A thirty-day treatment program may seem expensive. It may seem like too large a time commitment. But if you actually evaluate what you can gain, the investment of time and money will seem well worth it.
Continue readingDon’t Make Excuses to Avoid Treatment
When I present someone new with options for recovery, I often hear two common objections. They are; “I’m a private person” and/or “I have to do it my way.” Both of these justifications keep the person from actively beginning their path to recovery.
Continue readingTell It Like It Really Is
I encourage family members to support and celebrate any level of recovery, but also to verbalize how this level of recovery affects them. Family members might not be ready to fully repair relationships at this level. The person suffering needs to hear the truth.
Continue readingThe Addict, Family System and Roles We Play
The addict is the major focus of the family. So family members spend much of their time and energy dealing with the addict unconsciously. This includes helping, enabling, or covering up their behavior to preserve the norm.
Continue readingAlcoholics Anonymous: Building the foundation of AA (with a dog named True)
I learned about the concept of a Higher Power from True. She wanted the best for me; she didn’t want me to suffer or relapse. Prior to making True my Higher Power, I would happily argue with anyone about religion. But after I met True, I no longer put up a fight about it. If a dog could be my driving force, who was I to argue against anyone else’s beliefs?
Continue readingIdentifying Triggers While Getting Sober
g to sober, identifying triggers that might stand in the way of recovery is necessary. It’s not uncommon for people who struggle with addictions to relapse at least once during recovery due to these triggers. Some even fall off the wagon several times before committing to sobriety.
Continue reading8 Essential Elements of Long Term Recovery
here are two very successful programs with proven results for long-term recovery. They are; the Human Intervention Motivation Study (HIMS) for pilots and Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP) for physicians. Both programs boast an above an 80% success rate at long-term recovery. Other general programs without a similar foundation have a success rate of less than 20%.
Continue readingGetting Stabilized in Early Recovery from Addiction
In early recovery, there are some major benchmarks to celebrate and also specific discomforts to expect.
Continue readingReality vs Expectation in Addiction Recovery – Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda
To fully recover from a substance use problem, we need to look at the places where our expectations don’t line up with reality.
Continue readingAddiction is a Response to Trauma: My Halloween Story
I don’t know how a trauma in my family a few generations back might show up in my life, that is until I recently passed up buying a pumpkin. I stood in front of a beautiful pumpkin at a farm stand. It was marked half price and I stood in front of it, frozen, unable to decide if I wanted to buy it. I walked away from that pumpkin feeling sick to my stomach.
Continue readingReturning Home from Treatment – Considerations for the Family
After a person completes treatment, there need to be changes at home. Prior to entering into recovery, there was a dynamic that allowed and perhaps even supported active addiction.
Continue readingGoing to Recovery Meetings Isn’t Optional
I don’t like to do a lot of things in my adult life, and yet every day I do them. From courses in college I hated, to going to the grocery store and unloading the dishwasher, adulthood is filled with tasks that range from mundane to miserable. Everyday I do things that I don’t like or want to do and I still get them done and the same goes for attending 12-step meetings. I have to do it. Still, people entering into recovery have a lot to say about why they don’t like 12-step meetings, why they don’t want to go, and why it won’t work for them.
Continue readingFamily Intervention: Changing the Manager
The process of intervention is an opportunity for the family to come together and manage the addiction in a proactive way. For years, families respond to the chaos of addiction. Intervention is the opportunity for a family to look at that pattern and determine how they will handle future situations.
Continue readingNew Boundaries After Battling Addiction
Families know in their guts that something isn’t right. When they address the concerned person, a process of gaslighting, or turning the warranted concern around on the person that voiced it. As a result, loved ones start to question their premonition and offer the person the benefit of the doubt all the while, the addiction is unknowingly in control of everyone affected.
Continue readingImagining Addiction: Your Cell Phone
What if I asked you to drop your phone in the mailbox and send it to me? It’s a big ask, isn’t it? We’ve become reliant on phones for years, habitually checking for new messages and reading updated news, and now here I am, telling you to give it up.
Continue readingTalking to an Addicted Person about Recovery
rn (POC) it is important to change the way that you have been talking to them in the past. Below are some of my favorite phrases to use when addressing someone with addiction.
Continue readingWhat Does an Intervention Look Like?
An intervention is not a one-off event; it is a recovery process. I commit to working with families for 90 days to ensure that the person suffering begins treatment successfully and has a plan that will ensure long term recovery. Committing the first time can lock in lasting recovery, making the intervention a process that only has to be done once.
Continue readingWhen an Addict Says, “I’ll think about it”
Thinking about recovery is about as effective as thinking about going to the gym. it does nothing to help the person actually recover.
Continue readingThe Functional Alcoholic
If you consider yourself a functional alcoholic, are you really functioning at your highest level? Or have you lowered the bar of what’s acceptable to cater to your addiction?
Continue readingEarly Intervention: Understanding Meth
The effects of P2P meth can be devastating; debilitating side effects of meth use are now realized in a matter of months – side effects that were not seen for years with traditional crystal meth.
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