When we have a loved one struggling with addiction, it can be extremely painful to watch them suffer. For many of us, we feel compelled to stage an intervention to try to convince them to get help. Confronting someone on such a sensitive issue as addiction can become contentious. Emotions are high, and a lot […]
Category: Resource Center
Reasons Why We Relapse
Part of the work we do in recovery is understanding the reasons why we relapse, especially when we’re committed to our recovery and the last thing we want to do is let ourselves and our loved ones down. Our addictions are much more complicated than the substance use and behaviors we associate with them. Our […]
What is Resistance?
Resistance is something we often hear discussed in terms of mindfulness, mental health and emotional well-being, but what do we mean by it? Resistance is any way in which we try to block the flow of energy, to try to stop something from happening, to push something away rather than allowing it to happen. When […]
Tapping into our Innate Courage
Living with addiction and mental health issues can wear us down until we feel totally powerless, weak and afraid. Our relationship to our fears is full of resistance, avoidance and denial. We’re afraid of being afraid, so we run from our emotions and try to avoid having to feel them. Finding the courage to face […]
Why Do We Resist Sobriety?
For those of us who have been living many years, or most of our lives, addicted to a substance or behavior, our addiction has become our comfort zone. As painful and destructive as it can be in our lives, it is what is familiar to us. We therefore have a very hard time accepting any […]
The Facade of Functional Addiction
For many of us in recovery, we remember a time in the story of our addiction when we thought we’d be able to maintain our lifestyles the way they were and still continue to feed our addictions. We felt like we had figured out a way to manage our lives and still be able to […]
Mindfulness for Sobriety
The work we do in recovery and how much energy we put into it determines how successful we ultimately are in our recovery. Being sober tests our power, our strength, our resilience, and our capacity for growth. When we’ve been struggling with addiction for many years, one of the skills we’ve lost or been unable […]
Can Drug Use Lead to Sex Addiction?
We know that substance use can lead to abuse and addiction, but can it contribute to other kinds of addiction, such as sex addiction? We tend to think of our drug use and our sexual lives as separate, but for those of us struggling with addiction, they can be very much related and intertwined. As […]
Redirecting the Thought Patterns of Depression
As complicated as depression can be, for many of us it can all come down to the ways in which we think. The thought patterns we’re unconsciously repeating become our limiting beliefs. Some common thought patterns with depression include self-judgment, feelings of insecurity and inadequacy, and self-rejection. We develop limiting beliefs telling us that we […]
What is a Gateway Drug, and Is That Even a Real Thing?
“Gateway drugs” are substances that lead to experimentation with other drugs, that act as gateways opening us up to trying stronger drugs and developing addiction. The gateway drug we hear about most commonly is probably marijuana, and marijuana smokers and proponents are often quick to dispel the idea of gateway drugs as a myth. There […]