As recovering addicts, there is so much we stand to gain during the course of our recovery journey. More than just our sobriety, we get our lives back. We get back the chance to dream and to take full advantage of our opportunities. We get to choose to live. We get to shed the self-destructiveness […]
Category: Resource Center
How Can We Find Our Purpose?
Not knowing our purpose in life can be so overwhelming, stressful and painful that it can contribute to our addictions and mental health issues. We feel pressure to succeed and to make a name for ourselves. We want desperately to be perceived as good enough. We’re battling insecurity, feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem. We […]
Pregnancy and Addiction
For many people, pregnancy is a time of hopefulness and joy as we prepare to give life and live one of the most powerful and life altering experiences in human existence. For many others of us, we’re still battling addiction when we become pregnant and can feel especially sad, afraid and hopeless during our pregnancy. […]
How Can We Learn to Prioritize Our Wellness?
When we are embroiled in addiction and mental health issues, our well-being is very often our last priority. We choose to place more importance on everything else in our lives – all our duties and obligations, our families and relationships, our jobs and finances. We don’t realize that when we don’t give time to ourselves, […]
Dealing with Negativity
When living with addiction and mental health issues, one of our biggest challenges can be how we relate to other people and coexist with them. We can find ourselves surrounded by negativity, criticism and judgment. When we’re coming from a place of inner turmoil, we’re more likely to attract people into our lives that reflect […]
Solidarity and Healing
When struggling with addiction, one of the things that can keep us caught in its grips is how alone we feel. We are often shunned by our loved ones, and by society as a whole, who share in the stigmatization of addicts and addiction. We isolate to protect ourselves, in what is often an attempt […]
How Can I Take Responsibility for my Recovery?
Living with addiction and mental health issues, we very commonly lose faith in ourselves and in our ability to recover. We don’t see all of the possibilities for the future. We don’t feel positive anticipation, hopefulness, eagerness or optimism. When we’ve given up on ourselves, we can feel so hopeless and desperate that we don’t […]
Rebuilding Relationships in Recovery
As recovering addicts, one of the most important elements of the work we do to recover is rebuilding the relationships that may have sustained damage during the course of our addictions. We may have separated ourselves from the people in our lives who were trying to intervene and convince us to get help for our […]
The Visible and Invisible Effects of Addiction
Addiction is a destructive and debilitating illness with effects that are far-reaching and all-consuming. It can take over our entire lives and affect everything from our daily circumstances to our inner perception of self. What are some of the effects of addiction, both ones we can see and those that are invisible? Some obvious visible […]
What is Fight, Flight or Freeze?
Living with addiction and mental illness, we are no strangers to emotional stress, trauma and anxiety. How we cope, what kinds of fear responses we have, has a lot to do with our body’s nervous system and how it responds to stressors. When we have been hurt or traumatized, the energy of that pain gets […]