Many of the emotional issues we have surrounding our addictions are built upon beliefs we’ve been practicing thinking and believing for much of our lives. As part of our recovery, want to examine those beliefs and explore their origins, where they came from, why and how we adopted them in the first place, and what […]
Category: Recovery
Learning Healthy Coping Skills
Our addictions are very often the coping mechanisms and defense mechanisms we’ve adopted to help ourselves deal with the pain in our lives. We use all kinds of thought patterns, emotional patterns and behavioral patterns as our ways of coping with the stress of everyday life, our complex relationship issues, and the tough situations and […]
Quitting Cold Turkey
When deciding how to quit our drug of choice, some of us make the choice to quit “cold turkey,” abruptly and with finality, without any form of intervention, medical or otherwise, to help us quit. Some of us don’t put thought into it, we just are able to quit for good, in one shot. For […]
Learning to Control Our Impulses
Some of the most important work we do in recovery is completely internal, the outside world might not see it, but we feel huge changes taking place within us. One of these crucial changes is the ability to control our impulses, something we really struggle with as addicts. Our impulses that are related to our […]
Believing in Ourselves and Our Recovery
As we’re taking on the process of healing ourselves, one of the things we sometimes overlook is how we feel about ourselves and our recovery, whether or not we’ve lost faith in ourselves, whether or not we still believe in ourselves and our ability to recover. Many of us have very mixed emotions about our […]
Life Skills in Recovery
Sometimes our addictions and mental health issues are so debilitating we feel as though we’ve forgotten how to live our lives in healthy, empowering ways. We don’t feel able to function normally, accomplish our goals, or even get through the day. We feel so depressed we can’t get out of bed. We stop taking care […]
The Myth of the “Last Time”
When we’re still embroiled in our addictive patterns, one of the things we tell ourselves the most is that this time will be “the last time.” This will be the last time we go on a binge or bender. It will be the last time we use at all. It will be the last time […]
Finding Our Voice
Addiction and mental illness can cause us to become completely disconnected from our inner selves, so much so that we lose sense of who we are. We lose our voice. Our voice is how we communicate our innermost thoughts and feelings with the world, with the people in our lives, and with ourselves. It’s how […]
Putting Energy into Our Intentions
If you’re struggling with thoughts of suicide, PLEASE call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255). Part of our recovery work is creating goals for ourselves and setting intentions. Sometimes we set those intentions without making sure we’re putting the necessary energy behind them in order to follow through with them. When this happens, our […]
Transforming How We Self-Identify
As recovering addicts, there are different ways in which we self-identify that hurt us, that hold us back, and that are defined by the limiting beliefs we believe about ourselves. We feel as though we’re not good enough. We feel unworthy and unlovable. We feel ashamed of all the things we’ve done wrong and the […]