a 12-step program of recovery. In fact, being in this struggle is one aspect of working a 12-step program of recovery on your PTSD.

All that is required to work this aspect of a 12-step program is a willingness to face these issues. You do not have to believe in God to start working a program of recovery. What is needed is an open mind and a resolve to work through the spiritual damage done to every trauma survivor. Spiritual recovery from trauma comes when you make your peace with a belief in a higher power even though this awful trauma happened to you.

Moral Inventory, Defects of Character and Shortcomings

The easiest way for me to tell you how to apply the ideas from steps four, five, six, and seven to your PTSD is to tell you what this is not:

* It does not include all the things your perpetrator told you to justify their behaviour.

* It is not anything told you by another person about yourself; especially those things that begin with the sentence: “The trouble with you is….”

* It is not self-abuse.

* It is not the toxic shame many of you feel

* It is not blaming yourself for your traumatic experience.

* It is not taking responsibility for another person’s bad behaviour.

With these ideas in hand, you can safely use the AA Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous and the AA Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions to follow these steps and support your recovery from PTSD.

Twelve Steps

1. We admitted we were powerless over our trauma and the effects of the trauma–that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves and the effects of our trauma on our lives.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to survivors of trauma, and to practice these principles in all our affairs

If you or someone are in the grips of Post Traumatic Stress Contact us on Ph 07 56 066 315 (7days) or Email: info@coachingwithsubstance.org.au. 

Website: www.coachingwithsubstance.org.au

ABOUT COACHING WITH SUBSTANCE (WINNER Best Not-for-Profit 2014)

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. Call us on 07 5606 6315 if you want to speak to an Addiction Specialist.

Our Founder, 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. She is currently completing her PhD on Recovery Coaching and is the first registered Recovery Coach in Australia.

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 Taoist 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.

Addiction as a Spiritual Crisis

Addiction: A Spiritual Crisis: The Thirst for Wholeness and Addiction

At one time or another, most of us feel some degree of emptiness, loneliness, inadequacy, idealism, or spiritual longing. We recognise the discontent, the desire to escape pain, and the tendency to seek answers in activities, substances, or relationships. This sense of restlessness and the spiritual longing is familiar to many of us. 

Over the many years of treating addiction and co-dependency I have heard many people talk about a non-specific hunger for something that seems to be missing in their lives. They describe a gnawing emptiness within that is never filled. This insistent stirring from within is so intense that it can, at times, be painful. It seems to originate at one’s very core, and for some of us, it feels even stronger than our sexual drive or our hunger for food.

I was aware of it as a child, and I tried somehow to fill it by spending hours and hours playing pinball machines and snooker, watching television and listening to music on my transistor radio, or participating in sports. I struggled with it as a teenager, I felt it as a young adult when I looked at a particularly magnificent painting, read an eloquent poem, or watched an exquisite dance. And it manifested during a multitude of other restive moments. The pit of my stomach felt empty, my heart hurt, and my entire being aspired toward something I could not identify. 

As I grew, the ache in my soul increasingly permeated all aspects of my life. I felt monumentally homesick for something undefined, for an unnamed entity, place, or experience. Nothing I did seemed to alleviate the yearning within me.

There are, I am sure, some fortunate people who feel this longing but do not act upon it in painful ways. However, many people identify the spiritual yearning as a persistent voice in their lives, one they often confuse with their everyday aspirations. At first, they identify it as the desire to excel on the playing field, to develop their intellect, to get into the right university, or to meet the man or woman of their dreams. Perhaps they feel an overwhelming craving for a certain model of car, for a new outfit, or for sexual contact.

This fundamental appetite might manifest in the abuse of food, alcohol, nicotine, or other drugs. Some people feel a general dissatisfaction in their marriage and find themselves longing for something more: a new house, a baby, a significant change in their partner’s behaviour, or a completely different relationship. They feel discontented, as though something is lacking. Perhaps more money would bring happiness, or a better social position, or a new job.

I loved my wife and kids, was satisfied with my business, and felt reasonably good about my accomplishments. But something was missing. I found myself thinking about moving to another state or country and even trying another line of business. I soon began to gamble too much, as well as abuse various mood altering drugs. After a while, I realised that none of those things would help my feelings of emptiness, and in fact, they had begun to cause more problems than they would solve. I felt stuck.”

The irony is, no external activities or substances satisfy the initial craving or the feelings of emptiness. Many people attain the object of their desire, and the incessant ache remains. One person may win the lotto or player-of-the-year award for football, another earn an advanced degree from a prestigious university. Someone else might capture the heart of a perfect mate, make enough money, and live in the style he or she has always wished for. 

Yet, even in the midst of the bounty that is meant to bring satisfaction and fulfilment, the yearning persists, perhaps even magnified by the achievements, which only remind us of the emptiness within. Many recovering addicts and alcoholics report that once the physical craving for the drug or behaviour is eliminated, a deeper craving still remains.

As a culture, we do not have many sanctioned frame-works in which to deeply experience and satisfy the yearning for wholeness. As a result, people of all ages distort and misdirect this immensely strong impulse into addictions of all kinds, and co-dependency, not only addictions involving the use of chemicals (alcohol & drugs), but also eating disorders, sexual and love addictions, and addictions to power, money, relationships, gambling, and countless other addictive activities.

What is this free-floating yearning? I believe that Jung was right. This intense and at times painful craving is deep thirst for our own wholeness, our spiritual identity, our divine source, or God.

This place of wholeness we seek is our spiritual core, an essential component of our nature.

Development of a relationship with this inner source is a common, and necessary, aspect of human existence. I believe that this thirst for wholeness is the main driving force in the ever increasing rates of addiction in our society. 

Unless this factor is addressed in recovery and addiction treatment, the individual is always going to remain at high risk of relapse or in danger of switching addictions. Simply stopping our addictive behaviours or replacing them with legal substitute drugs is not enough and doesn’t work.

For any assistance for you or a loved one struggling with addiction, contact Coaching with Substance on 07 5606 6315 or 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.

AA 12 STEPS and POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER

Whether your trauma was last month or 30 years ago, you feel helpless in the face of your symptoms. You struggle with issues of control and mastery. You wish you could control your symptoms. When you are alone, you wish you could go back in time and somehow prevent or stop your traumatic

experience.

Applying the twelve-step program of Alcoholics Anonymous requires an admission of powerlessness that is quite different from being overwhelmed by the traumatic force(s) that shattered your being and sense of safety.

In this instance, you admit that you could not control what happened to you. Also, you admit that you cannot manage the symptoms you experience. You hit a bottom in your experience of your life as it is. So much so, that you become willing to take the actions suggested in the remaining steps.

In essence, the difference between your admission of powerlessness and the helplessness of your trauma is one of a willingness to take action. Trauma helplessness is passive.
            Recovery powerlessness is active.

* This is a paradox. You admit you are powerless; so that you are able to take action.

Spirituality

For the purpose of this article we will be using the term God.  This word can be replaced with a word from whatever spiritual beliefs you may hold i.e.  a Higher Power, the Source, the Universe or any other name.

Many trauma survivors have a problem with spirituality. In fact, you may have one or more of the following issues with spiritual beliefs and a Higher Power concept.

* Where was God?  

* What do I believe in now?

* How do I reconcile a belief in God with what has happened?

* How do I face the reality of my fragile life?

* How can I trust God again now that I know bad things can happen to me?

* I cannot forgive my perpetrator

* I am lacking in my faith.

* Why???

* How can I believe in a Higher Power when there is evil and cruelty in the

world?

* How does God view suffering in the world?

* What is the meaning of what happened?

* I don’t feel safe anywhere.

* My life no longer feels predictable

* I am angry with God, is He angry with me?

* I feel like God abandoned me.

* I feel betrayed by God.

* What is my relationship to God now?

* I feel ashamed; God wouldn’t want me anymore.

* I feel dirty; so, I cannot get close to God.

* I feel distanced from the community now that this happened.

* No one will ever understand.

* Am I at fault?

* I feel so powerlessness.

* What do I believe in now?

* How do I make sense out of what happened?

* I no longer understand the meaning of life.

* Where is there value in my suffering?

* My perpetrator was never punished, what now?

* I don’t feel like I belong anywhere anymore. Goodness doesn’t protect anyone.

* How can I believe in a loving, all-powerful God after what happened? How do I resolve my feelings of guilt with a faith in a Higher Power?

* I still feel God abandoned me.

* It is difficult to think of God as a loving Father after what my own father did to me.

These are very deep questions.

You have a right to this difficult struggle with ideas related to faith and belief in God. Your struggle doesn’t prevent you from working a 12-step program of recovery. In fact, being in this struggle is one aspect of working a 12-step program of recovery on your PTSD.

All that is required to work this aspect of a 12-step program is a willingness to face these issues. You do not have to believe in God to start working a program of recovery. What is needed is an open mind and a resolve to work through the spiritual damage done to every trauma survivor. Spiritual recovery from trauma comes when you make your peace with a belief in a higher power even though this awful trauma happened to you.

Moral Inventory, Defects of Character and Shortcomings

The easiest way for me to tell you how to apply the ideas from steps four, five, six, and seven to your PTSD is to tell you what this is not:

* It does not include all the things your perpetrator told you to justify their behaviour.

* It is not anything told you by another person about yourself; especially those things that begin with the sentence: “The trouble with you is….”

* It is not self-abuse.

* It is not the toxic shame many of you feel

* It is not blaming yourself for your traumatic experience.

* It is not taking responsibility for another person’s bad behavior.

With these ideas in hand, you can safely use the AA Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous and the AA Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions to follow these steps and support your recovery from PTSD.

Twelve Steps

1. We admitted we were powerless over our trauma and the effects of the trauma–that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as

we understood Him.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves and the

effects of our trauma on our lives.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact

nature of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to survivors of trauma, and to practice these principles in all our affairs

Adapted from The 12 Steps of Alcoholic Anonymous

If you or someone you love is in the grips of PTSD and addiction call us today for immediate help.

Coaching With Substance is Australia's No. 1 provider of Recovery Coaching Services and WINNER of 2014 Best Not-For-Profit in ALL Addictions.

Call us 07 5606 6315 (7days) Confidentiality assured.

Website www.coachingwithsubstance.org.au .  Email info@coachingwithsubstance.org.au