Porn Addiction Relapse & Recognizing Triggers

Top 5 Causes of Addiction Relapse

There are a million reasons why someone relapses, but addiction specialists agree that avoiding triggers-the situations and emotions that make drugs attractive-is half the battle. According to Elizabeth Hartney, a leading addiction specialist, the top 5 reasons that those struggling with addiction relapse are:

1. Stress: Stress is one of the top causes of relapse. While one can’t avoid all forms of stress, making lifestyle, relationship, and priority changes can help the recovering addict to avoid situations that spark tension and other negative emotions associated with relapse.
2. People or Places Connected to the Addictive Behavior: Being around people and places associated with one’s addiction can often push a person to relapse. For example, going back to a favorite bar may tempt an individual to pick up the bottle again. It’s better to avoid these temptations, especially in the early phases of recovery.
3. Negative or Challenging Emotions: While negative emotions are a normal part of life, those struggling with addiction often cite frustration, anger, anxiety, and loneliness, as triggers for relapse. Therefore, usually as a part of therapy, it’s essential to develop effective ways of managing, these feelings.
4. Seeing or Sensing the Object of Your Addiction: In recovery, even a slight reminder of the object of the addiction, such as seeing a portrayal of addictive behavior on television, can lead to relapse. While it is impossible to avoid such reminders forever, developing skills for managing any urges or cravings can aid in preventing relapse.
5. Times of Celebration: Most situations that can trigger relapse are perceived as negative. However, sometimes positive situations such as times of celebration, where alcohol or drugs are present, are just as risky. Avoiding such events or bringing along a trusted friend can assist in preventing relapse.

While relapse may happen for some and not others, it’s important to remember that relapse does not mean failure. Recovering from addiction is a life-long process of hard work and dedication to one’s program and recovery path.

Recognizing Triggers

An easy way to look at triggers is to think of them as synonymous with temptation. While you may not always be able to control whether you experience a trigger or a tempting thought, you do have power over whether you succumb to them. In other words, just because you’re tempted to do something you know is bad for your sobriety doesn’t mean you’ll blindly follow through on the urge. Learning to trust your ability to say no and surrounding yourself with people and situations that support you help to build the “muscle” of sobriety.

Triggers can include people, places and things; in general, anything that you associate with substance abuse and/or the compulsive behavior can be a trigger. This can include seeing or hearing something on TV about drinking or gambling; the sound of ice cubes hitting a glass as a family member gets ready to pour a refreshing soda; the smell of pot at a public venue; being around too many people, or being alone; not taking your medication and many, many more sights, smells, sounds, tastes, words, music — the list of possible triggers can seem endless sometimes.

Many self-help support groups use the acronym “H.A.L.T.” to describe certain triggers. The letters stand for Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired; for many, these are common situations that make it more likely you’ll use or drink.

What serves as a trigger for you may be completely different for someone else. However, these are some common triggers, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

• The anniversary dates of losses or trauma
• Frightening news events
• Too much to do; feeling overwhelmed
• Family friction
• The end of a relationship
• Spending too much time alone
• Being judged, criticized, teased or put down
• Financial problems; getting a big bill
• Physical illness
• Sexual harassment
• Being yelled at
• Aggressive-sounding noises or exposure to anything that makes you feel uncomfortable
• Being around someone who has treated you badly
• Certain smells, tastes or noises that remind you of your drug of choice

Once you’ve learned to identify your triggers, you can take the proper steps to deal with them effectively. For some, it helps to keep a list of coping techniques that have worked in the past — such as going for a run, calling a close friend or your sponsor, or “urge surfing”(imagine yourself as a surfer who will ride the urge, staying on top of it until it crests, breaks and turns into less powerful, foamy surf) — along with how you felt after afterward. For example, remembering the good feeling of exhaustion and inner quiet after a long run, or the sense of pride and power you felt after riding out the urge. It’s also important to keep a list of people you can call if triggers become overwhelming. That human connection in the moment may be enough to give you the support and encouragement you need to get through without giving in to the trigger.

And remember to share what you’ve learned with others in self-help support groups or group therapy. There’s great collective wisdom in the rooms of recovery and many opportunities to provide and receive suggestions for excellent coping techniques for triggers.

Signs You’re About to Relapse

 

How do I know if I’m slipping? If you’re asking yourself this question, it could be that you already suspect your recovery might be in jeopardy. Or you might just be a bit cautious. Either way, knowing the signs of relapse can give you the time to take proactive steps to avoid slipping back into using.
Here are 10 common signs of an impending relapse; you don’t need to experience all of them to be at risk. For some, a single trigger can signal relapse is on the way. The key is learning how to recognize the warnings and reaching out for support at the first sign of trouble.

10 Warning Signs of Relapse

1. Negative thinking. You find yourself regarding daily life as bleak and the tasks you need to do as burdensome. You feel like you have a great weight on your shoulders. Increasing feelings of hopelessness or negativity should alert you that you could be in danger of relapsing.
2. Easily angered or annoyed. It’s as if your nerves are on hair-trigger sensitive. You become mad, even furious, often without warning and increasingly over small things. This isn’t like you, but you can’t seem to pull out of it. Getting into arguments with loved ones and family members more frequently is another clear sign that you could be on the verge of relapse.
3. Complacency or overconfidence. After being in recovery for a while, it starts to seem like you’ve got it all down. You know what to do and begin to feel like you can handle any situation. As a result, you may let some of your regular recovery to-do items slide, for example, attending 12-step meetings or practicing self-care habits like healthy eating or exercising. If you find yourself becoming complacent or overly confident about your sobriety, you may need to reassess and reinvest in your recovery program.
4. Increased stress. Without the comfortable crutch of alcohol, drugs or a problematic behavior to smooth over daily aggravations or unexpected situations, you may find your stress level is at the breaking point. Worries about finances, performance at work and how your recovery may be affecting your loved ones can all take a dramatic toll, wearing you down and increasing the likelihood of relapse.
5. Skipping meetings. Not everyone needs to attend self-help support group meetings as part of their recovery. But if you’ve been in recovery for a period of time and you have found meetings helpful, after a while it may begin to seem tedious and unnecessary to keep going. Maybe you feel that you don’t need the regularity of meetings to keep you on course and that you’re perfectly fine on your own. That may in fact be true, but it’s worth paying attention to this tendency, as some may find it’s a short distance from cutting back or skipping recovery meetings to sliding into relapse.
6. Putting yourself in risky situations. If you find that you’re going back to your old haunts and hanging out with friends you used to use with, that’s a precarious situation — and one likely full of old triggers. So guard against thoughts of revisiting the people, places and things you associate with using.
7. Denial. Questioning whether you ever really had a problem or denying to others that you have a problem are both signs that you could be in danger of relapse. If others notice and comment on a difference in you, yet you continue to insist that you’re on top of your recovery, it may be time to slow down and reflect before you slip back into addictive patterns.
8. Isolation. Holing up in the house, refusing to see friends and keeping your distance from family members are troublesome signs of relapse. When you’re in recovery, you need sober, supportive people in your life who reinforce this positive path you’re taking. If you feel depressed, disheartened or angry or alone, instead of sitting home and feeling miserable, get out and surround yourself with people (or at least one person) you trust and with whom you can share some time, even if you’re not ready to open up about how you’re feeling.
9. Loss of interest in family, friends and activities. When problems start to mount and you feel like everything’s about to come crashing down on you, you may notice in yourself a tendency to withdraw from people and activities you once enjoyed. To safeguard your hard-won recovery, it’s important to talk about what’s bothering you, either with a trusted loved one, your sponsor, your therapist or counselor or a member of the clergy.
10. Losing hope. When life looks completely black and you feel a sense of hopelessness and despair, this is a critical warning sign of impending relapse. Take such feelings seriously and get help right away.

 Source: Internet

 

The Philosophy of Gender in Islam

The Philosophy of Genderin Islam

Articles - Women in Islam

Wednesday, 01 Sha'ban 1428

If God is a man, that’s bad news for women – because masculinity would then be divine – and hence only the male would have been created in the divine image. This explains why the feminist revolution has redefined God as being both male and female. Islam declares that Allah Most High created both the male and the female but is neither male nor female. In addition, He never appeared in the person of anyone, male or female. And so neither at point of creation, nor at any time thereafter, has the male ever defined the female in Islam. Islam is thus unique in offering to women the opportunity to pray to a God who is not a man.

Nor has Islam ever discriminated between the male and the female in an unjust way. A woman complained to the Prophet (peace be upon him) that divine revelation in the Qur’an was addressing men only. What about women? she asked. In response, revelation came down in the Qur’an that addressed both men and women in such constant repetition that the matter was conclusively settled that Allah Most High does not discriminate in matters concerning gender in any unjust way. Indeed the blessed Prophet declared that all of mankind (male and female) would stand before Allah on the Last Day “as equal in His sight as are the teeth of a comb.”

The Qur’an has clearly established that men have (a measure of) authority over women, and has obliged a woman to be obedient to her husband (or guardian). In this connection Islam has gone to great lengths to reaffirm the natural order pertaining to the status, role and function of gender in society. Consider the following:

• The Qur’an refers to Allah Most High in the masculine, and never in the feminine gender. (The masculine gender in Arabic does not necessarily connote masculinity.)

• The Prophets sent by Allah to mankind to function as spiritual guides and leaders were all men. There was never a woman Prophet. But there is a perverted European effort which seeks to promote Mary to Prophethood.

• Although angels are neither male nor female the Qur’an gives them male names and denounces those who give them female names.

• When a child is born a thanksgiving feast called ‘Aqiqah’ is held. For a male child two animals must be sacrificed, but a female child requires the sacrifice of only one animal.

• The Prophet said that “the best row (in congregational prayer) for men is the first, and the worse is the last. And the best row for women is the last, and the worse is the first” (Sahih Muslim).

Thus men were placed physically in front of women in prayer for all times. A misguided American woman, in true Yankee style, recently put herself in front of all the Muslim men (the Americans call them guys) and led them in a completely invalid Islamic congregational prayer in a Euro-Christian church. America is a strange place! 

Every morning when the sparkling sunshine envelops us as we welcome the ‘day’ as ‘day’, and every night as we gaze in wonder at the romance of the stars and moonlight and recognize ‘night’ as ‘night’, the splendor and harmonious symphony of gender overwhelms us. It is this that Islam seeks to preserve, even as the essentially godless European world and its carbon copies around the world struggle to overturn it.

Nevertheless Islam does employ a philosophy of gender that reinforces the functional differences of the male and the female in society, and that is the focus of our essay. The Qur’an teaches analogically that as day and night are functionally different yet interdependent, so too are the male and female. The ominous warning is that if this were ever to be changed, if the ‘night’ were to attempt to become ‘day’ and the sacred order of gender were to be overturned, as in the modern feminist revolution, then the anarchy and disintegration of society that would ensue would be equivalent of cosmic mayhem. The process of unraveling of social order has already commenced. The police service knows this quite well. But so many who have eyes yet cannot see, and cannot connect ‘cause’ and ‘effect’.

Source

The Philosophy of Gender in Islam

The alternative for believers to electoral politics in the modern secular state - JERUSALEM IN THE QUR’AN

The alternative for believers to electoral politics in the modern secular state

The Jewish, Christian or Muslim reader is likely to ask: Is there an alternative (for believers) to electoral politics in the secular state? The answer is: Yes! there is. The alternative is to struggle to restore the sovereignty of the God of Abraham, Most High, in the political system – to struggle for recognition of His Authority as Supreme Authority – and to struggle for recognition of His Law as the Supreme Law. That is the most noble of all struggles any one can ever wage, and it is a struggle that must be pursued until the end of time.

The alternative for believers is to uphold whatever Allah made Halal as Halal, and whatever Allah made Haram as Haram, regardless of the price they may have to pay. Also, when a people commit Shirk, Kufr, Dhulm and Fisq, then believers should condemn such conduct, oppose it, struggle against it, and turn to Allah and ask Him to separate them from such people:

“So separate us from this sinful rebellious people!”

(Qur’an, al-Maidah, 5:25)

The Qur’an refers to this mission of believers as “amr bil ma’aruf” (enjoining the right) and “nahi ‘an al-munkar” (opposing the wrong). If the struggle to restore the sovereignty of Allah Most High and the supremacy of His Authority and Law (in any territory) were to succeed, then that territory would become Dar al-Islam. Muslims would rule over that territory. But there is an alternative plural model of a state in which Muslims would share control over a territory with non-Muslims on the basis of political equality and through a constitutional agreement that would allow Muslims to recognize the sovereignty of Allah and the supremacy of His Authority and Law over ‘them’. Prophet Muhammad (sallalahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) established that ‘plural’ model of state in the city-State of Madina wherein Muslims, Jews and pagan Arabs shared control over territory, and over the state, on the basis of political equality. 

Mankind has the freedom of choice to accept or to reject the religion of Abraham (‘alaihi al-Salam). However, once the religion of Abraham (‘alaihi al-Salam) is accepted, believers do not have the freedom to choose between either a government of believers or a non-believing government. When they are denied that freedom in any territory they must search for some place where that freedom exists and then migrate to such a territory! Thus the God of Abraham, Most High, has commanded believers to:

“Oh you who believe, obey Allah, and obey the Messenger, and (obey) those from amongst yourselves who are in (positions of) authority….”

(Qur’an, al-Nisa, 4:59)

When they no longer have the freedom to establish their own government anywhere, and they have to live under non-believing rule, believers in the religion of Abraham (‘alaihi al-Salam) ‘submit’ to that rule until such time as they can once again choose fellow-believers to rule over them. But ‘submission’ to such non-believing rule cannot involve their participation in establishing that non-believing government. Believers will submit to such rule on the condition of religious freedom, i.e., that nothing is forced upon them that violates the Law of the God of Abraham. While such a government will not be ‘their’ government, they can advise and assist the government in all that is true, good and virtuous, while warning, resisting and abstaining from all that is false, evil and harmful. 

It is in the very nature of the modern secular state that it would never allow elections to be used to transform it into a different model of a state – such as a state that would recognize the Sovereignty of the God of Abraham (‘alaihi al-Salam) and the supremacy of His Authority and His Law. Electoral politics was meant to sub-serve the godless secular state. 

The Prophet (sallalahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) declared that the world of Kufr constituted an essential unity (al-kufru millatun wahidah). And this is precisely what has now emerged in the world. The Jew and the Christian should ponder over the fact that when the Muslims of Algeria used ‘electoral politics’ to seek to restore the religion of Abraham (‘alaihi al-Salam) in Algeria and won 85% of the votes in the national elections, the godless world all came together to ruthlessly punish that 85% of the electorate which dared to seek to transform the godless secular foundation of the state. 

Thus rather than voting in elections and legitimizing the secular model of a state based on Shirk, Muslims should protect themselves from Shirk by disconnecting from the secular state. They should also respond to it by arguing that the ‘plural’ model of a state established by Prophet Muhammad (sallalahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) is a superior model of a state when compared with the modern godless secular state.

 

Source: Jerusalem in the Qur'an by Imran N. Hosein

to be continued....

Jerusalem’ Not Mentioned by Name in the Qur’an

‘Jerusalem’ Not Mentioned by Name in the Qur’an

‘Jerusalem in the Qur’an’ was written partly in response to the newspaper article of Daniel Pipes that was published in the Los Angeles Times (“Jerusalem means more to Jews than to Muslims”, July 21, 2000). In it he attempted to dismiss any Islamic claim to Jerusalem by declaring of Jerusalem, among other things, that: “It is not once mentioned in the Qur’an or in the liturgy…” Dr. Pipes and his media surrogates, who provoked us to respond, may wish to revise their opinion if they were ever to read this book.

Indeed a Muslim is duty-bound to respond to such hostile critics who persist in challenging Islam and the Qur’an, particularly so in respect of their new crusade on behalf of the Jewish State of Israel. Response should always be made through turning to the Truth that is in the Qur’an. The Qur’an declares that when Truth is hurled against falsehood, Truth will always vanquish falsehood. And the believers have been ordered to use the Qur’an while waging a mighty struggle against the disbelievers.

Regardless of whether Dr. Pipes accepts or does not accept ‘Jerusalem in the Qur’an’, it is clear that the study of this subject matter is basic for an understanding of the problem of Israel and Islam. And that is the primary importance of this book.

Source: Jerusalem in the Qur'an by Imran N. Hosein

to be continued....