Sometimes as we’re recovering, we feel ashamed and embarrassed about where we are in our journey. We feel down on ourselves. We feel disappointed that we haven’t made as much progress in our recovery as we would have liked. We feel like we’re so far from our goal of sobriety that we might as well […]
Category: Recovery
Finding the Lessons in Our Pain
One of the best things we can do for ourselves as we’re working to recover is transform the relationship we have with our pain, our difficult emotions, our addictions and mental health issues, and our tough life experiences. Our instinctive response to pain is to resist it. It hurts, so we try to avoid feeling […]
Why We Should Stop Trying to Constantly Fix Ourselves
The recovery process, like any personal development journey, is full of ups and downs, challenges and obstacles, successes and perceived failures. What we come to realize is that what feels like a failure, or a mistake, or a flaw, is actually an invitation to open ourselves up even more to the process of learning how […]
Forging a Connection with Our Higher Power
Many recovery programs stress the importance of developing a relationship with our higher power, knowing this power, connecting with it and recognizing its existence within us. They view a religious or spiritual practice as being an important part of the recovery process. Many of us don’t already feel connected to a higher power, and we […]
Suicide and How Alone We Feel
If you’re struggling with thoughts of suicide, PLEASE call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255). Too many of us have known or been connected to someone who took their own life, and the tragedy of it stays with us forever. Many of us want to find a way to address suicide within our families […]
Admitting to Our Mistakes
As we’re working to heal ourselves and recover from our addictions, an important part of the recovery process is developing our ability to admit our mistakes. For years, many of us were resistant to admitting when we felt we had done something wrong or hurt someone. Our pride, our fear of being criticized, and our […]
Respecting Our Boundaries in Recovery
One of the elements of the recovery process that we often find challenging is establishing boundaries for ourselves and ensuring that the people in our lives respect them. Setting and maintaining boundaries takes a level of self-respect and a strong sense of self-worth that many of us haven’t attained yet. We’re still struggling with feelings […]
Why We Don’t Reach Out for Help
If you’re struggling with thoughts of suicide, PLEASE call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255). There are various reasons why we don’t reach out for help with our addictions and mental illnesses, and those reasons are unique to us and our experience. There are some common elements that can be found in all of […]
Access to Treatment
For many of us, the road to recovery starts with enrolling in a treatment program, but for many of us, we don’t have access to the professional treatment we need. Many of us don’t think recovery is possible for us, and we lose hope, never taking the steps to seek out help. Others of us […]
The Wake-Up Call
When struggling with addiction, we don’t always know what it will be that finally forces us to stop, get help and get sober. We’re so deeply embroiled in our addictive patterns and the painful cycles we’re in that we don’t feel we have the clarity, the conviction or the willpower to stop our addictions ourselves. […]