Struggling with a substance use disorder can feel quite lonely. As your drug or alcohol use continues and worsens, you may well find yourself cut off from more and more people. That might be because you are trying to hide your problem from others. It might be because your drug or alcohol use has led to...Read More

When you are struggling with drugs or alcohol, you are not the only person who is affected by your situation.The list of those who might be impacted by your substance use disorder is potentially long, but in this blog entry, we want to focus on a specific kind of person: the children in your life.Whether...Read More

There is a reasonable chance that when you hear someone mention mindfulness, you imagine a person sitting quietly with their eyes closed while they breathe in and out and don’t seem to do much else. And it is certainly the case that mindfulness practice often can be fairly described in those terms. The heart of...Read More

Let’s talk hoops. Let’s imagine you are a really good basketball player (heck, maybe you are a really good basketball player) and like to play the game.You might have the full collection of skills. You are a good ball handler, a good passer, can hit the three pointers but also shoot from midrange and from...Read More

Fans of 1980s television programs likely remember The A-Team, a popular action and adventure series. Before getting into a plan, each episode opened with a reminder of the team’s backstory:In 1972, a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn’t commit. These men promptly escaped from a...Read More

Aside from getting sober, imagine you have decided you would like to write a novel. For our purposes here, let’s say you have decided to pen a mystery novel—a murder, a private detective, a twisty plot, an exciting climax, and justice served in the end.Now imagine that today is the day you have decided to...Read More

It perhaps goes without saying that humans tend to be pretty curious. In many ways, that is a wonderful thing. If we were not driven to discover new things, we probably would be living very different lives. Curiosity, after all, leads to innovation and invention, and those things move us all forward in many different...Read More

The folks who make and sell mattresses invest a lot of money into letting us know that their products will transform the quality of our sleep. Maybe you can adjust the firmness of the mattress—and even have separate settings for each sleeper. Maybe you can press a button to raise your head or your feet...Read More

When you are struggling with drugs or alcohol, it is always tempting to tell yourself some lies so that you do not have to face up to the problem.“I could quit anytime I want.”“I don’t really have a problem because nothing bad has happened.”“I’m just a social drinker.”No doubt you could list even more half-truths...Read More

Not Wholly Sober: Functioning Alcoholics, Dry Drunks,In one sense, the idea of sobriety is pretty easy to wrap your head around. If you are not under the influence of drugs or alcohol, you are sober. By extension, if you have given up drugs and alcohol entirely, you can also be described as sober. Seems fairly cut...Read More