12-Step recovery programs focus on taking a newcomer through a series of steps so they can experience a spiritual awakening and develop a relationship with a higher power of their own understanding as a means of achieving and maintaining sobriety. The 12-Step recovery program began with Alcoholics Anonymous but has proven to be so effective…
Early recovery is a time when our emotions return and may even be heightened for a period of time. We spent so much time deadening our emotional natures with drugs and alcohol, that it is only natural that we will begin to feel a strong resurgence of emotion in sobriety. One such emotion, empathy, often…
We used drugs and alcohol as a way of coping with the discomfort of the outside world. Rarely could we enter into any social situation without being under the influence of substances. We felt safe and protected in a cloud of intoxication. Eventually, however, we found ourselves isolating and entirely unable to face the outside…
Critical thinking is not necessarily what you think it is. It is not even a radical concept or idea that is new but the truth is recovery tends to involve a lot of emotion and less thinking. If you are in an addiction recovery program, you are dealing with lots of changes, new routines, friends,…
The first step toward sobriety is often detoxifying the body of any traces of drugs or alcohol. This is done in order to break one’s physical dependence and pave the way for rehab treatment. Some drugs, like alcohol and opioids, create such strong physical dependence that one must receive medical support throughout the process to…
The decision to go to treatment can easily be the best decision a person ever makes. Many men and women who have successfully recovered from addiction and alcoholism can remember a time when they were on the fence about whether or not they needed treatment. Many of us needing treatment feel we can overcome our…
Alcoholism is a chronic, progressive, and fatal disease. Although there is no absolute “cure” for alcoholism, we are able to recover from the hopeless state of body and mind that has resulted from the disease. Rather than a cure, we have recovery programs designed to maintain sobriety and remove symptoms of the disease. Alcoholism can…
Therapy often serves as a significant and critical component of any recovery process, whether you have a mental illness, addiction, or both. It can be challenging, though, to determine which facility is the best one for yourself or a loved one. You should consider many things and ask many questions when looking into a treatment center…
White-knuckle sobriety refers to the practice of desperately holding onto sobriety without working a recovery program. Many programs stress the impossibility of maintaining sobriety by sheer force of will, but there are some—few and far between—who can for some time. The problem with white-knuckling sobriety is that it does not allow one to address all…
For many years, alcohol use disorder, or alcoholism, has been known as a threefold disease that affects the mind, body, and spirit. Within the disease, three parts are referred to as the spiritual malady, the physical allergy, and the mental obsession. These components, in conjunction, make up the disease of alcohol addiction, as defined by…