Does a Loved One Have to Hit Bottom?

Does a person have to hit bottom to get help?

Does a loved one have to “hit bottom” before they can successfully treat their alcoholism or other drug addiction? The short answer, “NO!” But before I continue, please know language to describe alcoholism or drug addiction has changed greatly in recent years, falling under the umbrella term, “substance use disorder.” Alcohol abuse and alcoholism are…

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BreakingTheCycles.com 10 Year Anniversary | Sharing Favorite Posts

BreakingTheCycles.com 10 year anniversary — its hard for me to believe it’s already been 10 years! I started BreakingTheCycles.com in 2008 to provide education, prevention and intervention information and services rooted in 21st Century brain science for a range of addiction-related concerns, including: substance abuse, mental illness, addiction* as a brain disease, secondhand drinking, toxic stress,…

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Tough Love – Harmful or Helpful?

For some family members, it's difficult to forgive and forget a loved one - even after years of sobriety.

Tough love – does it hurt or help a person with an addiction to alcohol or other drugs, aka substance use disorder (SUD), get the help they need? I regularly get some form of this question – generally because there’s so much confusion about what it means. Unfortunately, there is no single definition of tough…

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Stop Blaming, Start Living

The following is a guest post by Carolyn Hughes, a freelance writer with special interest in alcohol issues. Carolyn is currently writing The Hurt Healer, a novel based on her own experiences of abuse and alcoholism, and lives in Northern Ireland with her husband and their two daughters. She celebrates 13 years sobriety and says, “My…

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The Need for Addiction Treatment Outcomes Measurements

Addiction Treatment Outcomes Measurements – one of the most difficult aspects about trying to find a treatment center and/or program that is “right” for you and/or your loved one is the frustration over the inability to actually “measure” how one program works vs. another. Why is this critical? Because the typical treatment model does not…

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