Many of us struggling with addiction and mental illness have a hard time being open and honest when it comes to discussing our traumatic experiences. We shy away from talking about them at all. We avoid the subject and change it as quickly as possible whenever it comes up. We keep our traumas a secret […]
Category: Resource Center
Signs of Substance Use
Very often addicts will show signs of substance use long before we know consciously that they, in fact, have a problem with addiction. It can help us to support our loved ones, or to initiate our own recovery if we’re the ones struggling, to know some of the signs of substance use and to familiarize […]
How Do We Know If We’re Still Being Impacted by Our Trauma?
Because we so often suppress our pain and try to avoid feeling it, many of us have a very fractured relationship with our own thoughts and emotions. We run from our pain, afraid it will overtake and overpower us. We’re afraid we won’t be able to handle it. It can be so intense it can […]
Emotional Reasons Why We Enable Our Loved Ones’ Addictions
As we’re working to support our loved ones’ recovery, we realize that we have to put a stop to the many ways in which we’ve been enabling them. When we enable our loved ones, very often we aren’t conscious of how and why we’re doing so. It can help us to change our detrimental relationship […]
Why Am I Being Triggered by This?
Very often we can become triggered by something specific, a person, event, situation, issue, or problem, without understanding why. Sometimes our emotional responses baffle us. We’ve become hyper-sensitive. We’re feeling troubled, worried, bothered and much sadder, and more anxious than usual. We might experience intense mood swings, along with trouble sleeping and eating. We might […]
How We Enable Our Loved Ones’ Addictions
When we have loved ones struggling with addiction, our inclination is to want to help, nurture and protect them in any way we can. It hurts us beyond words to see them suffering and living with so much pain. It causes us tremendous stress, worry and anxiety to watch them self-destruct. We love and care […]
Why Should We Practice Healthy Confrontation in Recovery?
Many of us recovering from addiction are also struggling to figure out our relationship issues, our life challenges, our behavioral patterns, and all the complexities therein. We’re still grappling with contentious relationship dynamics, turmoil, instability and insecurity in our closest relationships. Many of us are in relationships with other addicts, and some of the issues […]
Surrendering to the Healing Journey
When we are actively working towards recovery, there are some habits we hold onto that can slow down our progress and impede our ability to get well. We have a hard time relinquishing control over how we think things should go. We hold on tightly to certain expectations. We worry excessively, we obsess about things, […]
Finding the Strength to be Honest with Ourselves in Recovery
As we’re doing the work to recover, we find that many of our mental and emotional patterns have been contributing to our addictive patterns, often without our being conscious of them. We’ve developed patterns of denial, secrecy and dishonesty. We’ve been dishonest with the people around us but also more importantly with ourselves. We’ve lied […]
What is the Difference Between Solitude and Isolation?
When we’ve been struggling with addiction and mental illness, we often will fall into patterns of isolating ourselves and avoiding any kind of social interaction and interpersonal connection. We’re afraid to confide in people lest they judge us more than we’re already judging ourselves. We’re afraid of being told to just get over our depression, […]