Show Me The Money

Money is not talked about nearly enough in the recovery community. That’s unfortunate; it is one of the areas that can have a significant impact on the quality of sobriety, happiness, and personal growth and integrity.  

It’s common for persons with the a substance use disorder** to have had a damaged, dishonest, and dangerous relationship with money. The old, stigmatizing, and outdated image of an “addict”** stealing from family members or pawning family treasures is still common, but severe money issues can take many forms that are not featured in the public mind regarding addiction. Credit card bills, impact to the credit score, undisclosed accounts, and even simply using family funds on drugs and alcohol can have lasting effects.  

Money stress is significant. When you are having financial difficulties, you become self-absorbed and can only focus on yourself and your problems (trying to pay the rent, bills, debts etc.). Stress is a challenge, and if not managed well, can develop into a trigger. A trigger not managed can move persons into a path of returning to use. The process towards return to use can lead to interacting with psycho-active substances; the last act of a relapse.   

The stress created by money issues creates a specific dynamic, and often there is no escape. Money issues are pervasive, finding their way into every crevice of your life and waiting for you there. Let’s walk through a day of a hypothetical single person in recovery from alcoholism and see how “money issues” show up:  

Your Day and Money

Morning

You get up and have another notice in your email or text of an NSF fee or your “account balance fell below $25.” You brush your teeth and shower, grateful that there is hot water; that means the gas has not been turned off.  

You get in your car, which reminds you of course that your inspection and registration are due. Not to mention the car payment due on the 15th. You get to the office where you try to concentrate and do your work. You are frequently distracted and find it’s a struggle to not be short and easily irritated with co-workers.   

Lunch

You go out to lunch with your co-workers because the company is important to you and you enjoy it. Only you don’t “enjoy” it because you know you should bring lunch from home, but you didn’t. Again.   

Evening

Work is over, and you go to an AA meeting. You should go home afterward, begin taking care of home management tasks, make a plan to address the financial issues and a meal plan for home and work to help organize and manage the food budget. But, instead, you go out to eat with AA friends, spending $13 of the $16 you have in your wallet.   

You go to bed thinking about going back to the PayDay Loan services you used a few months ago, …  

There is no place of sanctuary and relief in this person’s life. Home, work, fellowship, and recovery are all impacted negatively by this person’s relationship with money. Imagine if our hypothetical person weren’t single and had a partner or kids? Can you see how complicated and scary and vulnerable that family unit would become?  

 I created a video that talks about money stress in sobriety.

I can help you develop a plan to help with money and resource management.

Marilyn can help if you need a sliding scale.

Below is a link to a meditation you may find helpful.    

https://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-11041/a-meditation-for-when-youre-stressing-about-money.html   

**Person-centered language note: As a leading clinician in substance use disorder assessment, treatment, and recovery, I am committed to elevating the language around mental health and substance use disorder. This means I will use “alcohol use disorder” rather than “alcoholic.” It means I will use “person with a substance use disorder” rather than “addict.” I minimize my use of the term addiction because it carries stigma, often people have their own relationship with the word accompanied with misinformation. I use the term recurrence or return to use rather than relapse. However, it’s important that people searching for help get connected with services that benefit them. In this regard, people are not searching “am I a person with a substance use disorder?” They are searching “am I an addict?” They do not search, “can a high functioning person have an alcohol use disorder?” They search “am I a high functioning alcoholic.” They don’t search “treatment for people who have a recurrence” but do search “how do I stop being a chronic relapser?” As such, I want to affirm people with substance use disorders with my care, which includes language but I also need to structure my business in a way that google searches find my material.