Sometimes we in the field of addiction treatment speak a language that’s not understood by most people – we need common sense addiction talk. There’s been a tendency to soften the language, but much of these efforts muddy the issue rather than help. To…
“I can’t afford addiction treatment.” Most often, when someone doesn’t have insurance they think treatment’s too expensive, so usually they don’t check into possibilities. Not all facilities will work out payment plans, but there are some, like NewDay, that will. For some reason, many…
There’s so much negative news about active addiction and its consequences it helps to balance that out with stories of recovery. Most people don’t hear about addicts in recovery because it’s not news worthy. I’m always careful when talking about addiction recovery — I…
Thanksgiving always reminds us of gratitude. Gratitude in addiction recovery is a topic we talk about on an ongoing basis as one of the main principles of recovery. The idea behind the principle of gratitude is that recognizing the things for which we should be grateful…
In treatment, truth is vital. The addict has been living in a world of magical thinking, denial, rationalizations, lies, and deceit of all sorts, so in recovery we have to search for what’s real — no worse than what it is and no better…
One question I often get is how does a person know if they’re addicted, especially in the early stages of addiction. In the beginning, the symptoms of addiction are behavioral and psychological more than physical. When a person begins to drink or do drugs…
Dr. Paul Hokemeyer, JD, PHD, at Drugabuse.com, lists 9 reasons for people with alcohol and other drug problems resisting addiction treatment. His first reason cited is the idea that people in recovery are losers. Of course, Dr. Hokemeyer doesn’t accept this. According to Dr. Hokemeyer the reality is:…
Here is an excerpt from PsychCentral: Accepting reality enables us to live in reality. What does this mean? When life pleases us and flows in accordance with our needs and desires, we don’t think about acceptance. But when our will is frustrated or we’re…
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