Identifying Self-Destructive Behaviors Part of recovering from our addictions is learning which behaviors and habits in our lives are self-destructive. Next, we need to identify behaviors that are self-loving and self-empowering. Using our drug of choice is the most obvious self-destructive habit, but there are countless other ways in which we sabotage our progress. CommonRead More
Self-Love: An Unattainable Goal? When we’ve felt self-hating and self-rejecting for so long, it can seem virtually impossible to finally love and accept ourselves. Our addictions are often a manifestation of the insecurities, self-doubt, and fears that we’ve developed over the years. As we’re beginning to heal ourselves, we learn that self-love is an importantRead More
What is Remission? Addictions, like any other illness, have cycles and periods of variation that impact our experience with them. Addictive patterns aren’t always consistent, and how we feel can change drastically from one phase of our addiction to another. One of these phases, which can bring us a great deal of confusion and turmoil,Read More
As we’re working to discover more about our addictions, many of us find that the root cause is our subconscious feelings of self-hatred. We’re often unconscious of just how self-hating we’ve become over the years, even as we’re aware of a great deal of emotional pain. We suffer, but we don’t know that our damagedRead More
The Self-Hate at the Root of Our Problems When we develop certain addictive patterns, it is because we are trying to escape parts of ourselves. Our self-rejection can manifest in all kinds of destructive ways, including our addictions, but frequently going much further. Consider the ways we self-sabotage in our daily lives, how we holdRead More
We Develop Defense Mechanisms Our addictions can cause us to develop some very problematic defense mechanisms. These mechanisms are supposed to help us cope with problems and feel better. Unfortunately, addiction turns these natural psychological defenses against us. As addicts, we tend to downplay what we’re going through. Instead of opening up, we get defensive.Read More
We Aren’t Thinking Straight Our addictions are detrimental and destructive forces in our lives for so many different reasons. One of the biggest reasons is the loss of self-control we experience when we’re under the influence of our drugs of choice. Substances cloud our judgment, alter our perception, and destroy our common sense. We feelRead More
How Disconnected We’ve Become As we’re working to recover, we learn a lot of things about our addictions that might seem paradoxical. For instance, they can be both a way to feel more like ourselves and a driving force in our self-alienation. We can get caught in cycles of feeling the push and pull ofRead More
As we’re working to recover, we begin to see striking evidence of how much addiction and drug use are normalized and even glorified in our mainstream media. Television and movies minimize the devastating effects of drug use and trivialize the harm they cause. These portrayals routinely ignore how people’s lives are negatively impacted by theirRead More
Hoping to Reconnect With Self When we develop a dependence on an addictive substance or behavior, there are often subconscious emotional patterns and instincts at play. Many of us, for example, feel so detached and disconnected that we’re using to feel more like ourselves. When we use, we feel we’ve returned to our true selves,Read More