When You Feel No One Understands
For all the progress against prejudice, most of the world still tends to pass quick judgment on whatever—or whoever—makes it uncomfortable. If you’re in addiction recovery, and especially if you also have the clinical depression that often goes with addiction disorders, you’ve probably heard “You could stop if you really wanted to,” “Why don’t you…
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Top 10 Tips for Making Real Friends
A strong support network is among your best defenses against addiction relapse. And especially if you’re short on supportive family or your relationships there are affected by lingering hard feelings, good friends outside your household are important contributors to that network. But if you’ve been hanging out primarily with “drinking buddies,” you may have some…
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One Secret of Sobriety: Don’t Take Yourself Too Seriously
Perfectionism is the bane of good health. It puts stress on body and mind, minimizes the importance of self-care, and has been known to drive people to suicide. It reduces overall effectiveness through anxious mental distractions and fear of challenge. It poisons relationships by generating tension and arguments. It’s also a contributor to behavioral illnesses…
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7 Lifehacks for Reducing Self-Pity
Self-pity makes you your own worst enemy. It turns your focus inward in all the unhealthiest ways. It reinforces the idea that life is perpetually unfair and everything is hopeless. It makes you see yourself as a powerless victim, and it provides easy rationalization for living with an instant-gratification mentality—telling you that you owe the…
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4 Tips for Combating Loneliness in Your Recovery
Loneliness may now be a bigger public health threat than obesity, according to a 2017 report by the American Psychological Association. And for people in recovery, loneliness accompanied by a tendency to self-isolate can trigger relapse. Yet the reality is that all of us feel lonely at one point or another. Loneliness is part of…
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How to Motivate Yourself to Take Care of Your Health in Early Recovery
Taking good care of your health, by exercising, eating well, getting enough sleep and practicing other self-care measures, can help you feel good. It’s also one of the best things you can do for your recovery. But for people in early recovery, low motivation to get into better shape is not uncommon—for various reasons: You…
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5 Psychological Steps Towards Overcoming Chronic Pain
March may be the healthiest month on the calendar—or at least the most obsessed with health observances. From Brain Awareness Week and Patient Safety Awareness Week, to National Kidney Month and my personal favorite, Nutrition Month, early spring is a good time to get your fill of health and wellness. On that note, I want…
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Healthy Communication for Couples – 5 Tips for Strengthening Emotional Connection
Research shows that relationships of love and connection are key to recovery from drugs and alcohol —hence Beach House’s philosophy that “the opposite of addiction is not sobriety” but “love and connection.” But it’s also the case that healthy communication is critical to the cultivation of emotional connection and intimacy with a significant other. If…
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Are You Saying “Yes” Too Often?
Fear of saying “no” is behind many a case of addiction enablement—and many a case of addiction. If your first reaction to most requests is, “I don’t want to, but if I don’t do it they’ll get mad,” you probably see others’ approval as the primary source of your self-worth and success. And no matter…
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Do Comfort Foods Increase Your Risk of Relapse? The Dangers of Quick-Relief Seeking and Substitute Addictions
If you’ve ever been prescribed a substitute opiate to treat heroin addiction, you were probably warned that the treatment would generate its own form of dependence and must be taken strictly according to directions. All habits, good and bad, are “addictive” in the sense that we get sufficiently used to them to feel their absence:…
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5 Tips for Rebuilding Your Life When You Have a Drug Conviction on Your Record
Even with addiction detox successfully completed, convincing people to trust you again is no overnight task. It’s worst if you have to make a fresh start after being convicted of possession or DUI: employers, landlords and lenders harbor an inherent nervousness about investing in anyone with an unsavory past. Many experts believe that high “relapse”…
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Sober Dating – and When to Share That You’re in Recovery
With Valentine’s Day around the corner, the month of February seems a fitting time to talk about the challenges of dating after sobriety—starting with this perennial question: when do you share in a new dating relationship that you’re in recovery? It’s a question that many in recovery ask, and while there is no magic bullet…
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10 Tips for Loving Yourself Better
In case you haven’t been in a store lately, Valentine’s Day decorations went up in mid-January: this is the season for expressing love. While you seek the perfect gift for your partner or your mother, give some thought to loving yourself—a skill many addiction experts see as essential to recovery. Here’s our Top Ten list…
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10 Reasons Not to Date During Your First Year of Sobriety
If you’re single and new to recovery, you may be wondering when you can start dating again. The reigning answer in recovery circles is to wait for at least one year after treatment. Once you have a full year of sobriety under your belt, you may be ready for a romantic relationship. Or so goes…
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