The road to drug addiction recovery is long and difficult. It takes a lot of courage to beat an addiction and stay free of it. Many recovered addicts however find themselves relapsing shortly after rehab. When relapse does occur, it’s important to not get upset or depressed because this will lead to further drug use. If you are a recently recovered drug user, there are ways to tell if you are headed towards relapse. If you can recognize them in time, you may be able to get the help you need before it is too late.
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The link between trauma and addiction is one that we, in the recovery field, can no longer ignore. A variety of workshops, trainings, and books entered the market in the last several decades to address these unavoidable connects. However, I found something was still lacking, especially in the area of integrating the best of what traditional paradigms can offer us together with the latest knowledge about traumatic stress...knowledge that the founders of AA were not privy to in the 1930's.
In my work as a profession...
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Congratulations! You’ve given up drink and you’re committed to keeping it that way. You feel better than you have done for a long time and you have a renewed zest for life.
You might believe that you are able to take on anybody and anything. Beware! You will face new situations and challenges. People will disappoint you and let you down. The reality is that everybody has their own stresses in life and just because you are a recovering alcoholic doesn’t exempt you. Just like the rest of the world you will nee...
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Everyone messes up sometimes, but as an alcoholic I messed up big time. Throughout my drinking days that were countless times when I said things I shouldn’t have, did things that hurt myself and others.
As I started on my journey to sobriety I was filled with remorse, guilt and regrets. But the fact is that the past can never be altered. It doesn’t matter whether it was a major traumatic event or a simple cross word, the moment has gone.
Learning to accept that there was nothing I could do to change what ha...
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“There is no use trying,” said Alice; “one can’t believe impossible things.” “I dare say you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast”. ~Lewis Carroll
I have found it a useful practice to envision impossible things. I’ve seen it happen first hand. With hard work and determination we usually prove ourselves wrong. Impossible things encompass a ...
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Whether it was drink, drugs or even food, how many times have you vowed ‘Never again!’ after you’ve overindulged? And how many times have you gone and done it again? In fact if you don’t want to repeat something, the last thing you should say is ‘Never again!’
Here’s 5 reasons why:
1. You are setting yourself up to fail – Saying ‘never’ about anything is totally unrealistic and so you’re more likely to give in, if what you’re setting out to do is unachievable from the outset. Get real! S...
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Balance. Over the past few weeks, I have been doing a great deal of reading about the varied approaches to addiction treatment. In other realms of my life, I have been considering what proportion of my time to spend on continuing education, writing, marketing, as opposed to actually doing psychotherapy. Of course this does not include the many other roles I fulfill as partner, mother and friend. Each time I think of each topic (orientations to therapy/treatment, work, and my personal life), the word “balance” kee...
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Struggling to control your drinking? Regularly relapsing? Perhaps you need to look at whether you are using the right key? Because finding the best way to get sober and stay sober can be like finding the key to a door. Once its open you know you are in the right place, but if it isn’t the proper key you just end up frustrated that nothing is happening and are likely to give up trying.
It took me 20 years of battling the booze to find the key, but when I did it was so worth it and 13 years on I enjoy a sober and ...
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You are what you think. Our physical bodies may be what we eat, however, our psyches are made up of our thoughts.
Does this mean we should pay attention to what we are thinking? YES! We should not only pay attention to what we think but also what we hear. The old adage of “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” is a lie. Words are powerful.
Most of us don’t pay attention to ‘automatic thoughts’ which happen in a split second. They are messages we send to ourselves all day. ...
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Call addiction what you wish – a condition, disease or a disorder. I have no problem with those labels. What I do have a problem with is every Tom, Dick and Harry in the addiction treatment industry insisting that addiction is an “incurable” disease. Terminal cancer is an incurable disease. Addiction is entirely curable. I know this to be true, because I’m a cured alcoholic and there are millions of others like me.
So, why does the addiction treatment profession refer to addiction as an incurable disease? ...
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3 Steps To Recovery: One Man's Triumph Over Alcohol And Drugs, by Dan Farish, paints a vivid picture of events leading to the author's addiction, his 20 year battle with drugs and alcohol, and how desperation led to condensing AA's 12 Steps down to 3 that promised to cure his addiction.
3 Steps to Recovery is a brutally honest autobiography that describes in vivid detail how a life can spiral down into the hopelessness of addiction. Dan Farish draws his readers into the painful childhood of a dysfunctional family,...
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Question Of The Day - AA is based on a belief in a Higher Power/God as the source of recovery from addiction. If you believe that a H.P. can perform miracles, do you also believe that the same H.P. can change people from forever recovering to fully recovered addicts? If not, why not?
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· We listen. Listening might not sound like much, but it’s one of the most important things we do. We listen without judgment to the things you say and to the things you don’t. We listen to your passions, your interests, and the challenges you face. We listen to YOU.
· We work together with you, as a team, to identify and explore your greatest strengths, skills and dreams.
· We help you remove obstacles that stand between you and your goals.
· We work with you to form a plan of action designed to help you ...
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In 2007 I was sent to prison for a 5 year sentence. My previous girlfriend was pregnant with the twin's at the time and as you can imagine I was angry and disappointed at my lack of maturity. I felt this as she refused to speak to me for a long time. Sat in a prison cell knowing that I'd let down not only her and our unborn children, but also her other kids and myself. We were all devastated.
On valentines day 2008 my twin's where born. I missed the birth obviously and didn't find out the date of their arrival...
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