In order to heal ourselves, we have to have a mental and emotional foundation that supports our recovery, that strengthens and empowers us to be able to heal ourselves. Oftentimes we have a mentality of self-doubt, insecurity and perceived inadequacy. We don’t actually believe we can heal. We don’t believe we’re good enough to have […]
Category: Resource Center
Making the Most of Treatment
When we make the decision to get sober, many of us will seek professional help with our recovery program. For many of us, entering treatment is a scary and overwhelming undertaking. We might still be suffering from depression and other mental health issues. We might feel resistance to doing the work, partly because our addictions […]
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 […]
How Do We Become Desensitized to Trauma?
When we experience something traumatic, we are usually deeply impacted by it, and sometimes there is considerable damage done to our mental, emotional and physical health. Over time, we can become desensitized to trauma in various ways. We start to forget and even trivialize just how traumatized we’ve actually been, and we therefore don’t take […]
Missing Out on Our Kids’ Childhoods
There are a great many things we regret about our experiences with addiction. One of the most difficult among them is when we miss out on our kids’ childhoods because of our struggles with addiction. Many of us find that our dependence on addictive substances and behaviors is so strong that we make regrettable decisions. […]
Can Our Thought Patterns Worsen Our Mental Illnesses?
Just as our behavioral patterns and regular habits form our lifestyles, our recurring thought patterns and regular mental habits constitute our mental and emotional health. Many of us are perpetuating toxic thought patterns that feed and magnify our existing mental illnesses. Some would argue that for many of us our toxic, self-destructive thought patterns become […]
Dealing with Misunderstanding
As we’re coping with our addictions and mental health issues, one of our greatest challenges can be in dealing with people who don’t understand us or our illnesses. Both addiction and mental illness are common and exist within every community, ethnic group, religious affiliation, sexual orientation and socioeconomic grouping. In other words, they are universal. […]
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 […]
Can Better Habits Help Us Recover from Addiction?
We tend to think of our addictions as these colossal, formidable, debilitating forces that control and overpower us, and while they can feel that way to us, they are also contingent on the behaviors and habits we develop and perpetuate. If when we first felt addictive urges, for example, we made a habit of examining […]
The Consequences of Our Addictions
Sometimes critically examining our addictions and all of the consequences they bring with them can help us make the choice to get help and actively work towards recovery. We often don’t want to look at the effects our addictions are having on us. We’re ashamed of all the havoc they wreak on our lives, on […]