As we’re working to heal, something that often causes us confusion is knowing whether or not we should move on from the past, how we should let it go, and when we should be moving on from it. We don’t want to get stuck in an endless loop of our painful memories, constantly replaying them […]
Category: Resource Center
Believing in Our Future
As we work towards recovering from our addictions, one thing that can help us move forward is to focus on our future and really believe we’re capable of creating a happy, healthy life for ourselves. So often we find ourselves consumed by our pasts, weighed down by the shame we feel and the disappointment of […]
Can Writing Help Us Heal?
As we’re working to recover from addiction and mental illness, we want to develop new coping skills to replace all of the destructive, limiting, damaging patterns we’ve been perpetuating over the years. We want to tackle all of the different manifestations of our pain, our addictive patterns and the symptoms of our mental and emotional […]
Seeing Beyond Our Addictions
Our addictions have a way of completely overtaking our lives and along with them our identity, our sense of self, and our feelings of self-worth. We label ourselves as addicts and can’t see beyond that label. We start to believe that our complex identities have been reduced to our addictions and the difficulties we’ve incurred […]
Can We Put a Stop to Our Self-Destructive Patterns?
Very often our patterns, especially our patterns around addiction and mental illness, are so ingrained within us that they’ve become second nature. They become our impulsive, automatic, default, go-to behaviors. They’re part of who we are, how we function in life, and how we treat ourselves. So many of our patterns are self-destructive, full of […]
Witnessing Addiction as Children
Many of us who struggle with addiction witnessed the illness in our families and communities when growing up. We may have watched parents, siblings and other family members drink excessively, use drugs or engage in reckless addictive behaviors. They may have included us in their activities, exposing us to their drugs of choice and addictive […]
Coping with Boredom in Recovery
If you’re struggling with thoughts of suicide, PLEASE call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255). One of our greatest challenges in recovery is figuring out how to find fulfillment and cope with the boredom that has been a huge factor in the development our addictions. Many of us find that it is our boredom […]
How Can We Help Our Loved Ones Get Better?
When our loved ones are suffering from addiction and mental illness, our instinct is to protect them from harm, to shield them from hurting themselves more, and to rescue them from their pain and self-destructiveness. We want to fix their problems for them. We want to save them from themselves. While these instincts are normal, […]
Allowing People to Help Us
When living with addiction and mental illness, there are some fundamental habits we have that can negatively impact our experience with recovery and our ability to get well. One of our most detrimental habits is our inability to allow people to help us. We’re afraid of being a burden on our loved ones. We’re afraid […]
Rethinking Anxiety in Recovery
Those of us recovering from addiction are no strangers to the overwhelming force of anxiety. It often accompanies our depression and other mental health issues and makes our struggles with addiction that much harder. We often come to think of anxiety as something we have no control over. Once it hits, it takes over us, […]