Active addiction can make you feel out of control and unsure of who you are, which means many of us learn self-advocacy when we get sober. You can’t ask for what you need when you don’t know what that is. It’s important to learn what’s best for your recovery and advocate for it, because what…
When it comes to getting sober, many people have lots of starts and stops. Six years before I got sober for what I hope to be the last time, I quit drinking for a couple months—only to pick up right where I left off. There were many times throughout active addiction that I tried to…
I spoke with Carl Erik Fisher over Zoom about his book The Urge: Our History of Addiction. Fisher is an addiction physician and bioethicist. He is an assistant professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University’s Division of Law, Ethics, and Psychiatry, and maintains a private psychiatry practice focused on addiction. Fisher’s writing has appeared in…
Addiction is a cycle. When you’ve been using drugs or alcohol chronically, your brain comes to expect them. It adjusts to the floods of dopamine by lowering dopamine receptors, making it harder for you to feel pleasure from other, healthier activities. Additional changes in the brain—like alterations to the prefrontal cortex, which helps with impulse…
Treatment and recovery are related concepts, but they are not the same thing. Generally, treatment is the formal process of going to a facility for help with addiction. Treatment can include detox, inpatient or outpatient programs, and medication-assisted treatment (MAT). Recovery encompasses other aspects of your life, including emotional sobriety, mental health, physical health, and…
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. I’ve always kept many relationships of all varieties, even during active addiction. But there are layers to true intimacy…
Recovery allows the space to cultivate empathy. During active addiction, your brain changes so that you may seek out the substance above other things in life. When alcohol or drugs are no longer your main priority, it often follows that you’re less self-centered. You are better able to understand other people’s experiences. Still, sometimes we…
After detoxing or in early sobriety, some people experience euphoria for a few days or weeks. This is referred to as the “pink cloud.” Sometimes people worry that after this wears off, real life in recovery will be a harsh reality check. As someone who experienced the pink cloud when I was just over two…
Sometimes in recovery, it can feel like we’re behind peers who never had addiction. The years we drank or used drugs could have been spent working towards life goals. When I first got sober, I tried to work on every goal at once. I finally had the capacity to do so—and felt like I was…
It can be very challenging to figure out the best type of treatment when you are ready to seek help for substance abuse or addiction. It is a vulnerable time, and there are so many factors to consider. There are many options and different types of programs, but how can you know which is best…