You need to understand the language of recovery. Have you ever found yourself in a conversation with two people who work in the same field—a field different than your own? At some point, the conversation turns to work and what each of you like, hate, and tolerate about your gigs. Maybe your two companions start...Read More
You have probably heard the old song that opens: “Summertime and the livin’ is easy.”It is a nice thought, isn’t it?As the summer arrives in full force, it is nice to think that perhaps the living will, in fact, be easy.Turns out, however, that the season of the year has very little to do with...Read More
How Can You Help Your Loved One?When someone in your life is struggling with drugs or alcohol, it is only natural to want to help. It is also natural to wonder just how you can help.After all, a person with a substance use disorder is often unpredictable, unwilling to listen, and unable to make clear...Read More
In the first entry in this miniseries about the different kinds of therapy, we explored cognitive behavioral therapy, dialectical behavior therapy, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, and family systems therapy. Finding the Right Therapeutic Approach Our point, as you may recall, is that “therapy” is a generic word that can be applied to quite a...Read More
Variety Packs You are probably familiar with variety packs. You find them in the grocery store, and they tend to have small individually packaged portions of something. Ten little cereal boxes with two boxes of five different kinds of cereal, for example. Or a big bag of candy that has mini versions of several of...Read More
Mindfulness & Your Mental HealthWe have written before about the ways in which mindfulness can support your mental health and recovery from a substance use disorder. On the surface, the practice of mindfulness seems both straightforward and simple. The goal is to be present in the current moment rather than ruminating about the past or...Read More
What Is Boredom? It happens to all of us from time to time. You are simply going about your day when suddenly you find yourself feeling restless or distracted. Whatever you are doing right at that moment isn’t any fun—and worse, you can’t really think of anything else to do that would be fun. Maybe...Read More
You have heard the expression, “ Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” It is an idea dating back to the 1600s—and many of us simply accept it as true. We believe that if we apply our willpower, we can find a way to accomplish just about anything. It’s a nice, motivational idea. But it...Read More
Core Principles There are times when advice becomes so familiar that it is easy to stop hearing it. For example, if you are in recovery from a substance use disorder, you are likely familiar with the 12 Steps (or some variation on that theme) associated with Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous. You might even be overly...Read More
It is undeniable that society’s attitudes about marijuana (also called cannabis) have been rapidly changing over the last several years.A Shift in PerceptionAs of this writing, 15 states have made cannabis legal for recreational use (we should note that Kansas is not one of these states) and many more have made it legal for medicinal...Read More
