Steps on our Road to Recovery

Daily Steps On Our Road to Recovery for 14 to 20 June 1999.

Published Last Week. A daily hint published each day since June 1996. This is past my third year anniversary since starting my web pages. Page Down for the next days that are added a day at a time. I have moved to http://www.recoverybydiscovery.com and this daily page is now here at https://www.recoverybydiscovery.com/daily.htm . I would appreciate any feedback, questions and suggestions that you have.

What I am mainly going through now is the DSM-III-R Desk Reference a "disorder" at a time and commenting on the spiritual and recovery aspects. The DSM is what the American Psychiatric Association uses to label symptoms to facilitate communication in their community. Unfortunately, the labeling from the DSM can shut down communication with those seeking temporary assistance and spread the stigmas of mental illness. The DSM can also bring some comfort by telling some that others have had the same experience. I am adding additional comfort by pointing to some ways to start getting out of the "disorders". I am not writing about cures. I am writing about how the cure process works over time. Instantaneous cures can be as traumatic as the original event that generated the disorder or illness. Instantaneous cures may not do us any good, when we get the same disorder back, since we have not changed the thought system that caused the disorder in the first place.

I am just going to give you a picture of what is left in the DSM-III for us to discuss. There is an Appendix A with three disorders that they thought needed more study before they coded them. Then there is Appendix B with decision trees to help give us our codes. Appendix C has an alphabetic listing of the "disorders". Appendix D has a numerical listing of the codes they use. And lastly they have an appendix with out a letter. That is a list of symptoms with all the name that they can call us. I found it significant that they did not just call this Appendix E. It seemed like they are avoiding the simplicity of just using symptoms. I am not going to avoid that here although this non appendix seems to have been left out of the DSM-IVR Desk Reference.

14 June 1999

What we are continuing this week is to go through the major symptoms

and all the labels we can qualify for from these major symptoms. The

symptoms are a lot simpler than the labels. That is what I am doing,

shifting the emphasis from labels, to symptoms. Labels do not cure,

they often do the opposite. Symptoms can lead to healing.

Today's symptom is "elevated blood pressure". The labels

could be the following:

Alcohol or Sedative or Hypnotic or Anxiolytic withdrawal delirium, Amphetamine or Cocaine or PCP intoxication, and Uncomplicated alcohol withdrawal.

I do not know why the labels did not include many other labels.

When we have elevated blood pressure we can have organic

disorders. We can have many of the other "disorders" when

we are angry. Just being angry will elevate our blood pressure.

That is from conscious anger. That would make no difference

when the anger was unconscious.

15 June 1999

There are some new items on our free page for those that are

interested. For example: You can check out your software for

updates at http://www.updates.com and http://www.manageable.com/.

I use my free page to keep track of some of the best free resources

that I have found, so far. I use my books pages to keep track of some

of the best books I have found, so far. I am currently reading a book

called "How to Argue and Win Every Time" by the famous lawyer

Gerry Spense. He really is writing about what winning is. He is writing

about how to really live, and then you win every time. He calls prejudice

an indelible ink stain, because you are unlikely to change a prejudice.

That is why I write about forgiveness here. That is one way to change

our pre judgments into an open mind. The we start to grow the mind

of wonder we had as a child and JC talked about that is back in the

Kingdom of God.

The other thing he writes about that stands in the way of our seeing

clearly is beliefs. When we hang on to beliefs that do not work well

for us we are standing in the way of our living in the Kingdom. When

we are not in the Kingdom we have some beliefs in the way.

16 June 1999

The next symptoms are pupillary constriction and dilation. The only

labels they had for us were from taking substances. For constriction

they only had "Opioid intoxication". For dilation they had Amphetamine

and Cocaine and opioid intoxication, hallucinogen hallucinosis and Opioid

withdrawal.

But, we all know that our eyes constrict and dilate from emotional

states. When we are suspicious and want to see the details we can

close down our pupils somewhat. When we are trusting and see

with a more warm fuzzy we open up our pupils somewhat. Perhaps

not too many doctors saw our open pupils. :))

The next symptom is "profuse sweating". There are a lot more

labels associated with profuse sweating. They are:

Adjustment disorder with physical complaints, Alcohol or Sedative or Hypnotic or Anxiolytic withdrawal delirium, Amphetamine or Cocaine intoxication, Generalized anxiety or Late luteal phase dysphoric or Overanxious or Panic or Panic with agoraphobia or Separation anxiety or Undifferentiated somatoform disorder, Hypochondriasis, Opioid or Uncomplicated alcohol or Uncomplicated Sedative or Uncomplicated Hypnotic or Uncomplicated Anxiolytic withdrawal, and Organic anxiety syndrome.

Someone says to not sweat the small stuff and it is all small stuff,

so why all the fancy names? :))

There are forms of fear that have sweating. If there is no real

reason for the sweating, I found that I could outlast the sweating.

17 June 1999

Today's symptom is "tachycardia" which is a rapid heartbeat.

The following labels include this symptom:

Adjustment with physical complaints or Generalized anxiety or Late luteal phase dysphoric or Panic or Panic with agoraphobia or Somatization or Undifferentiated somatoform disorder, Alcohol withdrawal or Sedative withdrawal or Hypnotic withdrawal or Anxiolytic withdrawal delirium, Amphetamine or Caffeine or Cannabis or Cocaine or PCP intoxication, Hallucinogen hallucinosis, hypochondriasis, Organic anxiety syndrome, and Uncomplicated alcohol or sedative or hypnotic or anxiolytic withdrawal.

Rapid heartbeat can be one of the symptoms of fear. Actually

we can trace most symptoms back to anger and fear. Our

symptoms are just telling us we have a difference between

what we have and what we want.

18 June 1999

Sometimes, what we have is just a rapid heartbeat, from time

to time. Then, we need to verify that there is not a physical

problem, that doctors can help us cure. When that is not the

case, we need to try other means to let go and let God.

When I had a rapid heartbeat I was encouraged. I had watched

this pattern many times. I knew my spirit was going to build up

energy in my body, to clear something else. First I would just

wait and watch. My heart would race, and when it had built up

enough energy to move, I could feel my spirit move in some part

of my body. Then I would have another symptom to be grateful for.

I was grateful, because after I went through a series of symptoms,

I would hear a pop and something else was released into spirit.

I would feel lighter and better off and more clear. Another part

of my baggage was gone. I did not always know what part, nor

did I care. After a while, baggage is just baggage.

19 June 1999

The next symptom is "chest pain". Chest pain is associated with

the following labels:

Adjustment disorder with physical complaints, Hypochondriasis, Late luteal phase dysphoric or Overanxious or Panic or Panic with agoraphobia or Separation anxiety or Somatization or Somatoform pain or Undifferentiated somatoform disorder.

These labels are about upsets. They are again about differences

between what we want and what we have. That difference can show

up as a pain in our chest.

What if the difference is one that we want? What if we want to be

more loving and understanding? What if our pain in the chest, our heart

area, is just our heart changing to more loving? I know that I have

experienced pains in my heart area before I had a more open heart.

It depends. We could intentionally decide that we were going to let

any pains open us up more and heal us.

20 June 1999

The next physical symptom is "abdominal pain". The associated

labels were:

Adjustment disorder with physical complaints, Caffeine intoxication, Generalized anxiety or Late luteal phase dysphoric or Overanxious or Panic or Panic with agoraphobia or Separation anxiety or Somatization or Undifferentiated somatoform disorder, Hypochondriasis, and Organic anxiety syndrome.

A pain in our gut can mean many things. First we need to eliminate

the physical causes like eating. But, even eating problems can be traced

back to conscious and unconscious thoughts we have about eating. It

just depends on what our pain is telling us. In every case there is a

difference between what we have and what we want. We want our

pain to be resolved and we want to return to peace.

After we have eliminated any physical causes, any pain is an opportunity

to learn the focusing technique in Focusing by Eugene T. Gendlin, Ph.D.

Many other techniques are available in books listed on our books page.

Very Respectfully,

Michael Foster, MA

DiscoveryCoachemail

https://www.recoverybydiscovery.com or

http://i.am/rbd; Total-DC or 868-2532

or 868-6749

Very Respectfully,

Michael Foster, MA

Discovery Coach

https://www.recoverybydiscovery.com

DiscoveryCoachemail

"Learn HOW to recovery by discovering the blocks you need to remove and the actions you need to take and what you need to let go of as your blocks to your blessings."

From my book in process, The Spiritual Cookbook (Generic Recipes for a Better Life)

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I started my daily page, because it is useful for me to look for some recovery tip or secret each day for my spiritual growth. we and I only need one secret to work on and let it work on me each day. They are secrets because they are usually the opposite of what the majority of society teaches. They must be secret because they are not commonly used. A friend of mine once said "Common Sense is not much in Common.". Now that I have grandchildren I am also writing for them. I would have really liked for my grandparents to have passed on what they learned.

I am including Sunday as it is my formal day of learning the lord most high's secrets. If you would like ask questions, or contribute some of your wisdom, or want to make some comments or want to vote for which day to put on my tip of the month page or tell your success stories, click Michael Foster, M. A.