Sharing with Lon and his radio audience today was Dr. Thomas Kimball, the Associate Managing Director for the Center for the Study of Addiction and Recovery and an Associate Professor at Texas Tech University, talking about the 'six essential values and principles that are key to recovery'. These essentials include hope, to live with greater confidence and to keep long term sobriety; healthy coping skills, which can help manage the 'curve balls' of life; Identity- remembering who you were and who you were supposed to be; sense of achievement and accomplishment; the capacity for meaningful relationships and the reclamation of agency- to see the choices you have in life and to make healthy ones, to reclaim that internal feeling that you have choices for your behavior.
Dr. Tom believes that hope is the most important principle for people early in their recovery; this hope allows them to surrender and reach out for help and to see that they will be ok and that they can change.
Working hand and hand with hope is healthy coping skills and one powerful way to cope is to serve others, to get out of yourself and your problems. Another is to make amends- besides for the past but amends every day, which can be another way of reaching out. Families can be "instillers" of hope for their loved ones and can model healthy ways of coping with life. Dr. Tom went on to add " if your loved one is sick, it strains and drains you and it is important to take care of yourself, to get enough rest, to exercise and eat right, spend time together and to let go of unrealistic expectations. Addictions have the power to tear families apart, this is the time to 'throw blame and shame out the window', because you have to manage and cope with the recovery. There is a lot of benefit to the 12 step program and it fits into the six essentials. It helps to have a community of those who understand the language. The belief in a spiritual higher power is an important component to their hope and for those struggling with an addiction; it is beneficial to them to be connected to someone further along in recovery because they can see there is hope for them."
For family members and spouses, Dr. Tom stated that in order to help those that they love, "it is important to be in recovery yourself, to reach out to others that understand this addiction and process. Recovery allows us to function in the role we were supposed to be in and lets us be with others because addiction takes the power and energy out of relationships. We no longer have to be the caretaker, the watchful spouse or the enabler."
To listen to the full interview go to
Six Essentials to Achieve Lasting Recovery on
LATalkRadio.
Also available in Podcast 
Lon Woodbury is the owner/founder of Woodbury Reports Inc. and
www.strugglingteens.com. He has worked with families and struggling teens since 1984 and is the host of Parent Choices for Struggling Teens.
Dr. Thomas Kimball, PhD, LMFT is an Associate Professor at Texas Tech University and the Associate Managing Director for the Center for the Study of Addiction and Recovery. Dr. Tom also maintains a private therapy practice. He has been married for 20 years and is the father of five.
This segment was sponsored by Spring Ridge Academy, 928-632-4602,
www.springridgeacademy.com, a Therapeutic Boarding School for Girls in Arizona.
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