Many of us recovering from addiction find ourselves needing to complete treatment more than once, and we often find that there is some stigma involved in this. We’re looked down upon if we relapse. We’re frustrated with ourselves if we don’t recover quickly enough. We become increasingly impatient with ourselves when we feel we’ve letRead More
When struggling with addiction, sometimes our sense of self-respect becomes tainted because we feel so ashamed of ourselves for the many things we’ve done wrong, for the ways in which we’ve hurt people, for the countless mistakes we’ve made. We can’t believe we’ve done the things we’ve done. We’re consumed by regret. We’re self-punishing andRead More
Our addictions and mental health issues often develop from the relationship we’ve created with our fears. We resist our fears and avoid them, giving them more power over us and allowing them to overtake us. Our fears thrive on our avoidance and our reluctance to face them. This foundation of internal resistance and avoidance enablesRead More
For many of us living with addiction, the solution to our recovery lies in seeking professional treatment so that we can benefit from the guidance, experience and expertise available to us there. We often know that we need rehab, we know it can help us, but we’re resistant to it. We’re hesitant to take theRead More
Sometimes we look back at our life stories, and in particular our experiences with addiction, and feel nothing but shame, disappointment and regret. We feel bitter and resentful that we had to experience so much pain. We hate ourselves, our lives and our stories. We’re angry with ourselves and our addictions. We’re angry with theRead More
If you’re struggling with thoughts of suicide, PLEASE call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255). Our traumatic experiences can be so overpowering, so destabilizing and so debilitating that we struggle to understand them. We can find it impossible to make sense of them and to wrap our brains around them. Similarly, our responses toRead More
For many of us struggling with addiction, we can find it incredibly difficult to work up the motivation to get better. We feel down on ourselves, depressed, hopeless and fatigued. We feel totally depleted of our energy and inspiration. We struggle to feel like ourselves, and our lives become unrecognizable even to us. Feeling asRead More
We develop certain thought patterns that not only contribute to our mental health issues but that can also worsen our addictions because we’re robbing ourselves of our mental and emotional clarity, peace and well-being. One of these thought patterns is that of obsessing, over-worrying, over-thinking, and dwelling, particularly on difficult and negative things that causeRead More
We limit ourselves and hold ourselves back with all the ways in which we put ourselves down, mentally, verbally and emotionally, all the ways in which we self-harm and abuse ourselves, all the ways in which we allow ourselves to be mistreated. We give away our power, and we stop believing in ourselves. Learning howRead More
When we are suffering from our addictions and mental health issues, one of the most painful emotions we commonly feel is a sense of disconnection. We feel disconnected from our inner selves, from the people around us, from the people we love, and from the world. We feel isolated and alone. This is compounded byRead More