If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide, PLEASE call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255). We can be addicted to any number of things, not only to substances but also to risky behaviors that we engage in compulsively even though we know they endanger us and put us in harm’s way. Why do […]
Category: Resource Center
Share Your Story
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” -Maya Angelou After years of lived experiences both good and bad, we’ve accumulated stories that can be very difficult to face within ourselves, let alone share with other people. We hide our stories and bury them, blocking them out, trying to forget them. […]
How Do Recovery Meetings Help?
Treatment programs and support groups offer recovery meetings to help in the recovery process. How do they help? When we are in recovery, we often isolate ourselves, out of shame, out of fear of burdening those around us, out of the sheer anxiety of being around other people. Living our stories is hard enough. Having […]
How Our Family Dynamics Affect Us
Energetically we are very connected to the families we live with and grew up with. Even if we’ve separated ourselves by space, time and emotional distance, we still share an energetic bond with our family. Their thoughts, emotions and behaviors affect us, and vice versa. Our family dynamics and how we relate to our families […]
Why Do We Relapse?
Addiction recovery is a process, one that for many of us takes the rest of our lives to uphold. Sobriety, or abstinence, or being “clean” are not finite destinations, single points in time and space that we reach and our problems are erased. Recovering from our addictions is not a one-time thing, where we go […]
How Self-Hate Fuels Addiction
Many of us aren’t aware of just how pervasive and all-encompassing our self-hatred is, as well as how much it can contribute to our addictions. When we struggle with insecurity, jealousy, envy, bitterness, resentment and judgment, very often it is our self-hate that is at the root of all of that. We instinctively try to […]
Why is it So Hard to Recover Alone?
For those of us struggling with addictions who have tried to recover, we know just how hard it can be. Many of us try to face the recovery process alone. We think that because it is our issue, we should get through it on our own. We feel we’ve burdened the people who care about […]
The Joy of Recovery
When we are in the midst of our struggles with addiction, it can be really hard to see our way out to the other side. We can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. We’ve given up hope that we will be able to recover, and we’ve lost faith in ourselves. If you’re […]
How Do We Stop Sabotaging Ourselves?
Because our self-sabotage often comes from our underlying fears of inadequacy and unworthiness, stopping our self-sabotaging behaviors and patterns comes down to changing our thoughts and beliefs about ourselves. As part of our healing, we can choose to start seeing our traumatic experiences not as evidence of some kind of failing on our part, but […]
Finding Emotional Freedom
In our quest to heal from our addictions and mental and emotional health issues, perhaps our greatest goal is to find emotional freedom. What is emotional freedom, and how can we achieve it? A common misconception about emotional healing is that we are trying to replace any negative emotions we feel with positive thinking and […]