One of our greatest challenges in recovery is returning to our former lives and reintegrating back into the relationships we’ve left behind. It can be incredibly difficult to come to terms with all of the changes we’ve made in our own lives and reconcile those changes with the relationships in our lives. Some of our […]
Category: Alumni
Why We Can Feel Stuck in Recovery
When we’re approaching the recovery process, many of us are excited and optimistic about the journey ahead. We’ve completed a treatment program, created a support system for ourselves, and maybe even formed a relapse prevention plan. We feel ready to undertake the challenging work of recovery, and we feel confident in our ability to get […]
Reinventing Ourselves in Recovery
For many of us, the recovery process is about rediscovering and reinventing ourselves. Throughout our struggles with addiction and mental illness, we’ve lost our connection to ourselves. We feel out of alignment with our inner selves. We’re afraid to be our authentic selves and express ourselves. We don’t feel we’re being true to ourselves, in […]
Violating Our Own Boundaries in Recovery
As part of our recovery, some of the important work we’ll do is establish and maintain boundaries about things that are important to us. When we’re working towards sobriety, some of our boundaries will involve separating ourselves form people who use drugs, drink or otherwise engage in addictive behaviors that might be triggering or tempting […]
Bringing Enthusiasm into Our Recovery
When approaching recovery, many of us feel mentally and emotionally spent, exhausted, and totally worn out. We’ve been doing intense inner healing work, confronting our fears and insecurities, conquering our inner demons, and battling our addictions and mental health issues head on. When we’re dealing with this kind of burn-out, it can be natural to […]
How Our Addictions Limit Us
Of the many reasons why we want to quit our addictions and focus on recovery are all the ways in which we’re restricted and limited by our addictions over the years. When we’re working to heal ourselves from our addictions and mental health issues, we want to be able to feel at peace within ourselves. […]
Celebrating Ourselves in Recovery
One of the things many of us share in common as addicts is our tendency to be super hard on ourselves, even in our recovery. We beat ourselves up for how long it took us to get here. We’re disappointed in ourselves for taking longer than we would have liked to get well. We continue […]
Examining Our Childhoods
As much as we might want to leave our pasts behind us so that we can move forward and look to a happier future, we can only truly move forward once we’ve come to terms with our past. We are often still grappling with unresolved issues, unanswered questions and unhealed fears and emotions. We still […]
Recidivism in Recovery
We think of recidivism as a bad thing when it comes to criminal offenses – it means we’ve reoffended and are facing even harsher punishment. When it comes to recovery, recidivism means we’ve relapsed and are returning to treatment again, sometimes after multiple attempts to get clean. In this case, recidivism is actually a good […]
The Spiritual Test of Recovery
Sometimes it can help us to cope with the many challenges of recovery to view it as a journey, an evolution, and a spiritual test. We’re being tested mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually. Our willpower, resilience and inner strength are all being tested. How well we succeed has a lot to do with how much […]