Clearbrook- NY, NJ, PA Drug and Alcohol Rehab

Located in NE Pennsylvania Clearbrook Treatment Centers geographically can help patients from all over the Northeast. If you are in need of a NY drug rehab, NJ alcohol rehab, or Pennsylvania drug rehab or Pennsylvania alcohol rehab, please click here to view our website and see our programs.

Are We Following the Program

What is the test to tell if we are following the program correctly? First, the most important part is are we physically sober? If we are continueing to drink we are not even on the first step of the program. After we know without a doubt that we can't drink like other people we can move on to the other steps.

The next part of sobriety is knowing that without help from others, we most likely won't make it either. That is the second step of the programs of AA/NA. At first we may use our sponsor or our home group as a whole as the power greater than ourselves to get us into right thinking and acting. That power, often times, morphs itself into something greater. Something that is not human and we can not describe.

The third step of our program has us turn our thoughts and our actions over to that power. This can seem like a big task. We assure you that it is not. We don't have to complicate this step. We only need to ask for help for the 24 hours ahead of us. We ask that we think and act on a plane that is spiritual. We ask that we treat others the way we would like to be treated. After time turning our will and our lives over to the care of God means different things to different people.

The Traditions

The traditions of the programs of AA/NA are there to make sure that our fellowship stays alive and concentrated on our primary purpose. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and to help others to achieve sobriety. What the traditions talk about and state is that our programs or as a whole that comes first. Followed by us as individuals. Without the traditions bad things would develop and crush our society. Making money and having high cash reserves would begin to infultrate us and replace that primary purpose. If that were to happen, many of us would die or be locked up.

The traditions are surely a God given list of princeables. With the egos floating around the rooms we should be thankful that we have them.

Do you need help........

Are you ready to get sober?? I think the first question is "do you want to get sober?" The easiest way to answer that question is simple. Have you had enough of the life that using drugs and alcohol has given you? Are you family relationships badly broken? Troubles at work? These are things that happen to people when they are in active addiction. Clearbrook Treatment Centers can help. We are a Pennsylvania drug rehab and alcohol rehab that can start a new journey in your life, if you want it. Please call us or visit www.clearbrookinc.com .

A Walking Miracle

Sometimes we get caught up in the daily activities of life that we forget to be mindful of who we are and what a walking miracle we are. Yes, we are a miracle. We are sober. We are working the 12 Steps. We are working toward a better life every single day. When we looked at ourself in our active addiction we thought there was no hope for us.

But, take a look at yourself! You are a walking miracle. Today, amongst your job, kids, family, friends, take a second and just breathe it in. Breathe in and think about how wonderful it is to be alive and sober!!!!! Your day will be filled with great things if you take a second to embrace the miracle!

Being Accountable

Being accountable in our lives is a component of sobriety that is sometimes overlooked. When we get better and our lives improve does not mean that we are going to live like saints. We are going to make mistakes in life that can create turmoil and bad thinking. That is allright though, we can get through it without picking up again.

Holding ourselves accountable in our mistakes is the first step in getting around it. To thine own self be true is a great phrase for this discussion. As alcoholics and addicts no one can learn from their mistakes better than we can.

Don't Forget the Past

Many of us have a past that we'd rather not remember. We instinctively try to forget the bad things in our past when we were using. When we get sober and look back on how we behaved, we can become ashamed, embarrassed, humiliated and afraid. These are normal feelings.

What helps us overcome those feelings is embracing our past. Realize what the past was and learn from it. Everyone's past is different but there is so much we can learn. We learn that we never want to go back to being that person we were in the past. Mistakes are some of the best lessons. In our case, our past using has taught us many lessons and if we take those lessons and apply them to our new sober life, we can live better than we did in the past. Embrace that blessing!

Guilt....How do we deal with it?

Guilt and shame are words synonomous with our addictions. For many of us we drank and used to squash the feelings of guilt and shame. The alcohol and drugs, so we thought, allowed us to not feel these feelings. The next day though, those feelings were even worse than they were when we started. Then comes the vicous cycle of using again and again so that we don't have to feel.

What is the solution to it? First off, we have to stop drinking and using and put a halt to the behaviors we are exhibiting. Then we start on the steps of the program. Once we have gotten through the steps the guilt and shame of the past either completely dissapears or can be accepted in knowing that we have changed.

Even in sobriety we can fall back on our old behaviors and start to feel guilt and shame about the way we are acting sober. The answer to this problem is to go to our sponsor and be honest about what we are doing. If we can go to them before we start acting out situations that produce the guilt and shame we can be helped back into serenity.

Steps Four through Nine

After we know without any doubt in our minds that we cannot drink safely anymore, that no human power can relieve us of the compulsion, and we turn our lives over to the care and direction of something greater than ourselves we are ready to move on.

The steps are designed as a way of life. When we get to the fourth step of the program we are going to see why our lives shaped up into the way they did. We then move on to steps 5 through nine. What usually happens at the end of the ninth step. We hear of these promises that begin to come true in our lives. They do if we have not skimped on the steps preceeding nine.

The guilt and shame of the past begins to disappear and we realize that our pasts can be our best asset into helping another.

Insecurities

A lot of us felt our insecurities disappear when we were using. They didn't exist at all. It wasn't until we were alone or sobered up and had to look at ourselves in the mirror that we felt the insecurities come back full force. What did we do to get rid of them? We used again. We kept up this cycle for a long time but it never took the insecurities away. We had to try something different.

So, when we entered recovery we looked at our insecurities and most of the time they made us cringe. The last thing we wanted to do was feel them and embrace them. Although, if we didn't feel them we could never change them. We cannot change unless we truly face issues head on. Facing our insecurities head on is what we need to do. So, with time and talking about what we feel insecure about whether it's a physical insecurity or something like being insecure that you are not good enough for anyone to want to love you. Things like that take over us unless we address them and try to change them. The more you talk about them and try to look at how fear-driven and ridiculous the insecurities are, the more we can get over them or at least get better at dealing with them.

A Spiritual Experience

What is a spiritual experience when it pertains to sobriety? Is it going to happen for me? The answer to the second question is, YES!! It will happen for you if you want it to and allow it to. The only pre-requisite is that we follow the program as it was outlined. We should be following the steps in order from number one through number twelve. The first sentence is the twelvth step reads "Having had a spiritual experience as THE result of these steps......" What that is telling us is that if we follow the other eleven steps we are sure to have something spiritually happen to us.

We may ask in what way. They come to different people in different ways. The belief and absolute faith in knowing that a power greater than ourselves is guiding us is one way. As the writer of this blog today my spiritual experience happens every day of my life. Every day I would wake up thinking about drugs and alcohol. I was consumed and obsessed with when I was going to get it and how I was going to get it. I have not had that thought since the first day I got sober. That is spiritual to me. We hope and pray that every one of you reading this finds your experience and is able to tell the newcomer how it happened.

Getting to Know Ourselves

In recovery, the more work we do on ourselves the better we get to know who we truly are. At first, this notion is a scary one. Most of us don't really like who we are when we are not using. We're afraid to genuinely know ourselves because we've never done it before. It's something totally new.

When we get sober and get a sponsor we see that getting to know ourselves isn't as bad as we thought it was. We actually start to look at who we are and are excited by who we can be. When we ask for help through this process it becomes even easier. So we must open up and be excited about getting to know this new person....OURSELVES!

Believing in God...

Some of us come into sobriety with the undoubted knowledge of God or a higher power. Some of us don't and feel that we will never be able to believe. There is a whole chapter in the book " Alcoholics Anonymous" that deals with the belief in something greater than ourselves.

If we take a look at our lives as addicts and alcoholics we can see that our human power of will and guidance really did not work. There is so much evidence of that. What can we do about it though? The answer is to try and find something that can help solve that problem. At first we may use our sponsor or our home group. We can see scores of people who are happy and found a way out of a life of depression and misery.

Often times what happens is, we listen to these people and we end up finding a power that is not human and can't be defined. It is a lot of people's opinions that if we can define God, then it is not God. We will leave that up to you though.

Quiet Contemplation

Today's daily gratitude on the Clearbrook Treatment Centers Facebook page is about contemplation. Most of us probably don't take a moment for ourselves and contemplate. Life gets busy. We've got certain priorities and responsibilities that we try to meet on a daily basis so it's easy to go weeks, months and maybe even years before we really take a breath.

This is where some quiet contemplation comes in handy. To sit down and just reflect on our life, what direction we want to go, the people in our life we love, what we are grateful for, etc. are some things can be focused on while we do this. It's quite an enlightening experience. Contemplation like this can actually keep our feet on the ground and keep us focused on what's important. Try it. It's refreshing and cleansing for the mind.

Why Faith? What is Faith?

The ability to believe without any tangible evidence. That is a definition I heard recently and wanted to write about it. Why is faith so important in our lives as recovering alcoholics and drug addicts? Well, without it we are going to believe our own minds. Most of us don't wake up in the mornings and have absolute faith that everything is the way it is supposed to be. We're more of the mindset that something is not right. That things aren't OK in the here and now. That is alcoholism or addiction as a whole. That is where faith comes in. That is where step 2 and step 3 can infultrate our lives and make us feel comfortable.

Faith. The belief that we are going to be OK under any and all conditions. That we can navigate this life with whatever higher power we choose and that higher power has what's best for us. This is a one day at a time deal we have. Usually when we are worried and scared it is something that we THINK is going to happen to us in the future. If we practice faith we can begin to calm down and get back to the present moment.