One of the biggest misconceptions about alcohol abuse is that getting sober is the toughest part of the process. It isn’t. Once rehab is complete, a lifelong journey of staying sober begins. A quality treatment program will not only provide assistance with getting sober, but it also teaches techniques on how to stay sober as…
It is true that addiction has a better chance of creeping its way into your life based on genetics and the area that you were raised in. Just because both of those factors affect you does not mean that you need to let it spiral into an addiction. It is important not to give into…
Sadness is a natural, common human emotion, and those of us living with addiction and mental health issues are no strangers to it. We experience sadness from the pain of our traumatic experiences, from our relationships, from the losses we’ve sustained. Learning to work with our sadness consciously and mindfully enables us to move through…
Addiction can harden us and make us lose our connection to our inner selves. We can struggle to hear the voice of our intuition. We can lose our compassion and kindness. We can lose the understanding, acceptance and patience we once had with ourselves and others. We can become cynical, negative, bitter and resentful. We…
Having a personality disorder is still misunderstood because there is a giant stigma around it. People would just prefer to think that those with a personality disorder are choosing to be this way and will never change. It is important for those who know someone with a personality disorder to practice empathy and compassion so…
Many of us struggling with addiction have at one time or another been confronted with all of the stigmas around addiction and the negative stereotypes about addicts. We ourselves may have been negatively stereotyped, judged, ridiculed or rejected because of our struggle with addiction. With addiction so common and widespread, why is it still so…
One of the most popular and effective approaches to addiction recovery is the Twelve Step program, originally created as the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous that is now used by multiple addiction programs around the world. It can be hugely helpful to follow the guidance of the steps, and one of the most powerful ones…
As we move through our recovery, there are various processes we have to go through in order to feel totally healed. Even if we’re able to abstain from our addictive substances and behaviors for a time, we don’t feel fully recovered if we still feel like they hold power over us. One of the first…
Many of us have a way of repeating our patterns unconsciously without realizing it. We perpetuate toxic and self-destructive patterns in recurring cycles. Our issues repeat themselves until we’re able to learn from them. Until we realize this, we tend to blame our issues on other people, or we feel victimized by life, powerless to…
Self-forgiveness can be one of the hardest but most important things we learn in the recovery process. We don’t feel deserving of forgiveness, and we replay memories of our mistakes and regrets constantly as evidence of our unworthiness. It’s almost as if we want to keep reminding and convincing ourselves that we’re bad people. Our…