Life has a way of confronting us with situations that force us to move beyond our established comfort zones. One of the most challenging situations, based on my own experience, has been attempting to undertake a major geographic move. I tend to be especially adverse to moving, as during my childhood my family moved every year or two until we finally settled down on Long Island during my teens.

When my wife and I retired from our day jobs six years ago, we decided to move from Southern California to a waterfront community in Washington where my wife’s oldest daughter lived. After we sold our home in California and made the move up north I unexpectedly underwent a major relocation crisis. I found that my deck had been completely reshuffled, so to speak, as I felt the full impact of leaving behind everything I had been familiar with throughout the greater majority of my adult life.

After the short-lived northwest summer passed and the constant gloom and wind chill settled in, Ann and I both succumbed to seasonal affective disorder (aptly referred to as SAD) big time. For better or for worse, we had acquired a beautiful house abutting a pristine lagoon, a home affording a view that other writers would kill for! Over the next several years we attempted to hang in there, escaping to Palm Springs for a respite each winter. Realizing that the best time of the year was the two months we spent down south, over the next several years we embarked on a series of house-hunting trips to various parts of California and the southwest.

We finally settled on Tucson, where we bought a condo a year and a half ago. While the condo had originally been intended to be a winter retreat, we stayed there last year throughout the summer, fall and winter and decided to make Tucson our permanent home. As we had both fallen in love with this wonderful community with its friendly small-town atmosphere, unsurpassed hiking country and a fantastic climate the greater part of the year, this past April we returned to Washington to put our house on the market.

Upon arriving in Washington, we found ourselves once again overwhelmed by mega-stress. Earlier this year our Congresswoman in Tucson, Gabrielle Giffords, was shot along with 18 other people less that a mile from our home. One thing led to another, and two days later I found myself immersed in a major book project—The Tucson Tragedy: Lessons from the Senseless Shooting of Gabrielle Giffords. While putting a house up for sale plus downsizing and putting everything into storage is stressful enough, try taking this on in the midst of completing an extremely time-sensitive book project!

To make a long story short, we found that we had taken on way more than we could comfortably handle. The stress of my attempting to juggle both endeavors posed a real strain on our relationship, and I am deeply indebted to Ann for handling the lion’s share of the endless task of sorting and packing while I completed the manuscript and publication arrangements for my book.

On top of all of this, we were totally stressed out over the prospect of euthanizing our 20-year old cat, Cooney, as it appeared that he would not be able to tolerate the trauma of a four-day drive. Fortunately we linked up with a holistically-oriented veterinarian who was extremely supportive in helping us get Cooney calmed down, psyched up and ready for the trip. While we thought we were going to lose him to dehydration and starvation the second day out, we managed to get him eating and drinking again that evening and the following morning. Arriving at Ann’s sister’s home in North Hollywood last evening, he has turned around completely, being once again back in a real home. We decided to stay here an extra day to let him recuperate, and I’m confident that he’ll make the last leg of our journey tomorrow!

Coping with the Stressors

Any prolonged traumatic event can pose a major threat to our sobriety, as well as both our physical health and mental-emotional well-being, unless we take appropriate precautionary measures such as the following:

1. Face reality and respond accordingly—Anticipate that this upcoming event will pose a major disruption in your life, and take appropriate steps to minimize the adverse repercussions. Do whatever you can to maintain balance and serenity in other aspects of your life while coping with this challenging situation. Using my current move as an example, in retrospect, it was probably not the wisest decision to take on the challenges of returning to the northwest to put our house up for sale while I was concurrently working night and day to finalize a time sensitive book project!
2. Keep working your program—Whenever you’re up against a prolonged period of excessive stress, it is wise to marshal the full resources of your chosen recovery program to keep your life on track. Now is a particularly important time to keep up your attendance at meetings while checking in with your sponsor on a regular basis and practicing some form of daily meditation or mind quieting period to maintain a semblance of balance and serenity in your life.
3. Keep in mind the wisdom of the slogans—In particular, remember that easy does it, while taking it one day at a time and keeping your sights on the light at the end of the tunnel!
4. Take care of yourself—Make a concerted effort to alleviate stress overload by engaging in daily vigorous exercise; making healthy food choices while minimizing your intake of sugar, caffeine and other nutritional stressors; maintaining a healthy support system; and balancing your days of hectic activity with a winding down period at the end of each day in anticipation of a restful night’s sleep.

In short, while life will occasionally deal us a wild card in terms of an excessive stress overload, we can strive to maintain balance and serenity in our lives when this occurs through consciously applying the tools of recovery, while continuing to follow the wellness path.

As always, feel free to share this column with clients who might benefit from this message. Be sure to tune in two months from now to see if Cooney survived the last leg of our journey to Tucson. Until then—to your health!

Dr. John Newport is an addiction specialist, author and speaker living in Tucson, Arizona. He is author of The Wellness-Recovery Connection: Charting You Pathway to Optimal Health While Recovering from Alcoholism and Drug Addiction. He is currently working 24/7 on a book titled The Tucson Tragedy: Lessons from the Senseless Shooting of Gabrielle Giffords. Comments relating to this article and the forthcoming book can be addressed to him at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

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