As alumni, we know just how challenging it can be to maintain our sobriety. We’re up against odds that feel insurmountable. Completing a treatment program is just the beginning of our work in recovery. When we’re reintegrating back into society and returning to our regular lives, there are some specific emotional challenges we can be […]
Category: Resource Center
How Can Reintegration Lead to Relapse?
When we finish a treatment program and are returning to our regular lives, there are some common factors in the reintegration process that can be particularly triggering which can contribute to our relapsing. We are often hopeful that we can continue our sobriety once we’ve re-entered our former lives, our homes, families, environments and lifestyles, […]
The Benefits of Therapy
When we’re approaching the recovery process, one of the things we fear most is having to commit to the self-reflection we know will help us heal on a deeper level. We’re afraid of feeling the emotional pain that comes with healing. We’re afraid of having to do this with a stranger, in therapy, which can […]
How Can Mindfulness Help Me?
Establishing a foundation of emotional mindfulness can be a major deterrent from the self-destructive and addictive cycles that so many of us fall into. We can practice emotional mindfulness in our daily lives, and the more we incorporate it into our regular routine, the more we can benefit from it. Developing our emotional intelligence and […]
Learning to Cope with Addictive Urges
The process of learning to handle addictive urges and the temptation of our addictions is much like learning to handle our difficult emotions. We have to become better able to sit through the discomfort and the anxiety they can bring. We have to turn off our default instinct to run from the unpleasantness. We have […]
How Can We Educate Our Children on Addiction and Mental Health?
One of the most important things we can teach our children early on is that we have much more control over our thoughts and emotions, and therefore our lives, than we often tend to think. When it comes to addiction and mental health issues such as depression and anxiety, we often think they are these […]
Allowing Ourselves to be Supported
Learning how to allow ourselves to receive help and support can be a real challenge for many of us. We’re often used to doing things alone and have become fiercely independent. We might be prideful and think of accepting help as a sign of weakness. We might feel so alone and isolated that we’ve come […]
How Can We Prevent Addiction in Children?
Children are experimenting with, and becoming addicted to, drugs and alcohol at astounding rates, and while it can feel like a problem with no solution, there are some things we can do to help prevent our children from developing an addiction. Children are being fed messages left and right touting partying, drinking and drugs as […]
The Compulsions that Accompany Addiction
Sometimes our addictions aren’t the only thing causing us pain and turmoil in our lives. We’re also suffering from compulsions that accompany our addiction and mental health issues. Compulsions are behaviors we feel we can’t control. These behaviors and habits might be toxic, unhealthy or even dangerous, yet we feel as though we can’t stop. […]
How Can I Transform My Self-Image?
Working to heal from our addictions entails repairing our damaged relationship to self and transforming the self-image we’ve created out of self-hate and self-rejection. We see ourselves as bad people, as ugly, worthless and shameful. We feel inadequate and inferior to other people. We don’t see ourselves for who we truly are. We don’t focus […]