herbal remedy is off limits for their recovery.
LOOKING GOOD AND FEELING GOOD
At some point in recovery most women begin to take better care of their bodies. It’s a natural progression. Maybe dieting didn’t work before because we were drinking half of our daily calorie allotment, as well as eating. Or maybe we had to stop jogging in early recovery because our exercise compulsion was out of control. But at some point in our double-digit years we’ll begin to look at diet, exercise, and our overall health.
We also find that as our life gets better we want to have more energy to enjoy that life and enjoy it longer. That too will lead us to pay attention to nutrition, fitness, and preventative healthcare. We know that becoming physically strong can increase our psychological strength as well. Most of us have seen the articles and news reports that detail the research showing that regular exercise can help us to manage stress. Women in recovery—who may have a variety of additional stressors—can benefit especially.
MEDICATION USE
An important part of taking care of our bodies is being mindful of medications. This is always a tricky area for people in recovery, and as people in long-time recovery we have to be especially aware. It’s possible that the longer we are in recovery, the more comfortable we become, and the more “normal” we may feel, especially with issues around healthcare and medicines.
It’s also true that the longer we are in recovery, the older we are, and that simple fact of aging means additional health-related issues. Now, I’m not a doctor and even the doctors we meet as comrades in recovery are not experts on medications for recovering people. We need to turn to true experts—our own physicians who know about our history of addiction, or doctors who specialize in addiction medicine.
For example, most of us avoid the class of medicines called benzodiazepines (or benzos, in slang parlance). Benzos include Valium, Xanax, Ativan, Klonopin, Librium, etc., and are often prescribed for anxiety or depression. Any usage should be only at need, and then strictly supervised by a doctor who knows us and knows of our addiction.
Also to be avoided are prescription painkillers and other opioid-based drugs: morphine, methadone, Vicodin, Oxycontin, Percocet, Dilaudid, Lortab, etc. A trip to the dentist can lead to disaster for a person in recovery who takes these, even as directed, unless strict precautions are taken.
Aging bodies can lead to new hips, new knees, and back surgeries. And those often come with the need for temporary use of serious pain medications.
We must beware of stimulants, as well. Illegal ones include cocaine and meth, of course, but also prescriptions, such as Ritalin and Concerta. Even some over-the-counter asthma medications have a stimulating effect. There is even some controversy in twelve-step circles over the use of so-called “energy drinks,” or excessive caffeine consumption.
We also want to be careful even as we face the good news of better medicine. Aging bodies can lead to new hips, new knees, and back surgeries. And those often come with the need for temporary use of serious pain medications. We have all known people in long-term recovery who have been led to relapse by correctly and legitimately prescribed pain medication, so this is an area for special care. When we face a surgery or treatment that does require pain management we need to tell everyone ahead of time. Tell your doctors, recovery friends, sponsor, and family members before the surgery. Make a plan so that it’s okay for them to check on you when you are using the prescribed medications.
But not all medications are prescribed. We also want to be careful with remedies we buy in the drugstore or at the health food store. A popular tea called kombucha is a true health aid for many people with digestive problems. It’s sold in health food stores. But we have to be careful. Kombucha is a fermented beverage. It contains alcohol. That’s one example.
A joke I heard recently with an implied warning goes like this: “Be careful with Geritol and NyQuil; there’s a reason they come with a shot glass.” Yes, those are but two of many over-the-counter medicines that contain a high percentage of alcohol. Read labels, and avoid ingesting even a small percentage of alcohol; even if your drug of choice was marijuana, why risk relapsing over a shot of 50-proof NyQuil?
MENOPAUSE
Women who stay in recovery for a long time will have to face perimenopause and menopause exactly like women who are not in recovery. Yes, real life again. But women in recovery have a few special considerations. For a woman in recovery, menopause can be a time of additional vulnerability.
One of my early sponsors joked about recovering women and menopause saying, “The hormonal swings of menopause can make you feel like you are drunk, and if you have ever been drunk, then you know that the best way to fix that is to have another drink.” So we want to be careful as those midlife hormonal changes begin.
Some of the physiological changes for midlife women include loss of muscle mass, changing levels of sex hormones like estrogen and progesterone, and a dropping metabolic rate. Again, these are all pretty normal occurrences, but the consequences and how we feel about them can impact our recovery.
A study from the University of Colorado suggests that over the roughly ten-year period of perimenopause through menopause, about 50 percent of women will gain ten to fifteen pounds because of their lowered metabolic rate. It’s safe to say that few women are happy about gaining weight and for most women, both in and out of recovery, that brings feelings of being unattractive, less desirable, and getting old that can jeopardize our sense of well-being.
Menopause raises medication and health questions. Night sweats, insomnia, mood swings, and libido changes all have a physiological basis, but they have emotional and behavioral manifestations, too.
Tabitha Kane, a gynecologist in Albany, New York, confirms, “Most women will see a decrease in libido and they will experience vaginal dryness. The insomnia can be really significant, with resultant irritability. It’s a stressful time for any woman. There is a general increase in irritability. Divorces occur.”
Concentration and memory can be a problem too, which, for women whose self-image is tied to their professional functioning, is especially hard. “They will take a hit there too,” says Dr. Kane. And anxiety can increase. “Some women feel like they’re going a little crazy.” So with all those factors combined, menopause can significantly affect our relationships and self-image.
Several doctors have confirmed that women who have no history of depression could have more than twice the risk of depression during the menopausal transition. “Yes, this does resolve soon after menopause, but for some women that ‘transition’ can take a couple of years,” according to Dr. Kane.
So how do we sort out our behavior as we are going through menopause? You’ve heard the jokes:
“Question: What is the difference between a terrorist and a woman in menopause?”
Answer: “You can negotiate with a terrorist.”
Yes, it’s funny because there’s an element of truth.
For a woman in recovery who is trying to be self-aware and mindful of her behavior and her communication—how can she know if her less-than-desirable behavior is evidence of a character defect or the result of declining estrogen?
We have to be mindful at this time because we could either use menopause as
