Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide. About 16 million American adults have had at least one depressive episode and the rate of depression appears to be increasing. The increasing rate of depression is partly due to greater awareness and more people seeking help, but it may also be due in part to greater… Continue Reading 5 Ways Mindfulness Can Help You Beat Depression
Depression is a serious mental and emotional health issue that is often considered a co-occurring disorder alongside addiction. When our depression is left untreated and unaddressed, there can be a wide range of dangerous effects. Untreated depression can increase our chances of turning to addictions, or worsen them if we’re already addicted. Depression can make… Continue Reading The Dangers of Untreated Depression
Some of us never consider ourselves to be addicts because our addictions haven’t seriously disrupted our lives yet or caused us any catastrophic circumstances. We haven’t lost our job, been kicked out of school, or had to drop out. We haven’t ruined any relationships. We haven’t gotten arrested or gambled our money away. We are… Continue Reading What Does Functional Addiction Look Like?
Relapse rates are difficult to measure reliably, but one frequently cited study estimates that between 40 and 60 percent of people will experience a relapse. The number is much higher for some substances. People who have quit drinking, for example, have about a 90 percent chance of having at least one relapse, partly because alcohol… Continue Reading 6 Ways to Cope with Relapse Triggers
If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide, PLEASE get help. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-TALK (8255). When we struggle with addictions, we are often driven to our addictive substances and behaviors because we’re using them to self-medicate to try and escape our inner pain. We come to realize… Continue Reading Self-Medicating to Escape our Pain
The process of entering and completing treatment can be life-changing and can start us on the path towards full recovery. The decision to enter treatment can be a difficult one. Often when we’re starting treatment, we’ve really been struggling with our addictions and can feel like we’re at the end of our rope and have… Continue Reading How Can I Prepare Myself for Treatment?
Sometimes we view our relapses as evidence of our failure. We believe that because we weren’t successful with our recovery this time, we won’t ever be. Sometimes we use a relapse as an excuse to start actively using again. Bouncing back after a relapse means taking inventory of where you got off track, identifying what… Continue Reading Bouncing Back After a Relapse
Mindfulness is the practice of becoming conscious in everything we do, in our thoughts, feelings, behaviors, habits and patterns. When we become more mindful of how we are operating mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually, we start to figure out what we need to change in order to be successful in our recovery. Meditation is one… Continue Reading How Can Mindfulness Help Me in My Recovery?
Self-help groups for addiction include 12-step groups, SMART Recovery, Refuge Recovery, LifeRing, and others. Of these, 12-step programs like AA and NA are by far the most popular, with more than 100,000 AA groups alone worldwide. SMART Recovery is the largest non-12-step program with about 1500 groups in the US. What newer groups like SMART,… Continue Reading Why Self-help Groups Alone Are Not Enough to Beat Addiction
An important part of working to prevent relapse is learning what our triggers are. It can help us to look back at the times when we were actively using, to figure out what things increased our urges to use and decreased our willpower to avoid using. For many of us, stress is the biggest trigger… Continue Reading Learning Our Relapse Triggers
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