Addiction | Substance Use Disorders | Treatment
About Those Character Defects – 12 Step Addiction Recovery
About those character defects — you know — the ones you identified in your “searching and fearless moral inventory” when you worked Step 4 of a 12 step recovery program, like AA or NA. Those same character defects you were “entirely ready to have God remove” when you did your Step 6. I’d like to…
Read More5 Tips to Change a Drinking Pattern and Make This New Year’s Resolution Stick
It’s that time of year when many of us make New Year’s Resolutions. For some it’s about adding more exercise. For some, it’s about eating more nutrient rich foods. And for others, it’s about their drinking. Should they stop all together? Can they just cut down? What can they do to successfully change how much…
Read MoreThe Words We Use Matter – Substance Use Disorder | Mental Health Disorder | Recovery
We all can agree that the words we use matter – regardless the subject – they matter. But as a person who has been working for over 15 years to use current scientific research to shatter the stigma, misinformation and shame that surrounds substance use disorders and mental health disorders (until recently, more commonly known…
Read MoreHow to Best Manage Stress in Addiction Recovery
Managing stress in addiction recovery can be one of the keys to relapse prevention. That feeling of “stress” is triggered by the fight-or-flight stress response kicking into gear without thought when triggered by emotions, sounds, sights, touches, smells, and the like. Often stress and substance use disorders go hand-in-hand because the chemicals in the alcohol…
Read More3 Things You Don’t Know About Dreaming in Recovery
3 things you likely don’t know about dreaming in recovery as a blog post titled grabbed my attention. As someone who has studied the importance of sleep for brain health and wellness, as well as its role as one of the key brain healers people seeking recovery can do, I was happy to share this…
Read MoreStopping a Global Opioid Crisis – What Will It Take ?
Stopping a global opioid crisis was the topic of the World Affairs Council’s November 27, 2018, program. Having recently spoken at Ft. Irwin, the Army’s National Training Center, located in Ft. Irwin, CA, on the opioid epidemic in the U.S., my interest was piqued. I’d titled my Ft. Irwin program, “The Unintended Addict: Key Information to Fight…
Read MoreTreating Addiction? Why a Comprehensive Approach is Essential
When it comes to treating addiction, a comprehensive approach is essential. Addiction is a chronic, often relapsing brain disease. So many factors contribute to how a person develops addiction and how addiction changes that person’s overall brain health and functioning. Therefore, there is no easy fix, nor a one-size-fits-all approach that works. BUT, addiction is…
Read MoreAre Your Parents Toxic?
Toxic parents? Being raised by toxic parents can radically change a child’s brain wiring and mapping. Brain wiring and mapping is basically the process by which the brain “connects” its roughly 100 billion brain cells (neurons) from birth through early 20s. This process determines everything that child/adolescent/young adult/adult thinks, feels, says, and does, and it…
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