If you or a loved one is struggling with thoughts of suicide, PLEASE call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255). As we’re working to recover, many of us are dealing not only with our own recovery but with that of our loved ones as well. Very often, our family members, partners, and friends areRead More
One of the most important things we can do for ourselves as we’re working to recover is ensuring our living environment is conducive to our sobriety rather than detrimental to it. Many of us had living situations that contributed to our addictive patterns and made us even more depressed. Now that we’re sober, we wantRead More
Avoiding Shadow Work Our struggles with addiction have a way of disconnecting us from our inner selves, making us feel lost, confused, aimless and empty. We can feel as though we don’t know who we are, what our purpose is in life, and if we’re ever meant to be happy. Our recovery is a processRead More
When we think of our addictions, we tend to define them as an ongoing problem we have with an addictive substance or behavior. We know we’ve formed a dangerous dependence, but we aren’t always sure why. We usually associate our addictions with mental and emotional health issues, such as our depression and anxiety, the traumaticRead More
Many of us struggling with addiction are also watching loved ones do the same, and we feel as though we’re accompanying them along their recovery journey, just as we’re undertaking our own. One of the most painful things we can experience along the way is our loved ones refusing to get help, giving up onRead More
Many of us struggling with addiction have a tendency to do things that we know are unhealthy for us. We are painfully familiar with this constant inclination to go against our better judgment and continue with patterns that are toxic and harmful, both for us and for the people in our lives. We want toRead More
How we handle our emotions are the result of the emotional conditioning we’ve been programmed with, from our families, from our culture, and from the messages we absorb from all around us. Many of our emotional responses are based on this emotional programming that we’ve adopted over the years. Our emotional patterns are often subconscious,Read More
When we’ve done the hard work to get sober and are doing our best to maintain our sobriety, there are some things that can prove challenging for us, that threaten to derail our progress and knock us off course. Many of us are very afraid of relapsing, and having some more information around what kindsRead More
Going Beyond the Symptoms A hugely important part of learning from our experiences with relapse is investigating why we’ve relapsed in the first place, what prompted us to give in to the temptation of our drug of choice, and what triggered us to fall back into old patterns after working so hard to get sober.Read More
Many of us tend to fear being vulnerable, and we associate it with being weak and unable to control our emotions. We see vulnerability as a bad thing, something we strive to eliminate from ourselves and how we operate in our lives. We believe we should suppress our emotions and block ourselves from expressing themRead More