It used to surprise me how many of the trauma survivors I serve enjoy horror movies. It took me a long time to get it. Unlike the imagery in your head, you can make the movie stop anytime you want.
Lies My Depression Tells Me
My friends in recovery personify the disease of addiction in a myriad of ways. I’ve learned volumes from that. There’s a vital distinction between what is me, and what is within me that is not me, seeking to destroy me.
How Covid-19 Impacts Addiction
The biggest difference between a pandemic and an epidemic is that the former is contagious and the latter is not. The biggest similarity is that we knowingly place certain members of our culture at risk of developing both.
Alcohol, Zoom, and the Pandemic
“While I’m in a meeting, my disease is outside doing pushups.” We know this is true – we also know that the disease is not “out there” it’s inside of us and seeking to undermine us at all times.
How to Stop Worrying
If we’re going to overcome worrying; the first step is to differentiate it from concern. To be concerned is a healthy exercise of empathy and compassion. Worrying is waiting for the other shoe to drop and telling yourself you’ll feel relieved if it doesn’t and prepared if it does.
The Disease Will Use a Pandemic
Staying home, whether self-imposed or by government ordered, offers us the opportunity to invest in family relations and enjoy more “quality time.” Even in the healthiest of families, cabin fever eventually sets in. For those of us in families that are struggling, quarantine may feel especially hard.
Beyond Relapse Prevention: Trauma Recovery
Amongst those who do escape the perils of addiction, other demons remain. Rarely have I met a person in recovery from Substance Use Disorder (SUD) who did not have a great deal of repressed trauma, a wealth of unresolved grief and loss, and underlying mental illness.
Quarantine & Family Dysfunction
Staying home, whether self-imposed or by government ordered, offers us the opportunity to invest in family relations and enjoy more “quality time.” Even in the healthiest of families, cabin fever eventually sets in. For those of us in families that are struggling, quarantine may feel especially hard.
Covid-19 and Home Recovery Options
In the midst of this crisis, folks are losing access to countless services. For people like me, the absence of in person addiction services and 12 step meetings puts us at heightened levels of risk and anxiety.
Why Your Brain Is 100mph and What to Do About It
All of us whose brains go 100mph engage in addictive thinking – the black and white, all or nothing, now or never mindset. Our minds get hijacked by urges, cravings and shiny distractions that distance us from ourselves. We strive to attain – whether it’s for the next fix, the next conquest, or even in achieving our recovery goals, our approach is largely the same: