Category: QA

The belief systems we carry with us into adulthood are often formed during our childhoods. We inherit them from our families. We develop them on our own from our own experiences and unique perspectives. We adopt other people’s beliefs as our own when they resonate with us. Our belief systems inform how we feel about […]

We know that our addictions are often the coping mechanisms we develop to deal with intense pain, but we don’t always explore in depth what those sources of pain are for us. We feel deep sadness and fear that contribute not only to our addictions but also to our depression, anxiety and other mental health […]

Having expectations for ourselves and our recovery can be helpful. Expectations can help us to define goals for ourselves and to set intentions, to design plans and to create visions for ourselves. Our expectations can hurt us, however, especially when we become so consumed with trying to attain perfection that we don’t allow ourselves to […]

For many of us, our uncertainty around the future, our recovery, and our lives in general tends to fill us with fear, worry and trepidation. We feel unsure of ourselves and lacking in confidence and self-assuredness. We feel dread about the future and all its unknowns. We’re consumed by questions and feel angst and anxiety […]

One of our greatest misconceptions around recovery is that we need something outside of ourselves in order to heal. We think we are dependent upon doctors, therapists, sponsors and treatment centers to get well, and although these are all extremely helpful along our journey, they aren’t the ones responsible for our healing, we are. They […]

We tend to think of our mental illnesses as affecting our minds and our emotions, our thought processes, behaviors and emotional responses, but what about our bodies? Are our bodies affected as well? Are we impacted physically by our mental illnesses? For many of us, our mental illnesses do manifest physically, and we are impacted […]

Sometimes to help ourselves stay on track with our sobriety, it can be extremely helpful to focus on reaching for our goals. Feeling successful and fulfilled can be a powerful deterrent to our drug use, because we feel happier, more confident, and more at peace within ourselves. We’re not giving our energy to beating ourselves […]

Our pain, our traumatic experiences, our fears and our difficult life circumstances can all leave us feeling broken, wounded, damaged and brokenhearted. We can feel empty, lost and incomplete. These feelings are normal, natural and common, they are part of human nature, but if we don’t actively work to heal them, they can contribute to […]

We fear a great many things, especially when we’re struggling with addiction and mental illness, but what we fear most might very well be ourselves. We fear facing our difficult thoughts and feelings. We fear confronting our pain and fear. We’re afraid of what the world would think of us if we allowed it to […]

For many of us, our addictions are our coping mechanisms for the painful emotions we’re trying desperately to avoid having to feel. They are our escapism, our distraction, our way to numb our feelings. One of the most painful and debilitating emotions that many of us have a very hard time feeling, expressing and releasing […]