Addiction | Substance Use Disorders | Treatment
Chronic Pain and Opioid Addiction
Many people can’t understand how someone becomes physically dependent or develops an addiction to an opioid pain medication, such as Vicodin, Dilaudid, OxyContin, Duragesic and Norco, prescribed by their doctor. Understanding the following key concepts can help: The brain controls everything we think, feel, say and do through neural networks and brain maps. Pain is in the…
Read MoreTalking to Children About a Parent’s Recovery
Talking to children about a parent’s recovery – yes? no? sort of? But how? Your spouse is about two-thirds the way through a 28-day rehab. You see great progress, but s/he still doesn’t want to tell the children. S/he says your younger ones are too young to understand and the older ones are so engrossed in their own…
Read MoreHow to Spot Manipulation – Darlene Lancer
How to spot manipulation can be a key to one’s recovery from the affects of growing up or living with untreated alcoholism or addiction. Author of Codependency for Dummies and Conquering Shame and Codependency: 8 Steps to Freeing the True You, Darlene Lancer explains how to spot manipulation in today’s guest post…always a pleasure to share Darlene’s work! How to Spot…
Read MoreSharing Secrets – Shattering the Shame
There’s a saying in the rooms of 12 step programs, “We’re only as sick as our secrets.” And it’s true. I experienced it myself, which drove my 40+ years of coping with secondhand drinking and my own experiences with anorexia and bulimia, and so have the thousands of people with whom I’ve worked or been in contact over…
Read MoreSlogans to Help with Long Term Recovery
Slogans helping with long term recovery? In my case, it’s a resounding, “YES!” So you can imagine the smile that spread across my face this morning when today – of all days – I randomly opened one of my daily Al-Anon “readers,” titled: Hope for Today, and landed on May 5. Why the smile? Today is the sixth anniversary of this…
Read MoreStress and Addiction | Stress and Secondhand Drinking
Readers who follow this blog know how much I write about stress, stress and addiction | stress and secondhand drinking. It’s because of the way stress works in the brain, and it’s that which sets up the brain to adopt unhealthy coping patterns, such as substance misuse, which in turn can cause secondhand drinking, and for…
Read MoreAddicts Are People – 7 Stigmas That Must Be Silenced
I am excited to share today’s guest post by Angela Lambert on a topic that is near and dear to my heart and the hearts of my readers, namely the fact that addicts are people – people – people who have a disease. They are not their disease, just as someone with cancer is not…
Read MoreHow Painkillers are Fueling Drug Addiction Among Teens
The following guest post on why and how painkillers are fueling drug addiction among teens is provided by Gordon Dickler. Gordon Dickler is the Admissions Coordinator for Turning Point, a residential drug treatment program for men that “utilizes phased integration to fuse primary treatments and independent living.” Gordon has helped hundreds of families navigate the difficult…
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