If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide, PLEASE call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255). Those of us who live with panic attacks know just how intense, all-consuming and terrifying they can be. We can find ourselves totally overpowered by the fear, sadness and shame we’re feeling. We can feel as though we’re […]
Category: Resource Center
Learning from Our Fears
When it comes to fear, many of us have a default reactionary response to our fears which is to run and hide from them. We’re so afraid to feel the anxiety and sadness that come with fear that we try to avoid thinking about our fears at all costs. We find ourselves being easily triggered, […]
Self-Forgiveness for Healing
When we’re doing the emotional work of recovery, one of the hardest emotions to shed is our shame. Many of us were conditioned from early childhood to carry guilt and shame within us, not only for our mistakes and wrongdoings, but also for our shortcomings, flaws and imperfections. We constantly felt inadequate, sometimes because our […]
How Do I Learn Independence After Being in Codependent Relationships?
When living with addiction, we commonly find ourselves in codependent relationships full of neediness, dependence and attachment. We very often don’t establish or maintain healthy boundaries. We have poor conflict resolution skills, unhealthy communication styles, and a great deal of interpersonal turmoil. We become so dependent upon our partner that we feel as though we […]
Creativity and Our Emotions
Our addictions and mental health issues often cause us to have an unhealthy relationship with our emotions. We become so afraid of feeling our emotions that we don’t allow ourselves to feel them fully. We’ve developed unhealthy patterns of suppressing, denying and avoiding our thoughts and feelings. We numb ourselves with our drugs of choice, […]
How Do I Fill the Voids Within Me?
Our addictions very often develop from our need to fill the voids we feel within ourselves. We feel unfulfilled and unsatisfied in our lives. We feel lost, empty and incomplete. These feelings are so unsettling and cause us so much anxiety and uneasiness that we feel desperate to escape them and distract ourselves from them. […]
Creative Expression for Recovery
Many of us were creative, expressive and playful as children but stopped expressing ourselves creatively after childhood. Growing up, we explored music, art, dance, drama, storytelling and other creative pursuits. Our classes and extracurricular activities exposed us to different art forms, and many of us were intrigued enough to continue studying them. For a lot […]
How Can We Stop Self-Medicating?
Self-medicating is the process by which we use addictive substances and behaviors to numb the pain of our emotional issues, mental illnesses and difficult life challenges. We use drugs, alcohol, sex and gambling to cope with our anxiety, depression, panic attacks and other mental health issues. We use our go-to drugs of choice to try […]
Connection for Healing
When we’re struggling with addiction and mental illness, one of our greatest challenges is how disconnected we’ve become, from other people, from our families and communities, but even more so from ourselves. We’ve lost our connectedness to our inner selves, to the light that is within us. We’ve become disconnected from our purpose in life. […]
Discovering Our Purpose and Fulfillment
Part of the important work we do in recovery is finding ourselves, rebuilding our sense of self and discovering our purpose. We can find that throughout our struggles with addiction, our sense of purpose eluded us. We didn’t know what we were meant to do with our lives. We were confused about our mission. We […]