Open Door Retreat

The Open Door Women’s Relapse Prevention Center located in San Miguel de Allende in the spectacular mountainous region of central Mexico. The online vacation guide goNOMAD says:

San Miguel De Allende is one the hippest, busiest, most charming towns in Mexico. …Without question, the Jardin, the central town square, is the main attraction. Hang out for a few hours, listen to music from strolling musicians, read beneath a shady tree. Or, go church hopping and check out the Parroquia, the Oratorio, or any one of the numerous other churches in town.

While there is plenty to do in San Miguel, there are some basic travel tips to follow in order to make your stay in Mexico go smoothly.

Bring Comfy Shoes

Most of the streets and sidewalks are steep and paved with uneven cobblestones and flagstones. Visitors should be prepared for their stay in San Miguel with a pair (or two!) of good, comfortable walking shoes.

Altitude Adjustment

Also remember that San Miguel de Allende is at high altitude, around 6000 feet. It may take a few days for your body to adjust to the thinner air. Be sure to drink plenty of water and take it easy if you feel dizzy or unusually tired.

An additional effect of the higher altitude, the UV exposure is far higher than it would be at sea level to due to the thinner air and reduced cloud cover.
Sunblock and limiting your sun exposure is important.

Pack Accordingly

Even during the warmest months (March through May) when the afternoons can reach 90 degrees in San Miguel, the evenings can drop to 50 degrees! It is advisable to bring at least a light sweater or jacket for this time of year.

The rainy season in San Miguel begins the beginning of June and generally lasts through the middle of October. The rain can fall quite heavily, but don’t let this discourage you - not only are the days pleasantly cool, but by August, the desert, which previously only yielded cactus and thorn bushes, is now covered with wild flowers and grass. It is truly a wondrous sight to see the transformation!

I got Jessica Seinfield’s book “Deceptively Delicious” for my birthday a couple of weeks ago and made my first recipe tonight. The book centers around pureeing vegetables and then “hiding” them in common foods that your family will eat.

Tonight I added cauliflower to our mashed potatoes. I also had chicken nuggets that had broccoli under the bread crumbs. Needless to say, my little munchkins still noticed the green. “What’s that green on my nugget?” one of my boys asked. I told him that it was Green Batman Power Powder to make him strong. He ate them all immediately.

With that experience in the back of my mind, I did some research on line and found an article supporting my actions.

The Power of Positive Thinking

“Adding a few tantalizing words can dramatically increase the appeal of a food, writes Brian Wansink, director of the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab, in a new column on the MSNBC website. Dr. Wansink, author of the popular book “Mindless Eating,” says tasty descriptors help condition reluctant eaters to accept new foods. The trick of using sensory words like “tender,” “succulent” and “velvety’’ to describe foods is called “confirmation bias,” he says.

“If you say something is juicy, people almost unconsciously turn up their ‘juicy sensors’ when they taste the food,’’ he writes. “Once these taste sensors are activated, people become preprogrammed to think a dish tastes good.’’

The idea is backed up by research. At the Cornell lab, Dr. Wansink and his colleagues offered six different foods to cafeteria diners on different days for six weeks — but they changed the names. Sometimes they served “red beans and rice” and “seafood fillet.”
Other days they served “Traditional Cajun Red Beans With Rice” and “Succulent Italian Seafood Fillet.”

After eating, diners rated the foods. Foods with fancier names were rated as more appealing and tastier than the identical foods with the less enticing labels, he says.

How does this all tie into addiction and rehabilitation? The power of the brain and positive thinking! If you think about things in a different manner, your actions will trigger positive thoughts in your brain.

For example, if you despise exercise, think of each drop of sweat as another purging of the toxins in your body. With every step, you are creating a surge of positive energy and healing powers throughout your body. I bet you will be amazed at how far you can go with a positive outlook!

Eating healthy has an incredible impact on the health of the body and mind – from the spiritual plane all the way up to and including our chemical composition. That is why we at Open Door women’s addiction recovery center feel it is important to integrate health eating and cooking classes into our relapse prevention programs.

According to a recent report in Science Daily, research shows that religion and spirituality are linked to positive physical and mental health.

While most of the studies were focused on people with life threatening diseases, there is certainly a evidence to show that a person with a strong spiritual connection has a better ability to conquer adversity on all levels.

According to the study, persons facing impending death may use religion to help them accept their condition, come to terms with unresolved life issues, and prepare for death. However, the study suggests that spirituality may be an equally, if not more important, coping mechanism for persons with chronic disabilities such as traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, stroke and arthritis.

Addiction definitely falls into the category of a chronic condition. That is why it is so important when recovering from any type of addiction to heal the soul as well as the body. This can be done through massage, yoga, meditation, nature walks or other spiritual experiences.

At The Open Door, we strive to help your whole body and mind recover from an addiction. That is why we offer programs specifically designed to help heal the spirit and mind.

A past issue of Counselor, The Magazine for Addiction Professionals, talks about how massage therapy can be used as a component to helping alcohol addiction. Massage is among the list of essential activities at the Open Door relapse prevention center for many of these very same reasons.

The article stated that the physical, emotional and spiritual components of recovery all benefit from the healing power of therapeutic touch.

The Touch Research Institute in Miami, Florida has performed scientific research documenting the physiological effects of massage on the body. They found that massage:

• decreased pain
• diminished autoimmune response
• enhanced immune response
• increased alertness and performance

These results appear to be related to massage’s ability to reduce cortisol, a stress hormone. Several of the Touch Research Institute’s studies positively document the ability of massage to decrease anxiety, depression, agitation, and cravings.

On a physical level, the circulation that occurs with massage is extremely helpful during the detoxification process. Therapeutic massage’s invigoration of blood and lymphatic fluid allows for a more efficient exchange of oxygen rich nutrition into the body’s tissues, and the delivery of toxic waste products out of the body’s tissues.

On an emotional level, part of an addict’s recovery process is learning to identify and manage the triggers that cause them to desire escape. Regular massage sessions can aid the client’s awareness of his or her body — including where and when tension exists.

On a spiritual level, the deep relaxation of a massage can provide a place for the patient to connect with themselves. A recovering addict has a whole new world opened to them when they acknowledge that they can be feel good and be substance-free.

Massage has the unique ability to affect our entire body – from the spiritual plane all the way up to and including our chemical composition. That is why we at Open Door feel it is important to integrate massage therapy into our addiction recovery programs.

A recent study from The University of Texas at Austin shows that college students drink larger amounts of alcohol on football game days than on other well-known drinking days like New Year’s Eve and Halloween.

Psychologists found that women, particularly lighter drinkers, were more likely to engage in risky behaviors following alcohol consumption. The study appears in the November issue of Addictive Behaviors.

“Most events associated with heavy drinking occur only once a year, such as Spring Break, or once in a lifetime, such as a 21st birthday, but the weekly football schedule presents students with more regular opportunities to drink,” said psychologist Kim Fromme, an author of the paper and director of the university’s Studies on Alcohol, Health and Risky Activities Laboratory.

The researchers found students were especially likely to drink more during high-profile games against conference or national rivals. However, the increased drinking rates only occurred when students were actually on campus.

“These results indicate drinking is connected not only to the game itself, but to the social context associated with the event,” Fromme said.

This only proves what so many addicts already know – social context can make or break your recovery. That is why it is important at the beginning of recovery to remove yourself from the places and activities your body is used to. By starting new habits in a new place, you are essentially giving yourself a little headstart!

Energy drinks are the rage right now. Anyone looking for an added boost to get through a long workday, athletic game or all-nighter. But, these drinks come with hidden dangers. They are loaded with caffeine and sugar, often laced with herbs, vitamins or amino acids and can cause harm when consumed in large quantities.

Hundreds of new energy drinks have hit store shelves in the past couple of years. Led by such brands as Red Bull, Rockstar and Monster, energy drinks are a $3.7 billion industry whose revenues have increased by 51 percent in 2006 alone. Red Bull is the third-largest source of beverage profits in convenience stores, according to one recent market survey.

Despite exotic formulations, the energy boost in these drinks is delivered via a whopping dose of common caffeine.

In a study published in the Journal of Analytical Toxicology, a team of researchers analyzed the caffeine content of 10 popular energy drinks and found concentrations as high as 141 milligrams per 16-ounce can. While the Food and Drug Association does not regulate the amount of caffeine in soft drinks, agency guidelines for colas suggest no more than 68 milligrams per 12-ounce serving.

What is scary about all that caffeine, is that there is little scientific research on how high intakes of caffeine affect adolescents over the long term. Those who typically drink the most of it are usually teenagers or young adults.

The American College of Sports Medicine has warned high school athletes away from energy drinks because the caffeine in them may cause dehydration. High schools in Fairfax County, Va., this year removed energy drinks from its vending machines after student athletes complained of headaches and nausea after drinking them at practice.

Energy drinks may be a worry at bars and clubs, too, where certain brands are used as mixers. A recent Brazilian study found that the combination of energy drinks and alcohol reduces men’s ability to perceive their own inebriation, leading the subjects to believe they were more in control than they were. By masking the depressant effects of alcohol, the scientists concluded, energy drinks may have made it more likely that the users drank to excess.

So, energy drinks are a threat for addicts due to their caffeine as well as their encouragement of alcohol abuse.

This disturbing video documents the downward spiral of a meth addict:

Watching someone addicted to meth is like watching a train wreck. If you know someone with an addiction to crystal meth, you have seen the sick truth of addiction magnified.

Meth produces symptoms that are almost exactly like schizophrenia including hallucinations, disorganized thinking, paranoia, and delusions. For many, these symptoms never go away – even after they stop using.

Says Psychiatrist Dr. Heather Keizer

It can be an “on switch” for schizophrenia, she said. “So we can clean you up, get the drugs out of your system and you’re still psychotic because you’ve turned on that switch, and I do see that. I’ll diagnose them with psychosis secondary to substance abuse, but a year down the road I diagnose them as schizophrenic…. I’ve had a lot of cases and that’s why I’m disturbed by this.”

Meth literally poisons the body and mind while simultaneously telling the addict that she needs more and more. Meth is like a demon inside, holding its victim hostage.

HealthyPlace.com quotes Jake, a youth who began using meth at age 16:

The paranoia kicked in,” Jake says. “I’d be so lonely and paranoid. It was a horrible feeling….I’d be looking out my window every five minutes to see if someone was out there. The trees I had always seen looked like people. I was so freaked out one night; I swear to God there were people out there. I hopped out my window in my boxer shorts looking for these people. I couldn’t find them, so I got dressed and walked around the block looking for people in bushes. Thank God my parents caught on.

However irrational someone on meth seems, there is still some piece of the addict that understands the torture of this addiction and yearns for an escape.

If you or someone you know is addicted to meth, please get professional help immediately.

t the Open Door Women’s Transitional Living Center, we offer a variety of programs to teach women how to overcome addiction and live a more purposeful, healthy, life in sobriety. To see a full list of program activities, visit our women’s addiction recovery retreat page.

According a recent article in ScienceDaily, 75 percent of all women smokers say they would be unwilling to gain more than five pounds if they were to quit smoking, and nearly half said they would not tolerate any weight gain. In fact, many women started smoking in the first place because they thought it might help them stay slim.

Now, new findings published in the October issue of Addictive Behaviors show that women who smoke tend to be further from their ideal body image, and more prone to dieting and binging, than those who don’t smoke.

In another recent study, published in August, researchers found that overweight women smokers who were overweight as children were far more likely to have started smoking in their early teens than women whose weight problems started later in life. They also had worse withdrawal symptoms when they tried to quit.

Once they make a serious attempt to quit, evidence suggests that most weight-concerned smokers can be just as successful in kicking the habit as others.

Women who are worried about their weight tend to be concerned about other aspects of their appearance as well. What they need to realize is that smoking has an impact on these too! Among other things, it causes wrinkled skin, thinning hair, cracked fingernails, yellowed teeth and terrible breath.

Some beliefs about smoking and weight are true. For instance, nicotine suppresses the appetite and increases resting metabolic rate. Smokers on average weigh less than people who have never smoked, and smokers who quit tend to gain weight.

Even so, research shows that the effect of quitting on weight is often less dramatic than many women fear. A rough rule of thumb is that one in four women who quit smoking will gain less than five pounds, and another two out of four will gain five to 15 pounds. Only one in four women who quit will gain 15 pounds or more.

At the Open Door Women’s Transitional Living Center, we offer a variety of programs to teach women how to overcome addiction and live a more purposeful, healthy, life in sobriety. To see a full list of program activities, visit our women’s addiction recovery retreat page.

Most women that I know struggle daily to make better choices for their health and body image. Small changes in your daily patterns can have a huge impact!

By lowering the number of calories taken in and increasing physical activity, you can reduce your chances of becoming overweight.

In doing so, you will also reduce your chances of developing certain life-threatening diseases, such as heart disease, stroke, and some cancers.

Here are some tips for healthy eating and physical activity from the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports:

Start Your Day with Breakfast

Breakfast fills your “empty tank” to get you going after a long night without food. Easy to prepare breakfasts include cold cereal with fruit and low-fat or fat-free milk, whole-wheat toast with peanut butter, or whole-grain waffles.

Get Moving!

It’s easy to fit physical activities into your daily routine. Walk, bike, or jog to see friends. Climb stairs instead of taking an escalator or elevator.
Take a 10-minute activity break every hour while you read or watch TV. Try to do these things for at least 30 minutes on most if not all days of the week.

Snack Smart

Choose snacks from different food groups, such as a glass of low-fat or fat-free milk, an apple, or celery sticks with peanut butter.

Work up a Sweat

Regular vigorous workouts—when you’re breathing hard and sweating—improve the health of your heart and lungs, help relieve stress and anxiety, and reduce some of the effects of aging.

Balance your Food Choices

Choosing healthy foods (like fresh fruits and
vegetables) and checking out the labels on food packages will help you get all of the nutrients you need without taking in too many calories.

Make Healthy Eating and Physical Activities Fun!

Take advantage of physical activities you and your friends enjoy doing together and eat healthy foods you like. Be adventurous—try new sports, games, and other activities, as well as new foods. Set realistic goals—don’t try changing too much at once.

At the Open Door Center for Women in Addiction Recovery, we offer a variety of programs - including cooking classes - to women live a more purposeful, healthy, life in sobriety. To see a full list of program activities, visit our women’s addiction recovery retreat page.

Transitional Living Centers or “halfway houses” differ greatly from program to program. Many transitional living centers offer simply a place to live with others who are also in recovery with counseling and group meetings on a regular basis.

At Open Door, we believe that the environment in which women spend their time directly after leaving a treatment center is one of the most critical factors in determining their chances of remaining sober.

30 day treatment centers serve an important purpose. Time spent in a treatment center give the body time to detoxify from drugs or alcohol. Drug and alcohol treatment centers also teach the concepts of the 12 step program, providing the fundamental knowledge necessary for living a life free of addiction.

However, true recover requires more than just detoxifying the body and understand the 12 step program on a cognitive level. Freeing oneself of an addiction requires a complete change in lifestyle that must be experienced and practiced to be fully understood.

Addiction recovery is a process of unlearning the behaviors and thought processes of an addict. In its place, women must adopt the behaviors and thought processes of a healthy, sober women who can appreciate the joy in life and her place within it.

Open Door offers a highly structured women’s transitional living program that is designed to teach women how to love themselves again and to understand their unique value in a sober life.

During the 4 week women’s transitional living program, women will:

• Learn to develop their own unique spiritual center to guide them through the addiction recovery process and through their entire sober life
• Learn how to create energy and strength from within through nutrition and exercise
• Work through the 12 step program, taking the concepts learned in treatment and doing the hard work to actively live these steps

Most people need more than 30 days to truly remove addiction from their lives. It can be devastating to invest time and energy into a treatment center only to leave and relapse. Not only is it frustrating, but it creates a doubt in the addict’s mind that a life of sobriety is possible for them.

A beautiful life of sobriety is possible for everyone. Though we all wish that there were a quick fix, it takes time to unlearn the lifestyle and thought processes of an addict. Simply unlearning old behaviors and having no new behaviors to replace the void can lead to a life of emptiness.

If you feel as if you are on the verge of relapse or have a family member that is ready to leave their drug or alcohol treatment center but not quite ready to handle the pressure of life outside of treatment, please contact us immediately at 888-405-7625.