BILL HAD HIS FIRST BREAK DOWN at age 30. He had been building a house after working a full eight-hour day, getting little sleep. He worked that Saturday and came home late for lunch. His wife said something about it and they had a heated exchange
"I had to go into the other room. I came apart at the seams. I thought I was dying. My heart was palpitating and I was sweating."
He was taken to his family physician who gave him a shot of B- I and told him to go to a psychiatrist.
After more than a year in treatment, he decided the treatment wasn't for him. "I decided I could make it on my own. As the years went by, the symptoms would recur and I thought I was going crazy," Bill relates. "I took booze and tranquilizers. A doctor later told me the combination should have killed me."
HE TRIED AA. He didn't like it. He finally quit drinking, but in 1976 had a complete breakdown. He was over-medicated and finally asked for shock treatments because they had once helped his mother.
Finally, a neighbor told him that her sister had been helped by Recovery Inc., and told him about a meeting in a nearby church.
"At that first meeting, a woman gave an example of something that had happened to her and I saw myself in that example. I got home that evening and told my wife not to plan anything on Wednesday nights from then on," Bill said.
That was 1977 and Bill has not missed a meeting since then. He is now the Berea group leader.
BILL'S EXAMPLE is typical of those who have entered the Recovery program, according to Allan the area leader for 37 groups in Northern Ohio, Western Pennsylvania and New York.
Allan had suffered a complete physical nervous breakdown. For weeks, he would only speak to his wife, children and doctor. He wouldn't answer the telephone or go to the door. He cut off all his social contacts. It was his psychiatrist who prescribed Recovery.
"If he hadn't, he would have had much more difficulty with me," Allan admitted.
Exactly what is this group?
RECOVERY INC., is a systematic method of self-help aftercare developed by the late Dr. Abraham Low, "to prevent relapses in former mental patients and chronicity in nervous patients."
It was founded in 1937, when Dr. Low, head of the department of psychiatry and neurology of the University of Illinois and assistant director of the state's hospitals, became concerned with the care of patients discharged from the state mental hospitals. He started experimenting with groups of patients to develop an aftercare program.
He and the patients evolved the Recovery method by trial and error over several years. The goal was lasting rehabilitation conducted by the patients themselves. Low then wrote a book outlining the method, which is used to this day in
all Recovery meetings.
Many of today's mental health professionals, writing in journals, admit Low was far ahead of his time because his methods are as sound today as they were when they were first laid out.
DR. LOW BELIEVED that no case was hopeless and that patients could learn how to cope with emotions and control their actions. His book explains and demystifies symptoms in a common sense manner, according to Dana M. Sheldon M.D., who wrote about Recovery in "The Journal of the Maine Medical Association." It outlines how patients can develop control over symptoms and ultimately eliminate many of them. "Any patient can identify with symptoms described in the book," Sheldon wrote.
There are more than 700 Recovery groups and since 1969, panel discussions of Recovery have been held at the annual meetings of the American Psychiatric Association.
"PATIENTS COULDN'T accuse the people in the meetings of being phony," Allan said of the Recovery groups. "Because all of them have been there themselves. I can say I have had the same illness; I have had the same feelings."
A participant can attend any Recovery meeting and find the same format and the same language is used at each. There is even a "Recovery language," to avoid confusion .
"We talk about the fearful or angry temper," Allan said. "Anyone attending a meeting knows exactly what we mean. As nervous people, we collect trivial things. We demonstrate an example and then the method to combat that. And practice is the key word. You don't become a nervous person overnight and you don't recover mental health without practice."
Bill added, "We don't discuss doctors, hospitals, medication or religion. We don't counsel or diagnose. That is the realm of the professional. We deal with the trivial matters that can build up and cause distress."
THE MEETINGS start with member introductions by first names; voluntary participation in reading from Low's writings; members presenting examples of troublesome everyday incidents followed by "spotting" on the examples; a question period for newcomers; and last, a period of mutual aid where individuals informally discuss Recovery methods.
Examples of common incidents is important in how Recovery works because these are the things which provide insight, Bill explained. "Someone turns on that little light in your head that you recognize as yourself."
The incident would be described with who was there and what was said, followed by the member's description of his reactions and discomfort; the member's "spotting" of his reactions and working-up process and how the member would have reacted to this situation before Recovery training. The examples are limited to five minutes and are concerned with "some triviality of everyday life."
THOUGH MOST patients returning home from a psychiatric hospital are greatly improved, they still have "residual symptoms." These symptoms include restlessness, tenseness and preoccupation.
Dr. Low described the returning patients as being "mostly afraid of terrifying sensations, threatening impulses, obsessing thoughts and depressing feelings, that is, their own inner experiences."
Both Allan and Bill confirm that to be true. And, they warn, at this holiday time, those symptoms can be magnified to a point where a patient may attempt suicide because they have so many unrealistic expectations.
And Recovery doesn't take the "easy" way out, either. In Bill's case it would have been back to the bottle, while Allan would have gone to bed to hide. Now they have tools to use to combat those feelings and through practice, are able to maintain what most of us would consider a perfectly normal lifestyle.
Bill said that many nervous people suffer from fearful anticipation. While many people might have that feeling of anticipation, including sweating and heart palpitations, the nervous person would attach danger to his symptoms.
"He would begin to diagnose his palpitations as a heart attack or feel he was going to die if he left the house," Allan said. "I couldn't go out of my house. One day, I tried to go into the back yard, got 10 yards from the door and had to come back because I had a panic attack. I thought I would die if I went any further."
IN BOTH THEIR cases, their spouses were helpful in their recovery. "My wife attended meetings with me for the first three months," Allan said. "While she doesn't understand, she can objectively spot for me."
"Spotting is the key," the men agreed, and Low used it in its dictionary meaning, "to note as suspicious; hence to recognize; detect."
In this way, the patient can recognize he or she is reacting in an inappropriate way to a trivial situation and avoid difficult situations.
"We have difficulty expressing feelings and sensations," Allan said. "Then when we do, we express temper. We repeatedly say feelings are to be expressed in culture, not in temper. If you resent something, express it, don't reinforce it with a cast iron frying pan. We try to attain averageness instead of extreme behavior," he said.
You'll often find that a nervous patient is one who is a perfectionist. His standards are so high they can never be achieved. Or he is a person who has to do 14 things at once.
"I was like that. Now, someone can spot for me and say, Bill, slow down," Bill added. "I'm building another house. But this time, l quit at 4:30 sharp."
IT TAKES WORK the men said, to achieve mental health. "You can get as much out of it as you are willing to put into it. Working out one's difficulties can make one uncomfortable," Bill said. "But it's worth it to be able to control our thoughts and impulses. There were times when l would come home from work in Akron and if I was stopped at a railroad crossing for a train, l had the impulse to drive into the side of the train."
Recovery meetings are free to all who need them. A free will offering is taken from those who wish to contribute. Part the money stays in the local group to help with things like postage. Half goes to the national headquarters, which is staffed by seven paid staff -- the only paid staff in the non-profit organization. Dr. Low's book costs about $17 for those who want to purchase it to work independently.
And Bill gives the best reason of all for at least giving it a try.
"I'm alive today because of Recovery."
Reprinted with permission of The News Sun, Berea, OH and the author by Recovery, Inc. 802 N. Dearborn Street, Chicago, IL 60610, Phone (312) 337-5661, FAX (312) 337-5756.
