Recovery from addiction is a life-long process that often begins with treatment in an addiction treatment center and continues with outpatient support in the form of cognitive behavioral therapy, 12-step program involvement, and other peer support.
Recovery from addiction is a life-long process that often begins with treatment in an addiction treatment center and continues with outpatient support in the form of cognitive behavioral therapy, 12-step program involvement, and other peer support.
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
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.
Everyone knows that marriages or partnerships have their ups and downs. Even the language in traditional wedding vows includes the phrases “for better or for worse,” and “’til death do us part.” Most people don’t expect the worse to include things like addiction, especially sexual addiction. Once you discover, or suspect, that your partner is a sexual addict or has a sexual compulsion – including having extramarital affairs, that’s a gut-wrenching feeling. You may think you can never recover from it fully. Naturally, you want things to go back to the way they were before the addiction. But what if your partner refuses to change? Should you stay or should you go? … Continue Reading
No one has to tell you what a sexual addiction urge is. If you have a sexual addiction, you probably experience it all too frequently. But it may be helpful to know that an urge (or craving) is a state of tension and anticipation that you experience as a desire for the specific activity. It’s also, as sexual addicts well know, uncomfortable – sometimes almost unbearably so. The longer the urge lasts, the worse it gets. Due to the immediate relief you feel once you act upon the urge, the likelihood increases that you’ll act on the urge again. In other words, the urge to engage in a sexually compulsive or addictive behavior, once acted upon, satisfies the urge – but only for a while before the scenario is repeated. Sometimes urges are acted on out of habit. Although these may be unconscious reactions, once you try to stop the behavior, the urges return with a vengeance. … Continue Reading
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
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.
By Meghan O’Dell
Addiction invaded our home in 1991. It slithered in and sat down at our dining room table, grew large and fat, fed on our misery, laughing, mocking us with its power. It claimed Jeff when he was just a fourteen-year-old boy. I did everything I could think of to save my son, but in the end I could do nothing, not really, to extricate him or to free our family from addiction’s claws.
This is one of Libby Cataldi’s many gripping, vivid descriptions of the way her son Jeff’s addiction affected her family. In Stay Close: A Mother’s Story of Her Son’s Addiction, Cataldi chronicles her family’s descent into drug addiction and eventual rise into hope and recovery.
When everyday problems and stress tie you up in knots and threaten to derail your carefully constructed life of newly-achieved sobriety, it may help to spend a little time to sort things out. Compartmentalizing tasks, problems, even free time, can reduce the pressure you feel and make your life seem less overwhelming. In business, it’s known as time management, but compartmentalizing easily translates to any occupation or way of life that can benefit from simplification. When you compartmentalize, you separate things – tasks, issues, problems, etc. – into distinct categories, divisions or blocks.
Here are some ways to help put order back into your life. … Continue Reading
By Suzanne Kane
Whether you’re an alcoholic or alcohol-dependent and thinking about getting clean and sober, you’re bound to worry about what that kind of life would be like sans alcohol. There are commonly held fears about sobriety that should be put to rest once and for all. Here are some of the frequently heard comments about being sober.
By LeAnne Bagnall
Taking that first step is always the hardest. You can’t go wrong with seeking information, and the amount of knowledge to be learned is boundless. Easy Does It Books is that first step. This warm and welcoming corner of Belmont Heights has been providing the Long Beach community with addiction recovery literature for over 12 years.
At Easy Does It Books, there is no hush-hush about the “taboo” subject matter—alcohol and narcotics recovery, eating disorders, food addiction, sex drives, and abuse support. Its library of information will enlighten all types of readers, making them more cognizant of the tumultuous hardships caused by the human condition and turning them into self-motivated activists.
