Whether you're on it, off it, or somewhere in between
Sober or not, feeling hungry, angry, lonely, or tired can sometimes bring out the worst in us. But for those in recovery from substance use disorders, these temporary states of being can lead to danger. HALT, which stands for Hungry, Angry, Lonely, and Tired, is a widely recognized acronym in the recovery community, especially in […]
When I decided to get sober, I sought help from a recovery program to help me stop drinking. Based on countless “whiteknuckle” attempts at sobriety on my own, I realized I could not do it alone and I needed help. In my desperation, I decided to give a recovery program a try — even though […]
I knew my relationships were going to change when I got sober, and once I learned I could live life without alcohol, I became less focused on drinking or not drinking and more focused on my personal growth. I did not want to be a dry drunk, so I knew that I had to make […]
Everyone in recovery is different, and every trigger — those things that make us crave a drink — is different for every person in recovery. If you take a big fat Ketel One martini filled with olives and stick it right under my nose, there’s a 99.9% chance that I’ll be triggered to drink it. Or if you force me to smell a chilled, crisp white wine, then yeah, I’m going to want to taste that.
The “one day at a time” mantra is used frequently in recovery. And I have to be honest — I couldn’t stand the saying for many, many years. It made me think of the TV show “One Day at a Time” and its incredibly catchy and annoying theme song, which would then stay lodged in […]
On my two-year sober anniversary, I received a text from my buddy that read: “Your sobriety helps more people than you will ever know.” I thanked him, said “yeah right” to myself, and forgot about it. But a bit later on, I realized he might be right. And that’s because since I got sober, I […]
Social anxiety is more than shyness — it’s a mental health condition that can seriously affect a person’s ability to interact with others. This can make addiction recovery challenging, especially when so many programs emphasize social interaction and fellowship as a means to long-term sobriety. For me, this was a big problem.[…]
I hate winter. Especially once January hits, and we’ve got three long months ahead and nothing but freezing forecasts and deceptive wind chills. I get blue. Really blue. Like a lot of us do: Seasonal Affective Disorder is in the DSM and while I may suffer from a touch of it, I think most of […]
There’s nothing like a good, cathartic cry. You know, those let-it-all-out sob-fests that leave you feeling so much better once you’ve purged yourself of pent-up emotions. I used to have such soothing feelings of calm after one of these, as I wiped away those purposeful tears, like I’d just cleaned […]
People in recovery often refer to Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s as the Bermuda Triangle and with good reason — it’s a back-to-back trio of holidays that’s filled with triggers, from family issues and finances to travel stress and social anxiety. Not to mention the fact that alcohol […]
The first time someone said I was acting like a dry drunk, I almost fell out of my chair. “How dare they, my recovery is perfect!” I thought. But then I realized that they weren’t insulting me — they were simply calling my attention to the fact that I was relying on old coping mechanisms and behaviors.