We are all familiar with the holiday song, The 12 Days of Christmas, but this year we are turning it upside down in honor of you and your recovery. Instead of an ode to the gifts you are going to receive, we have put together a list of activities that will ensure that not only...
If you are in early recovery, you might think that celebrating the holidays is going to look quite different than in recent years. Attending alcohol or drug rehab means you are already aware that relapse is something you must always guard against. Yet the holidays, especially during early recovery, can be a time of great...
One of the most common things a newbie asks about the 12 steps, is how long is this going to take? It’s understandable. Even if you won’t admit it, we know you’re excited about recovery. Who wouldn’t be? But here’s the thing. “Everyone recovers at his or her own pace and experiences sobriety in his...
How many times have you thought about starting a diet or quitting nicotine or caffeine without doing anything about it? Or lapsed back into bad habits after hitting a speed bump on the road to lifelong addiction recovery? Understanding the stages of change can help you in achieving your goals, particularly when overcoming your destructive...
Whether or not you have been keeping up with current events lately, you may have heard about something called fentanyl. Maybe you’ve seen it time and again on your Facebook feed and just haven’t had the time to investigate further or maybe it’s something you did a quick speed read through before you headed to work...
When someone you love is addicted to drugs or alcohol, the toll it takes on family relationships can be devastating, especially as a parent. It’s likely that you’ve heard many opinions on what to do as a parent with a child suffering from the disease of addiction. Some say to take the tough love approach, while...
If you’ve made the decision to get help for drug or alcohol abuse, you’ve conquered one of the toughest challenges on the road to recovery. Before you begin your journey of learning how to live a sober lifestyle, you need to have a clean, substance-free system. Most addiction treatment programs begin with a medically-supervised detox to...
Whitney Houston poses with Bobbi prior to her death Credit: Kevin Mazur/AMA2009/WireImage It seems like she never had a chance. Born to two crack-addicted parents, Bobbi Kristina Brown, who died July 26, 2015, most likely was not taught the life-skills needed to overcome her genetics and her environment. Even without the complication of substance abuse,...
The American Society of Addiction Medicine defines addiction as a primary, chronic disease of brain reward, motivation, memory and related circuitry. Dysfunction in these circuits leads to characteristic biological, psychological, social and spiritual manifestations. This dysfunction is reflected in an individual pathologically pursuing reward and/or relief by substance use and other behaviors. But what if...
