Recovery
Posted under Recovery
Ditched Is No Reason to Relapse
What a raw deal you got; is that what you’re telling yourself? You went through treatment for drug or alcohol abuse only to come home and find out that your spouse or partner dumped you? Well, that is a pretty rough situation, it’s true. No one likes to be ditched. But it’s no reason to throw your recovery away and dip into the sauce. Don’t let getting the gate tempt you to relapse.
Posted under Recovery
Failure to Launch: What To Do When Your Recovery Stalls
What happens when you’re all jazzed up, coming out of treatment for substance abuse or process addictions, maybe co-occurring substance abuse and mental health disorder, and you just can’t seem to get it going? It isn’t that you’re doing anything wrong. It just seems as though you’re stuck in neutral – not going backward, but not moving forward, either. In a way, it’s like a failure to launch. Not to worry. Here’s what to do when your recovery stalls.
Posted under Recovery
How to Avoid Feeling Stagnated in Recovery
“Iron rusts from disuse; water loses its purity from stagnation…even so does inaction sap the vigor from the mind.” – Leonardo da Vinci, Italian scientist, inventor, and artist, painter of the Mona Lisa (1452-1519)
Posted under Recovery
Chemically Dependent Anonymous
While hundreds of addiction recovery groups exist, one focuses on the actual nature and disease of addiction rather than a specific addictive behavior. Called Chemically Dependent Anonymous, or CDA, members do not single out addiction problems to one particular drug, but instead strive to help one another overcome addiction as a whole.
Posted under Recovery
Back to Basics: Getting in the Rooms of 12 Step Meetings
An integral part of the addiction recovery process is ongoing participation in 12-step group meetings. Individuals are introduced to the 12-step philosophy and concept during the active phase of treatment and it’s recommended that they continue attending meetings for at least the first year after they’ve completed their treatment program. Many people continue to attend throughout their sobriety. Fresh out of treatment, however, many recovering addicts feel they don’t need (or want) to go to meetings and let this part of their recovery slide. That’s a huge mistake, one which may result in relapse. Let’s get back to basics and talk about getting in the room of 12-step meetings.
Posted under Recovery
How Open Can You Be About Your Addiction?
The decision of if, when, and how you should tell someone else about your addiction is a personal matter – and it’s not one to be taken lightly. Naturally, you wouldn’t dream of just blabbing to the stranger in the coffee shop that you once were a heroin or meth addict, or that you had a compulsive sexual addiction. They’d likely be put off by information of such a personal nature. But you also don’t want to get too far along in a new relationship – however intimate – before you reveal some of your past. The question, then, is how open can you be about your addiction?
Posted under Recovery
Importance of Aftercare in Addiction Treatment
Successful completion of a treatment program for addiction is a huge step on the road to recovery. But for most addicts, regardless of their type of addiction (drugs, alcohol, combination of drugs and alcohol, co-occurring disorder, gambling, eating, spending or sexual disorder), they’re not completely ready to function independently. They have fulfilled an important and essential part of their goal to overcome their addiction, namely the treatment program, but they still require ongoing support for some period of time. This critical phase is called aftercare, and participation in an aftercare program often makes the difference between abstinence and relapse. Continue Reading
Posted under Recovery
When Friends Bring Up Your Past in Recovery
Just when you thought you left all those memories behind, one of your friends, if you can call them that, decides to bring up the subject. Whether in casual conversation or something else, you have to wonder about their reasons for doing so. More important for you at this stage of your recovery, however, is what you should do about it.
Posted under Recovery
How and When to Tell a Love Interest You’re an Alcoholic
You’ve started seeing someone, first just for companionship, not looking for any long-term entanglement. But now it feels like there could be something there and you want more. What you’re experiencing is a need to share and interact with another human being on a more intimate level. That’s all fine and good, healthy, in fact. But you harbor a secret: you’re an alcoholic. You really don’t want to tell this person your whole story. Maybe if you keep it hidden things will work out okay. Don’t delude yourself. You have to be truthful. If you don’t, somewhere down the line it will come out anyway, and you’ll likely lose the relationship. But how and when should you come clean? How do you tell someone you care about that you’re an alcoholic?
Where Are You in Recovery?
If you are new to recovery, this may be the first time in a long time that you’ve been in a frame of mind to even have a relationship on a deeper level with another individual. This may not be something you want to hear, but now may not be the time to actively pursue a romantic involvement. You may need to give yourself more time to work on your coping skills, give and receive support from your 12-step friends, and work on charting your short-term and long-term goals. Why? The answer is simple. You want to be in a position to freely give and receive love and affection, and not have things clouded by your ongoing work to remain clean and sober. In other words, your focus right now should be on your recovery, as well as envisioning a future that encompasses everything you want – including sharing your life with another. Continue Reading
Posted under Recovery
Toxic Relationships Can Kill Your Sobriety
Completed rehab and newly sober? Congratulations! Through your hard work and determination you are in that most coveted goal: recovery. Doesn’t it feel great to finally be clean? No more hangovers so bad you have to drink just to cure it. No more blacking out and winding up somewhere you have no memory of going to. No more DUIs and altercations with the law. No more… Wait – what about your friends? Here’s the bad news. Returning to the scene of the crime, so to speak, is more than a foolhardy idea. It can totally kill your sobriety. How so? Read on.
Connect with a Recovery Adviser
The Addiction Primer
Everything you need to know to help a loved one struggling with addiction, from the writers and editors of Everything Addiction.
