BREAKING THE CYCLES With Lisa Frederiksen. An Important Resource and a Must Visit Recovery Website…

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I was invited a few years back to be interviewed by my friend Lisa Frederiksen for her fantastic informational recovery website.  I thought I would share some of my interview she did, as she was kind enough to do so and to have a new platform to raise awareness about how I learned to “break the cycle” of my gambling addiction and alcohol abuse as I began the road to long-term recovery.

I was honored and jumped on the chance, (lol) as she has helped many from addiction as a powerful advocate, speaker, and in writing as a popular author of several addiction/recovery books, like her newest title, “10th Anniversary Edition If You Loved Me, You’d Stop!: What You Really Need to Know When Your Loved One Drinks Too Much (1) available on Amazon online.

First, here is more about Lisa and our interview I so appreciated her doing about me and please visit her website OFTEN at BREAKING THE CYCLES …

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LISA’S NEW BOOK IS a MUST READ:

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Help for Anyone Affected by Someone’s Drinking.

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Lisa Frederiksen
Author | Speaker | Consultant

Available at local bookstores, libraries, and online retailers. Here are a few:
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Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Target
Wordery
Walmart
Amazon U.K. 

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ABOUT LISA FREDERIKSEN:

Lisa Frederiksen founded Breaking The Cycles.com to provide education, prevention, and intervention services on a range of addiction*-related topics anchored in 21st-century brain and scientific research.

This research was guided by her 40+ years of personal experience with secondhand drinking, a concept she first introduced in 2009. Working to overcome its impact, she’s spent the last 16 years studying and simplifying this research on topics related to her experiences. These topics include alcoholism, drug addiction, alcohol, and other drug use disorders, mental illness, co-occurring disorders, the family member’s experience, toxic stress, adverse childhood experiences, codependency, brain development, and childhood trauma.

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Lisa’s goal in founding BreakingTheCycles.com in 2008 was to change, and in some cases simply start, the conversations on these topics so that together we can end the stigma, misinformation, and shame that keep over 120 million Americans stuck fighting something they truly don’t understand. This 120 million represents those struggling with their misuse of alcohol or other drugs and the people – typically family members and friends – who love them and try desperately to help them stop.

She does this through presentations, workshops, consulting, blogging and media outreach.  Lisa holds a BA in Economics, the University of California at Davis and with over 39+years of experience? You’ll need to visit her page as there is TOO MUCH TO LIST! (Lol.)  Here: “Changing The Conversation”…

**The term “addiction” may be regarded as equivalent to a severe substance use disorder as defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5, 2013).**

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Recovery from Gambling Addiction. Interview With Catherine Townsend-Lyon

“Now that gambling addiction is currently the #1 addiction with the highest suicide rate than any other and over 16 million problem gamblers in just the US alone, I want to share some of my story and devastation in my life due to this cunning addiction,” says Catherine Townsend-Lyon, today’s guest author.

Best-selling Kodel Empire Publishing Author of the book, Addicted To Dimes: Confessions of a Liar and a Cheat, Catherine is a freelance recovery writer, a former columnist for “In Recovery Magazine’s ‘The Author’s Café’.” She also writes for several addiction/recovery publications, including: “Keys to Recovery” and will be featured in next month’s issue of “Recovery Today Magazine.” Catherine was chosen as a contributor to a major media article published by Time.com and Nautilus.us magazines titled; “Addicted to Anticipation: What goes wrong in the brain chemistry of a gambling addict.”

Catherine is an Expert Recovery blogger of Gambling Addiction Recovery for Addictionland.com and is the founder and author of her blog here at “Bet Free Recovery Now”  covering gambling addiction and recovery.

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Recovery from Gambling Addiction by Catherine Townsend-Lyon

My name is Catherine, and I am a recovering compulsive addicted gambler. Jan 29th, 2020 will be my 13th-year mark in recovery, but will never forget where I have come from with gambling addiction. I came from the depths of hell, hopelessness, and despair. Gambling addiction took just about everything from me like family, friends, reputation, jobs, my home, car, almost my marriage and cost me way more than money; it almost cost me my life twice from suicide.

At the same time, I was also suffering from undiagnosed mental & emotional health issues and disorders I had no idea about until 2002. My first failed suicide attempt. I woke up in the hospital with bandages wrapped around both my wrists and could hear two people talking about knives all over my living room as I blacked out again. They were the two EMTs and a police officer who brought me to the hospital as I found out a few weeks later. All I remember was everything going black in nothingness. Now I know it was a complete mind and body break down. A mental/emotional blackout. From there I went to an addiction/mental crisis center. Was on suicide watch the first few days.

Shortly after, a psychiatrist started working with me. And of course, here I am, I was a compulsive gambler and being dually-diagnosed with mental health disorders.  So, I started working with an addictions counselor as well as a psychiatrist. I had attempted to stop gambling on my own but felt I could control it on my own. I failed with many relapses and binges due to the “diseased thinking” while in outpatient treatment. I guess I had not reached my bottom yet. Even after a 28 day stay in a crisis center and a suicide attempt!

What was wrong with me?

It’s called ADDICTION. It is a sickness that is very hard to overcome. But possible. And this wasn’t my last time I would work this circuit. Not due to actively gambling, due to the financial pressures from this disease, I had another suicide attempt in 2006 as it seemed I had not done enough work in all areas of recovery, including my financial inventory. First lesson? A well-balanced recovery plan.

But in 2006 I also just wanted to be normal, live life in recovery without having to take medications for mental/emotional issues. So, I stopped taking them thinking it was just the gambling that was causing my mental illness problems of PTSD, manic depression, mania, anxiety, and bipolar insomnia cycles. So, within two weeks of no meds? I was back to severe depression and suicidal. What was my answer?

I took all my meds at once. I had gotten to that dark, black hole of hopelessness again. Back in the hospital again, another 20-day crisis center and 4 days of suicide watch. When released this time, I had learned the hard way that I need to take my meds to maintain my mental/emotional health and well-being as they call this being “dually diagnosed or dual diagnosis.”

Recovery with even negative experiences, sprinkled with some “faith” can show us many life lessons in recovery. If we are not learning them, we won’t see our growth. Even when you are not participating in your preference of addiction, we can still have problems arise and life challenges in recovery, so being prepared is vital.

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NOW, The Rest of My Story Can Be Read on Lisa’s Amazing Website At “Changing The Conversation”…

And, again, all of her books are very well written and so helpful for anyone who is suffering in silence from addictions. Please, give her a visit if you are a person maintaining recovery and there are exceptional information and advice even for family members as well.