If you’re struggling with thoughts of suicide, PLEASE call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255). Crying out for help can look very different, depending upon the person and circumstance. Here’s why it’s so important to listen. In recovery, many of us have a hard time verbalizing that we need help. We might not even […]
Category: Resource Center
Catalysts for Recovery
Sometimes throughout our struggles with addiction, we experience certain events that act as catalysts for our recovery, that impact us so strongly we feel we have no choice but to get clean. For many of us, these catalysts can be the painful wake-up calls we needed to finally prioritize our sobriety. They often come after […]
Family Medical Leave Act vs. Short-Term Disability
For those of us struggling with addiction and all of the medical issues therein, including needing time for detox and recovery treatment programs, we have certain options when it comes to taking time off from work. The Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and Short-Term Disability benefits are similar in that they offer us flexibility with […]
What Are Some Ways We Conceal Our Addictions?
For many of us, our addictive patterns are something we try our hardest to conceal from the people in our lives. We don’t want them to worry about us. We don’t want them to judge us. Very often we don’t want them to try and force us to get help, because chances are we’re not […]
Staying Sober Around the Holidays
Maintaining our sobriety is always a challenge, but it can be uniquely so during the holidays because we tend to associate holiday celebrations with using our drug of choice, and we create holiday rituals around it. Our drug use becomes an important pastime for us and is linked to how we spend time with loved […]
What Happens When We Feel Supported?
Many of us struggling with addiction, unfortunately, have grown accustomed to not feeling supported in our daily lives, around our addictions and mental health issues, and pertaining to the intense issues and deep pain we’re experiencing. We’re used to our loved ones telling us to just snap out of our depression or to calm down […]
How to Interact with Old Drinking Friends
One of the many challenges of sobriety is determining how to handle the relationships that were important to us in the past and navigating the dynamics within those relationships. It can be confusing and stressful trying to figure out how to interact with old friends and loved ones, particularly if they are still using our […]
Loneliness as a Trigger in Recovery
As recovering addicts, we know that certain emotions can be especially triggering for us, emotions we’re particularly sensitive to, that make us feel increasingly depressed or anxious, that make us want to seek comfort and relief in our drugs of choice. For many of us, one of the strongest of these emotions is the loneliness […]
Staying Connected to Treatment as Alumni
As alumni of addiction recovery treatment programs, we sometimes have a tendency once we’ve completed treatment to disconnect from the program that helped us to achieve sobriety. We often don’t want to stay connected for various reasons, many of which have a lot to do with our inexperience with sobriety. Sometimes we assume that because […]
What Can We Do When We Feel Paralyzed by Fear?
Fear has a way of overtaking us and making such an impact on our lives that we feel there’s nothing we can do anything about it. Our fears contribute to our mental health issues such as our depression and anxiety, and they become these invisible but totally debilitating, overpowering, destructive forces in our lives. We […]