1st Edition

Managing Your Recovery from Addiction A Guide for Executives, Senior Managers, and Other Professionals

    232 Pages
    by Routledge

    236 Pages
    by Routledge

    Learn how to get sober—and stay that way

    Getting and staying sober provides a special set of challenges for professional people—physicians, lawyers, corporate CEOs, accountants, and others—who drive themselves to achieve and succeed in high-pressure surroundings. Managing Your Recovery from Addiction applies business approaches and ideas to the process of planning, implementing, and carrying out programs that really work for professionals in their first year of recovery. This unique self-help book provides guidance to impaired executives and professionals seeking recovery through inpatient and outpatient care, setting strategies for managing conflict, dealing with changing emotions and moods, and developing a solid spiritual program.

    Managing Your Recovery from Addiction helps professionals develop both short- and long-term programs for dealing with the challenges of maintaining sobriety. The book is based on the authors’ extensive experience treating impaired business personnel in a variety of settings, including the Caron Treatment Centers and Lifeworks of London, England, an internationally recognized addictions treatment center. Their rational, scientific approach complements ongoing counseling and other treatment approaches to help keep the professional’s career on track, saving the recovering individual—and his or her employer—significant time and money due to lower productivity, arrested organizational development, absenteeism, and other problems associated with professional level addiction.

    Topics examined in Managing Your Recovery from Addiction include:

    • a unique view of the 12 Steps for business personnel
    • the dynamics of managerial addiction
    • essential information to prevent relapse to active addiction
    • coping with relapse
    • basic tasks and fundamental recovery steps
    • setting and tracking recovery goals
    • recovery stages
    • 10 tasks to recovery
    • conflict management strategies
    • spiritual development
    • addictions treatment
    • and much more!
    Managing Your Recovery from Addiction concludes with the O’Connell Dysfunctional Attitude Survey (ODAS). This book is vital for recovering executives and professionals and is an important resource for addictions and mental health treatment agencies that serve a professional population. It’s equally helpful for employee assistance program (EAP) personnel who regularly refer professionals for addictions treatment.

    • Preface
    • A Message to the Reader
    • Lesson 1. Creating and Implementing a Strategic Recovery Plan
    • Introduction
    • Goal Setting in Recovery
    • Analyzing Your Environment and Personal Circumstances
    • Developing Action Steps
    • Implementing Your Strategic Plan
    • Monitoring Progress
    • Conclusion
    • Lesson 2. Relapse Prevention and Recovery Maintenance
    • Understanding Relapse
    • High-Risk Relapse Situations
    • Dysfunctional Beliefs in Relapse
    • Disadvantages of Returning to Alcohol and Drug Use
    • Coping with Lapses and Relapses
    • Lesson 3. Dealing with Conflict in Recovery
    • Understanding Conflict
    • Conflict-Management Strategies
    • Determining Your Personal Conflict Resolution Style
    • Understanding the Roots of Problems with Conflict
    • Lesson 4. Managing Feelings and Moods
    • Understanding Feelings and Moods
    • Recognizing, Experiencing, and Disclosing Feelings
    • Examining and Modifying Mistaken Beliefs
    • Lesson 5. Managing Spirituality
    • Understanding Spirituality
    • The Twelve Steps and Spirituality
    • Scientific Research on Spirituality and Meditation
    • Experiencing Meditation
    • Overcoming Obstacles to Spiritual Development
    • Lesson 6. The Twelve Steps and the Business of Recovery
    • Working the Twelve Steps
    • Conclusion
    • Lesson 7. A Refresher Course in Addictions Treatment
    • Working Steps One, Two, and Three
    • Psychological Defenses and Chemical Dependency
    • Family Dysfunction and Its Impact on Emotional Health and Recovery
    • Understanding and Addressing the Process of Relapse
    • Addiction Education: Selected Lessons
    • Conclusion
    • Appendix. The O’Connell Dysfunctional Attitude Survey (ODAS)
    • Introduction
    • The Survey
    • Scoring Directions
    • Interpretation
    • Conclusions
    • Bibliography
    • Index
    • Reference Notes Included

    Biography

    O'Connell, David F; Carruth, Bruce; Bevvino, Deborah