What is Your Legacy?

We talk a lot about motivation and what makes us grasp for sobriety in the face of the overwhelming challenge of drug or alcohol addiction.  While there are many things that can motivate us toward recovery, it’s important to ask yourself an important question, one which many consider to be the cornerstone of their recovery effort:   What am I leaving behind?

You need more sunshine!

We’re creatures of the light.  Our ancestors didn’t evolve us to hibernate during the day and hunt for food at night.  We are a creature that needs plenty of sunlight and warmth to thrive.  For this and many other reasons, patients battling the depressing side effects of addiction can often benefit from a move to warmer, sunnier climates.

What’s Your Anti-Drug?

We’re all familiar with those super-corny Public Service Announcements of the 1990s and early 2000s that hold thing up as “my anti-drug.”  They were corny, as all government PSAs tend to be, but the essential point was that in order to avoid falling into an addictive relationship with substance abuse, it’s important to have a passion and focus in your life that is more important to you than the addictive substance.

What About the Bad Days?

It’s all well and good to talk about the successful recoveries and the improved health. We love the inspiration and motivation those stories can give us and when we taste a bit of freedom and sobriety for ourselves, it can be incredibly rewarding. But... what about the bad days?

Life After Alcohol

For a person who falls heavily in to an abusive, dependent relationship with drugs or alcohol, the prospect of sobriety is about more than not using. It’s a complete and total life overhaul that few people are fully ready for when it comes time to face the music. In fact, one of the biggest sources of resistance is facing the idea that you’ll have to become a completely different person when you give up the crutch. 

5 Things You Tell Yourself before Relapse

While everyone faces his/her own unique recovery with all its own challenges and hurdles, the commonality amongst all relapse is that you have to talk yourself into it. Here are a few common things you might end up saying to yourself just to alleviate the guilt of reaching across the line for a fix or a drink.

“Those Were the Good Ole Days”

10 Ways to Stay Positive Everyday

You’ve heard it before but it should be said again - addiction recovery is not easy. Each day is a challenge to keep your head in the right place. But if you’re struggling to stay positive, these 10 tips can help you find your way back.

#1. Love yourself and accept you for you

Practice daily affirmations. List all the things you love about yourself. Whatever it takes to remind yourself of all the things that make you, you. Embrace yourself for who you are.

Let the Rage Out

We talk a lot in the addiction recovery community about finding your place of peace and working toward self-control. The prescription for seeking balance and harmony in your life is often a suggested regiment of calming practices like meditation and yoga. While these neo-hippie forms of peaceful calming can certainly have beneficial effects on the mind, body, and soul—especially in regards to cravings—some of us (the warriors) need a little more adrenaline to get through the pains of recovery.

Reset Your Body with a Juice Fast

Addiction takes a massive toll on the body in a number of ways, often depleting necessary vitamins and electrolytes as well as deteriorating muscle tissue and straining the body’s immune system. 

Unfortunately the days and weeks after detox are when you need that extra health boost to stay on top of your game and fight the oncoming relapse. 

A Healthy Home Counters Addiction Genetics

There is substantial evidence that the predisposition for addiction can be found in our genes, putting some at a higher risk of developing an addiction than others. While this means that the children of addicts will be more likely overall to end up addicted to something, it’s not a pre-destination that overrules our own life choices and the environment that shapes us.