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From Alcoholic Enmeshment to Rational Recovery

Todd came to see me at the encouragement of his mother. He "talked the right talk" about leaving his drugs and alcohol behind, although he had a long track record of failed attempts. Todd had been in and out of residential treatment programs without success. This young man looked to me and rational recovery as his last chance to live a lifestyle free of the ravages of addiction.

I pushed Todd to explain to me, in every conceivable manner, how "this time" things would be different from all of his other failed attempts at sobriety. In a straightforward, yet probing way, I took him apart in the process of working to hold him accountable for his wasted life. Fortunately, he didn't run away from therapy.

Todd came to see me every week as we combined my cognitive-behavioral treatment with a local outpatient rational recovery program. Since the efficacy of inpatient substance abuse treatment programs is marginal, I felt that this would be a more effective treatment approach. This two-pronged strategy appeared to be the perfect mix. Naltrexone, a medication employed to stop the urges and cravings of alcohol was used with my patient. The goal of treatment was to focus on his lifestyle of excessive drinking and to rationally, reconfigure patterns of behavior that were consistent with a lifestyle of sobriety.

Todd began drinking when he was eight years old. His father would take him on camping trips and would provide him with hard liquor during their journey. Todd recalled his father handing him small, open alcohol bottles for consumption which had been purchased from the airlines. Todd reminisced about how he would eventually end up vomiting during stops along the way to the camping sites. According to Todd, his father was too "wasted" to be of any assistance to him.

This father and son drinking dynamic went on throughout Todd's adolescence. Todd began being admitted to residential treatment programs by the time he was thirteen years old. Each time Todd was placed in a rehab program for drugs and alcohol, Todd's father would make a special effort to visit him during recovery. Ironically, he would wish his son well and then would depart. On one occasion, Todd remembered his father drinking and smoking pot with him in their car just prior to his being admitted.

I found it fascinating that Todd never thought about the peculiar, symbiotic, outrageous abusive nature of his father/son relationship until we began exploring it. Even then, Todd deflected the experience through anxious laughter. As I "turned up the heat" on the emotional impact of what he experienced, Todd's vision of his past became clearer. He began to understand the betrayal, shame and humiliation foisted upon him by his father’s alcoholic enmeshment. It was painful for Todd to learn to hold his father responsible for the hurt, disappointment and destructive behavior he created.

As we moved through therapy, Todd was afraid of his anger and where it would lead him. We addressed that fear along with ways of coping with his enfeebled, alcoholic father in the present. Todd set more appropriate boundaries related to any contact with his father, and on several occasions broached the subject of his father's past behavior to no effect.

Todd learned to accept the fact that his father would never change, and that he would need to grieve and release a history filled with horrible memories. Todd's rational recovery, based upon cognitive-behavioral therapy, is working. He has a positive support system, medication for his urges and cravings, and takes full responsibility for his recovery. Every day is a choice about whether to allow his father to continue to have power over his life or to choose to forgo a pattern of drinking that started many years ago during his father/son camping trips.


This narrative is a composite. It has been deliberately altered in order to protect an individual’s right to confidentiality and privacy.

Cognitive Therapy and Sleeplessness

It appears that "as the world turns" many are having a difficult time falling asleep and/or staying asleep. Our fast-paced lifestyle can leave one feeling fatigued, apathetic and restless as a result of a cycle of sleep deprivation. Some turn to sleep medications as a way of rectifying the problem of insomnia. Others look for naturopathic remedies to provide respite from a sleepless night.

Certain chronic insomniac conditions that result from pain-related problems may warrant the use of sedating medications. Other cases, however, may respond to various non-medicinal treatments, including the use of cognitive-behavioral therapy.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy is at the forefront of treatment for various disorders, including depression, anxiety, pain management issues and insomnia. Insomnia may be caused by life stressors, physical illness, emotional discomfort, environmental factors, self-medicating or disruption in one's sleep pattern due to work-shift changes or jet lag.

CBT seeks to work with insomniacs through their thought processes, ways of viewing the world and underlying beliefs about sleep. Many adults become anxious about their lack of sleep. They may ruminate about the horrible things that they believe will happen to them if they fail to promptly fall asleep. I often tell patients, "Where is the evidence that not sleeping tonight will cause you undue harm? What's the worst thing that will happen?" Frequently, it is the anxiousness about not sleeping that sets up a self-defeating dynamic of frustration and restlessness.

CBT uses paradoxical intervention strategies for dealing with sleeplessness. I recommend that patients who experience insomnia stay awake as long as possible prior to going to bed. Individuals should be sufficiently fatigued and drowsy before lying down. The bed should always be used for sleep purposes and never used for reading, relaxing or ruminating. If the patient's sleep is interrupted, the sufferer should get out of bed and read, watch television, until sufficiently tired enough to resume sleep.

Often, people do not realize that the human body will automatically self-regulate. If one only gets three hours of sleep on a given night, the body will automatically compensate, eventually providing appropriate rest. It is the fear of not sleeping that sets up a negative dynamic for the insomniac. Individuals may set up a self-defeating cycle by remaining in bed as they ruminate about sleeplessness. Ironically, this process only compounds the problem by leading to further restlessness.

Learning to relax the body and mind is important to getting quality sleep. Learning mindfulness meditation helps the insomniac to calm the sympathetic nervous system, setting the stage for restful sleep.

What people do with their time prior to going to sleep is important. Playing stimulating music, working at the computer and using alcohol will negatively affect one's ability to sleep. Learning to let go of work-related stressors is imperative. Individuals who are "pusher-drivers" are more likely to carry their workday into the night.

Patients, who experience insomnia, generally suffer from the following self-defeating thoughts and assumptions:

• "If I don't sleep, something awful will happen to me."
• "I must sleep or else I won't be able to function anymore."
• "I'm afraid to go to sleep because something might happen to me."
• "If I don't fall asleep promptly, there must be a problem."
• "I have so much work to do that I don't have time to sleep."
• "I must stay in bed until I fall asleep."
• "Worrying about things helps me to control my life."
• "I must complete everything on my list, especially work tasks."
• "Being alone at night is a scary thing."

Assisting patients to reframe negative thinking is essential to treatment for insomnia. Anticipatory anxiety in the form of negative self-statements must be replaced with more adaptive ways of thinking about sleep. By employing strategies that emphasize the “reverse-effort” of not trying to fall asleep, patients learn to relax their bodies through passive volition and secure needed rest.

Cognitive Therapy's Application to Tinnitus

Lisa was referred to me by a physician who specializes in treating ear disorders. The neurologist was familiar with the efficacy of cognitive-behavioral therapy and its application in treating pain-related syndromes. This patient was referred to me as a part of a multidisciplinary approach to managing tinnitus.

Tinnitus is a ringing, swishing or other type of noise that seems to originate in the ear or head. Nearly 36 million people suffer from this disorder. Many factors, such as certain medications, ear wax, fluid, infection or disease of the middle ear bones or eardrum can cause tinnitus. As with any pain syndrome or disturbance, emotional factors can exacerbate the disorder.

Lisa complained of a loud, swishing sound emanating from both ears. The disturbance was significant enough that it began affecting her ability to function in a meaningful manner. At home, while preparing dinner, she found herself shifting her head in an unusual position toward her right shoulder in a ritualistic attempt to minimize the annoying vestibular volume.

Her bodily compensation reminded me of a clutched position that battle-scarred soldiers assume in combat that represents a way of warding off impending doom. In reality, such posture actually symbolizes the heightened hypervigilance experienced by those who have been exposed to physical and emotional trauma.

It has been my experience that a pain syndrome often serves as a mysterious metaphor for the way we relate to the world. M. Scott Peck, author of the Road Less Traveled, used to talk about the nemesis of his neck pain. Although he sought surgery to rectify his condition, he viewed his problem as a more complex pattern. The origin of his neck stiffness transcended bones and tissue. Peck often said “he was afraid to stick his neck out." His malady was a metaphor for holding things in and avoiding conflict at all costs. Learning to assert himself paid dividends, and further minimized the significance of this problem.

As Lisa and I explored her problem, I began to see a thread that linked her nonsensical noise into a self-defeating cycle. "The volume was chronically turned up in Lisa’s life and it made her head spin." She often affirmed this impression through the narrative of her life’s experiences.

Lisa had always done what others required of her. Her earliest recollections of this behavior occurred when walking home from school on a rainy day with several friends. As a mean-spirited lark, her friends asked her to stick her feet into a large puddle of water soaking her shoes and socks. She obliged her friends so as not to disappoint them. She felt humiliated as her school-mates looked on and mocked her. From that moment forward, the power of pleasing others emerged as a benchmark for how she would conduct her life.

Alfred Adler used to say that our earliest childhood recollections embody a constellation of beliefs, thoughts and feelings that have the power to profoundly impact one’s future behavior. Lisa’s experience in a mud puddle would fuel her later behavior within adulthood.

Lisa worked as a full-time tutor. Her students loved her. One day, she taught ten students in a row, driving to and from each student's house. She then went home, did her chores and prepared her evening meal for her husband. It was typical for her to push to accomplish tasks for others without ever setting appropriate boundaries for herself. She never requested or required anything from others – finally she gave in to exhaustion.

As Lisa began to disclose more freely in therapy, her story of unyielding sacrifice for others at her own expense became more evident. All the money she earned went to subsidize her granddaughter, who refused to work. Lisa disclosed that her granddaughter had a $200 a month smoking habit. Although she was conflicted about supporting her granddaughter’s addiction, she paid her the money to cover the cost. Lisa’s showed regret rather than appropriate resentment for enabling her granddaughter’s behavior.

In order to decrease the background noise in Lisa’s life, we worked on the following issues:

• Balancing the need to please with a sense of personal protection

• Learning assertiveness skills

• Requesting and allowing others to care-take for her

• Letting go of the need for frenzied activity

• Listening to her body and honoring it by slowing down

• Learning to get un-trapped from the fear of abandonment

• Learning to never do for others what they can do for themselves

• Relaxing the sympathetic nervous system through exercise and meditation.

In order to address the above issues and decrease the volume of her tinnitus, I work with Lisa on her thoughts, distorted cognitions and underlying assumptions about life. I taught her to rationally respond to self-defeating thoughts and behaviors. Some of the types of thoughts we reframed were:

• "Where is it written that people can't get along without me?"

• "If I say no, and people don't like it, it's their problem."

• "It's okay to have abandonment feelings, just don't act on them by trying too hard.”

• "I need to focus in the moment, rather than stressing about things I can't control. If certain things don't get completed, it's not the end of the world."

• " I need to treat myself as if I were a dear friend.”

• "If I give in to others, I'll only resent it later.

• What's the hurry, anyway?"

As a result of the modifications in her thought-processes, Lisa began to make progress with her tinnitus and she learned that self-defeating thoughts were a metaphor for self-defeating assumptions which aggravated her ears. These were factors that complicated her condition by creating unnecessary stress.


[Note: This case is a composite drawn from my practice as a psychotherapist. It has been altered to protect the individual's right to confidentiality and privacy.]

The Magic Embedded in Life's Stories

Recently, my wife took an introduction to genealogy course at our local library. She was interested in gathering more information about her family history. She found the class very useful in filling in some missing pieces about the story of her parents.

One way of generating genealogical information is to download census data, in this case dating back to the 1930’s. My wife was very excited about her discoveries and the process had piqued my interest. I wondered what I might find out about the life of my 93 year old mother.

I pulled up the fifteenth census of the United States, completed on April 17, 1930. My mother was raised in Richwood, West Virginia. She lived with her grandparents during her pre-adolescent years. She and her grandparents lived on Boggs Street with her grandfather working on a dairy farm.

Although I was aware that my mother lived in West Virginia and resided with her grandparents, some of the census information was new to me. When I mentioned that I discovered that Mother’s grandfather was a dairyman, she perked up and began telling me stories about how she helped out on the farm by feeding the animals and milking the cows. When I mentioned to my mother that she lived on Boggs Street, she drew a blank. However, hours later, she called me back with renewed excitement to share her story. The street was named after the Boggs family who were their only neighbors on top of a hill in rural Richwood.

Life is a tapestry of memories, some which unfortunately go unspoken. Stories define the nature of our life, and link us to our history and our future. Memories are made of the stuff that illuminate our legacy.

Family stories help people become three-dimensional. They make our loved ones more than what we see on the surface. They change our perception of significant others. Memories clarify the experiences of our families, making our loved ones appear fuller, richer, with more emotional depth.

Family memories provide everyone with recollections that are treasures that can be recaptured. They can be entertaining, informational and fill in missing pieces about the nature of our history. Sharing stories can be therapeutic for the story-teller, helping them get closure regarding prior life events.

The story-teller passes down to other family members’ information and experiences that provide links to those who came before us. As we intently listen, we are able to integrate information which broadens our heritage and identity. We feel more complete as we gain new knowledge about traditions, experiences, and values from those who shaped our family heritage.

Family members who share their stories enrich relationship connections. Story-telling is an emotional experience and creates an opportunity for healthy bonding to take place. We only truly know an individual based upon the degree of emotional expressiveness disclosed. Story-telling provides ample opportunity to make this process happen.

When our parents or other family members share their recollections, it provides us with clues to the social-cultural history that serves as a foundation for our family heritage. We also get a glimpse of what our loved ones were like during different periods of their life. We are able to get a sense of how our family experienced life when members were younger or lived in a different era.

The expression of memories provides us with the wisdom of our parents. Stories are a catalyst for pulling our family history together so that it makes sense to us. We become more personally integrated, authentic and complete, while we are enjoying the fun of listening to interesting experiences from the past.

The Mystery of Fibromyalgia and How Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy Can Help

Fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) is the medical terminology used to represent a complex clinical disorder of symptoms characterized by soft tissue pain, stiffness, and altered deep pain threshold with psychological fallout. It can mimic or accompany symptoms of joint injury, but it is not an arthritic or neurological condition. The disorder affects between 3 to 6 million people – or as many as one in 50 Americans. About 80 and 90 percent of those diagnosed with fibromyalgia are women.

There is usually an emotional overlay of depression and anxiety that affects the sufferer. There are numerous reasons why this is true. Many within the medical community have discounted fibromyalgia as a bona fide disease. Patients have been told that they are over-dramatizing their pain and that the stiffness or soreness has been psychologically induced. Others have been told that the condition was fabricated for attention or perceived by health providers as feigned helplessness. These assertions from medical experts make patients with FMS feel ignored, mistrusted, alone and without support. Patients often turn to self-blame, which fuels the pain cycle.

The pain and symptoms of fibromyalgia are real and have a definite physical basis.
There is no known cause for fibromyalgia. Some researchers have speculated that physical trauma or viral influences have triggered FMS syndrome in many patients. There are no known abnormalities in the muscle tissue of fibromyalgia patients that would account for the disease.

Current research has focused on regions of the FMS patient’s brain and the susceptibility of certain brain locations to pain sensitivity. The brain receives a pain signal from the muscles and stays in a state of alert. For unknown reasons, the brain fails to let go of the pain signal and sets up a chronic pattern or pain syndrome. The brain stays in a constant feedback loop, consisting of a system of amplified pain signals.

Recent brain scan research studies have shed new light on this disorder. Results published in the May 2008 edition of the Journal of American College of Rheumatology shows that neuroscientists have been able to conduct scanning technology to areas of the brain affected by fibromyalgia. Mild pressure on trigger points of the patient has produced measurable brain response in processing the sensation of pain. The elevated response of pain in FMS patient’s brain scans was significantly different from those in the control group of the study. This is one of several studies that validate the reality of fibromyalgia as a disorder affecting the brain's response to muscular and neuropathic pain. Hopefully, future studies will lead to new treatment options.

Currently, treatment options consist of the use of a multidisciplinary approach. Medication management, physical therapy, meditation, exercise, alternative therapies, and cognitive-behavioral therapy are useful. CBT is a valuable therapeutic treatment option for those suffering from pain syndromes. One of the byproducts of pain can be the escalation of anxiety and depression. Likewise, anxiety and depression can intensify the impact of pain and make it more debilitating.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy’s goal is to teach the FMS patient to embrace pain rather than fight it. Cognitive distortions, such as magnification and “catastrophizing” need to be addressed so that patients learn to de-escalate fueling the pain process. How one thinks about his pain affects its impact. One can learn to rationally respond to pain by saying:
"Although this problem is difficult, I can learn to manage it."
"What's the use of getting all upset about my pain, it won't help anyway."
"If I relax and walk into my pain, maybe all this will feel less troublesome."
"I'm not alone in this. I have the support of my family and friends."
"I'm not helpless, I have many strategies I can try to minimize the effect of my pain. Just keep moving!"

Cognitive-behavioral therapy can assist the fibromyalgia patient to identify stressful triggers that exacerbate pain. This may involve examining family struggles, exploring inner-conflict, and working with core, self-defeating assumptions that affect thinking and behavior. Teaching the patient mindfulness meditation as a way of relaxing the sympathetic nervous system is beneficial.

Through the use of CBT, a therapist can provide the fibromyalgia patient with structured homework assignments that will help pain sufferers to experiment with new behaviors such as increased involvement and activities. Motivating the client to set realistic goals for everyday functioning can be helpful. Encouraging a multidisciplinary approach involving exercise, physical therapy, rehabilitation and pain management are essential.

Fibromyalgia patients fear that their disorder will cause them to lose the ability to function at work and at home. Teaching patients to focus on what they can do rather than their limitations is important. There is a tendency for fibromyalgia patients to distort reality by focusing on negative perceptions to the exclusion of the positive. Helping the patient and family to accept physical limitations is a necessary component to successful treatment.

Fibromyalgia patients can easily get enmeshed in a cycle of pain and associated emotional symptoms. It is the goal of cognitive-behavioral therapy to assist the patient in coming to terms with his disorder and making plans to manage it. This is accomplished through acceptance and teaching the patient positive ways of thinking about his condition and multiple ways of treating it.



James P. Krehbiel, Ed.S., LPC, CCBT is an author, freelance writer and nationally certified cognitive-behavioral therapist practicing in Scottsdale, Arizona. His book, Stepping Out of the Bubble is available at www.booklocker.com.

Are You Anxious About Your Anxiousness?

Excessive anxiety is troublesome. For many, it can be an immobilizing experience. Anxiousness can be associated with social avoidance and withdrawal, can be a factor in relationship difficulties, can create painful symptoms, and trigger a need to rehash issues related to our past and future. Anxiety triggers the "fight or flight" response, ramping up our sympathetic nervous system.
The most successful treatment approach to dealing with anxiety is through the application of Cognitive therapy since anxiety is a reaction to our thinking, beliefs and underlying assumptions about life. It is usually not our primary anxiousness that creates our distress. It is our secondary thoughts and feelings - the "anxiety about our anxiety" that intensifies our symptoms.
Almost everyone experiences anxiety, but not everyone catastrophizes about it. Let's say you are taking a midterm exam in college. There are several ways you might respond when you open the test booklet and note that there are numerous questions that you are not prepared to answer. First, you might respond by saying, "wow, none of these answers look familiar. I don't remember studying for us- I'm going to flunk this test. If I fail it, there goes my grade for the semester. Wait until my parents find out, they will kill me!" Or and alternative, rational response might be, "Gee, I don't understand these first three questions - that's okay, I'll just take some deep breaths, relax and work on the questions that I am familiar with. Then I'll go back and tackle the ones I couldn't answer before."
An individual’s manner of self-talk determines the level of anxiety. When we "awfulize" about anxiety, it tends to intensify it. When we respond rationally to our anxiety, that diminishes its effect. Rationally responding to anxious thoughts is critical to minimizing its effect.
Many people tend to believe that their panic or general anxiety "appear out of the blue." They may feel confused and perplexed by the sudden emergence of their feelings. Cognitive therapists view anxious feelings as a byproduct of faulty thinking. There is no mystery to it. Teaching others to respond rationally to self-defeating talk is the primary goal of therapy.
Individuals who experience panic attacks are usually troubled by symptoms such as racing heart, sweating, fear of dying, hyperventilating and a need to escape social situations. Helping individuals to manage panic attacks takes understanding and patience. Assisting people to realize that their panic is time-limited is important. Since panic tends to take on a life of its own, it is important to address the secondary symptoms or the "panic over the panic." When people panic, they tend to magnify their symptoms through self-defeating thinking, perpetuating the attack. Teaching people to relax into their panic is necessary.
The following are some guidelines for those who experience anxiety and panic:
1. Anxiety is time-limited. It is comforting to know that it always diminishes in its impact over time.
2. Don't fight with your anxiety. It only makes things worse. Lean into your anxiety, embrace it, and it will subside.
3. Schedule a "worry time." Go into a quiet room, relax and try to expose yourself to your anxieties. Try to bring on your symptoms and you will find that it is difficult to do.
4. If you have a tendency to panic, create an exit strategy. Plan a way to remove yourself from anxious situations to bring relief.
5. Refocus your attention away from your anxiety. For example, when people experience panic attacks that involve a racing heart, I might encourage them to do jumping jacks to demonstrate that there is nothing physically causing their symptoms. This strategy actually lightens the situation and their symptoms.
6. If you are anxious, chunk things down into smaller parts. People tend to feel overwhelmed when they look at the entire picture. Rather than clean the entire house, pick a few specific tasks such as shredding a few unnecessary documents.
7. Stay in the present. Don't rehash your history or anticipate your future. Worrying about your future or history serves no useful purpose. You can't control it anyway.

Cognitive therapy emphasizes replacing self-defeating thinking with more rational ways are responding to stressors. Identifying goals of therapy, approaching them in a practical manner, and providing homework assignments are significant ingredients to addressing anxiety.