Reddit reviews The Worry Cure: Seven Steps to Stop Worry from Stopping You

Welcome to /r/Stoicism

With that said, Stoicism isn't something that can be absorbed in a day. It takes a long time to really internalize it.

Until then, take a multi-faceted approach:

1. Start meditating or practicing Tai Chi or something that not only provides you stress relief but also mindfulness. You wont see real results until after a few weeks of daily practice (maybe 5 min a day?). There are apps like Calm or Headspace that help you achieve this.
   
   
2. Identify if you're in a scarcity tunnel and take a step back to see how you can fix it.
   
   
3. Use Cognitive Behavioral Therapy techniques to help you see and catch fallacies in your self-perpetuating logic.
   
   These 3 will help you get closer to internalizing Stoicism but more importantly, give you a procedural plan to tackle your problem.

Maybe you should save up just a little bit for a therapist. Also, this book is great:

http://www.amazon.com/Worry-Cure-Seven-Steps-Stopping/dp/1400097665

You are catastrophizing. My sister is this way. No quick fixes. See your PCP, tell them about your family history and maybe consider therapy.

I also recommend reading this book: https://www.amazon.com/Worry-Cure-Seven-Steps-Stopping/dp/1400097665/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1525533165&sr=8-1&keywords=the+worry+cure

> I slightly disagree with both of you. I am taking antabuse to stay sober because I know I can't stop myself on my own. I am going to stay on the meds for at least 3 months, maybe a whole year. In the back of my head I keep thinking, "what will I do when I come off the meds?" Will I relapse? I know that I am unable to have 'just one' and I know I am powerless to stop myself on my own. What will I do? Honestly, I am scared shitless.

I respect your thoughts and concerns but I offer up another way to look at it that may or may not help or just may plant some seeds for further food of thought.

There are different types of worry that stem from what we call "Cognitive Distortions" more specifically is what is referred to as "fortune telling & catastrophizing." The concept is that (please understand and take to heart that this in no way shape or form a judgement of you nor towards you by me; I am just using you as an example of explanation based on your reply) you are experiencing / performing the acts of fortune teller and predicting things that may or may not happen far far down the line when in reality you have no idea what the future holds.

The second, catastrophizing, is that you are automatically going to the worst case scenario of the fortune telling that is taking place. There is a psychological explanation behind it but I don't want to muddy up the thread worse than I have already so if you would like that information let me know and I will post.

There is what is referred to as "productive and unproductive worry." Quick references that you can draw your own parallels to your concerns aforementioned.

• Productive worry can be something like you are driving through a major city and you worry that you are going to run out of gas and be stranded. Can you act upon this worry to resolve it immediately? Yes you can. Find a gas station, pull over and fill up. That is productive worry
  
• Unproductive worry can be something such as you are driving like I did in college for Spring Break 1998 from Minneapolis, MN to South Padre Island, TX. I hit the Iowa border and I start to worry about what traffic is going to be like when in 14 hours I hit the city of Dallas. Can I act upon that worry and immediately resolve it? No, no I cannot. I cannot predict, fortune tell, what traffic will be like in 14 hours. That is unproductive worry.
  
  
• Focus on new opportunities—not on your fear of failure
  
• Embrace uncertainty instead of searching for perfect solutions
  
• Stop the most common safety behaviors that you think make things better—but actually make things worse
  
  I highly suggest anyone that would like to make steps towards worrying less and coping to check out "The Worry Cure" by Dr. Robert Leahy I have two copies in paperback, a copy downloaded to my Kindle app on my cell and to the desktop on both laptops and my FTP server so I can access it anywhere.
  
  Day by day. Day. By Day. Focus on healthy productive worry. Time will progress day by day and something may click, something may change, the meds work and you are off of them...feel my flow?
  
  Right now you are sober and that is what counts sir. You have completed step 1 of a 12 step program of recovery: You have acknowledged and admitted that alcohol is impacting your life and or those around you in a negative manner, you are powerless over it and you have the desire to stop.
  
  I also plant this seed with the caveat that I do not know what that medication is or does but would you rather take a pill for a year once or twice a day or would you rather continue to beat the everlasting crap out of your body and brain, put yourself directly in front of the speeding bullet and feel like shit everyday you wake up after drinking?
  
  Food for thought. I hope it had some value to you or someone else. I have a background in the human behavior realm as I was a psychologist, then LE, then sales - to which I lost the job due to my 2nd DUI and then to my current role. I do not proclaim nor ever will that I am an expert as you can read my post history and see that I just had a meltdown on the 4th of July and the old saying in the industry is completely true: "You have to be a psycho to be a psycho." ;-)
  
  Keep on keeping, be righteous.
  
  J.

I have read the beginning of the following book:

https://www.amazon.com/Worry-Cure-Seven-Steps-Stopping/dp/1400097665

I recommend it, but my n=1 experiment is still running :P

> What exactly will happen if I tell them?

I would simply tell him/her them the next time you meet with them once you get settled in that you would like to talk about something else that has happened in the past that has adversely impacted you. Tell them flat out you have a lot of trepidation about bringing this up out of fear of judgement and their reaction. At this time they will likely tell you its perfectly fine to bring up anything. And then tell them that you are in a sexually abusive relationship, you were sexually molested by both of your parents as a child and you want to work on getting through some of the feelings surrounding the events in order to keep up your progression of improving your mental well being.

Only go with the details initially as far as you feel comfortable. Once its out, the therapist will know further down the line when to bring the topic up, when to not bring it up, when you are talking about it when to press you and when to ease off depending on your vibe for the day.

If it would help you, I'm willing to help you go through a dry run if you think it would be beneficial to help with your comfort level in approaching the topic. Feel free to let me know.

Check out a book by Dr. Robert Leahy called "The Worry Cure" as its amazing and will really help with the fortune telling and catastrophizing amongst other things. Its written in plain English, not a bunch of psych lingo.

I sincerely congratulate you on your successes thus far and hope that you continue down your path of healing. Its a life long journey, but one that's worth keeping up. Think of yourself as 'Forest Gump' when he just starts running back and forth, back and forth, all across the United States. That's you, but you aren't running away, your running to.

I can definitely relate to everything you mentioned here. Lately it's become pretty overwhelming for me, and I'm struggling to figure out what to do. I've been trying a bunch of different techniques/tools to cope with the stress and the anxiety but mostly it has been frustrating how ineffective they have been. And I also have the same issue on Sundays/Mondays, Sundays in particular are rough for me, I'm always depressed.

For what it's worth I can tell you the things which have helped me the most so far are mindfulness-based techniques, and cognitive-behavioral techniques to reduce the amount of worrying I do (a pretty good book for that is 'The Worry Cure', it's on amazon https://www.amazon.com/Worry-Cure-Seven-Steps-Stopping/dp/1400097665/ ). I've also found regular exercise and yoga is helpful.

Another big thing I've had to do is make a conscious effort to try to work with thoughts about my job which are extremely stressful, for example I make sticky notes with quotes that help me try to cultivate gratitude/appreciation for my job. Or I'll try to catch myself when I'm really stressed, and do deep diaphragmatic breathing, or stop and make a list of 5 things I'm grateful for about my job. Sometimes I watch documentaries that help provide perspective on my job stress (I watched 'Devil's Miner' recently, and it's harder to complain about my job after seeing what kids in Bolivia do for work https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil%27s_Miner ).

Anyway, you're definitely not alone! Hope you can find some ways of feeling better soon.