Category Archives: Recovery Zone System

Heal Your Brain with TAMERS

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We know so much more these days about the brain and how addiction affects it—and about how we can help it to heal.

Addiction doesn’t happen because someone is lazy or is a “bad person.” It’s a brain disease, pure and simple. In some people, repeated use of alcohol or other drugs causes profound structural and functional changes to the brain. The need for drugs becomes a compulsion that can’t be ignored; it is as ingrained in the brain as breathing or looking for food. Plus, the frontal lobe, the executive brain, is damaged and is no longer able to override those impulses with rational thoughts.

We used to think that the brain was set in stone once a person was grown. We now know that’s not true. In fact, the brain can grow and change at all ages, a concept known as neuroplasticity. When the brain changes for the … Read more...

The Recovery Zone System – New in The Recovery Book

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The new Recovery Zone System is the “backbone” of the new second edition of The Recovery Book.

Over many years of treating alcoholics and addicts, Dr. Al saw that two issues were messing up recovery for many people:

  • One, people in early recovery often had no idea how much time and energy they would have to focus on recovery activities.
  • Two, people with many years of recovery sometimes lost their focus on these activities as the years passed.

Both of these situations, he saw, all too often led to a downward spiral that put people at high risk of relapse. So he developed the The Recovery Zone System (pdf chart).

The Recovery Zone System is a road map for a life in recovery. It gives clear guidelines on when and how a person in recovery can address various areas of life—treatment, fellowship activities, relationships, education, career, finances, recreation, and … Read more...

The Recovery Zone System (TM)

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An integral part of the second edition of The Recovery Book is the Recovery Zone System(TM). We are now putting the finishing touches on it, and want to share it. A brief explanation is below. 

(UPDATE February 2015: Here is a pdf copy of the The-Recovery-Zone-System chart, including references to the relevant book chapters.)

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The Recovery Zone System (TM)

Over many years of treating alcoholics and addicts, Dr. Al saw that two issues were messing up recovery for many people:

  • One, people in early recovery often had no idea how much time and energy they would have to focus on recovery activities.
  • Two, people with many years of recovery sometimes lost their focus on these activities as the years passed.

Both of these situations, he saw, all too often led to a downward spiral that put people at high risk of relapse. So he developed the Recovery … Read more...