What is the History of Co-Occurring Disorder Treatment?
It’s important to treat addiction and mental health disorders simultaneously. People with mental health disorders may self-medicate with drugs or alcohol, but those substances tend to exacerbate mental health disorder symptoms. This makes it crucial to address both. However, we didn’t always know this. For much of the history of addiction and mental health treatment, […]
What is Neuroplasticity?
Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to change throughout the lifetime. The brain can continue to change into old age in response to your experiences, creating new pathways and neurons, and even in some cases assigning new roles to different parts. You may have heard that addiction changes the brain. That is because of neuroplasticity. Addiction […]
Staying Sober Through Hard Times
Chronically using substances tends to make our lives more stressful—and us less able to handle stress. The longer time you spend in recovery, the more manageable life tends to become. However, that doesn’t mean you won’t go through rough times. Hard things happen whether you’re sober or not. In recovery, you find ways to get […]
How to Select a Treatment Facility
Introduction to Treatment Facilities If you or a loved one is struggling with addiction or mental health issues, selecting the right treatment facility can make all the difference in your journey towards recovery. With so many options available, it’s important to carefully consider various factors before making this critical decision. Factors to Consider Before Choosing […]
Addiction as Self-Soothing
Sometimes when we haven’t been taught healthy methods for coping with pain, we use drugs or alcohol to self-soothe. As Liz, who I interviewed for the Sober Stories series, said, “There’s a practice of self-compassion of thinking: at that time in my life, that was the tool I’d learned for self-survival. I wasn’t taught healthier […]
Recovery Is About Hope
Recovery is one of the most encouraging experiences. It shows how much people can change and grow. You also need at least a little optimism to even think about getting sober—to think such a change is possible. Sobriety is Hopeful When you are diagnosed with an addiction or mental health disorder, it can feel hopeless. […]
Celebrate Sobriety: 10 Exciting Ways to Welcome the New Year
We believe that celebrating your sober journey should be anything but dull. That’s why we’ve curated a list of 10 exciting and unforgettable ways to welcome the new year in style. Introduction to Sobriety and the New Year The start of a new year often makes us think of setting goals and making positive changes […]
Coping With Regrets That Arise During Recovery
When you’re chronically under the influence of a substance, you’re bound to act in ways you wouldn’t otherwise. This means that when you get sober, you might have regrets. Living with regret can be painful, but it doesn’t have to hold you back. In fact, if you’re having regrets, it means you are starting to […]
Building Closeness in Recovery
Many of us in recovery spent our formative teen or early adulthood years drinking or using. During the time we might have been learning to build authentic closeness, we were cut off from ourselves by substances. All types of closeness—romance, in friendships, in familial relationship–require vulnerability, active communication and listening, the ability to set boundaries, […]
Perfectionism in Recovery
There are stereotypes that people with addiction are irresponsible, and that people with perfectionistic tendencies are reliable to a fault. But these two can be the same person. Perfection doesn’t exist, making the pursuit of it distressing. It’s not unusual to get burnt out when things inevitably don’t go as planned. Some perfectionists and people […]
