Category: Micah Robbins

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,

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

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.

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 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

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

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

It’s a cute acronym, but a problem no one enjoys having: Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD. About 20% of the U.S. population is prone to some level of “winter blues,”

For all the progress made against bigotry, many prejudices are hard to root out. Among those who still feel they suffer constantly from stigma are people with mental illness. Whenever

It’s estimated that 40% of Americans make New Year’s resolutions each year—and just 8% of them keep those resolutions. If you’re newly sober in December–January (or at any other time

If “celebrate my first year of sobriety” is one of your New Year’s resolutions, you may be looking uneasily toward the actual turn of the year. Will your family understand

When Alcoholics Anonymous was founded in 1935, the question “What’s your religion?” meant, “Are you Catholic or Protestant?” The only other alternative was Jewish—Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists lived somewhere in

When someone develops a substance addiction, well-meaning family members often become “enablers”—out of denial, pride or fear, they begin “helping” in ways that make it easier for the addiction to

The word “stress” carries so many negative connotations, many people are unaware that medical science recognizes negative and positive forms of stress. We’ve all heard of “distress,” mostly in the

If you try to live by proverbs, you soon learn that life is full of paradoxes. Many hands make light work, but too many cooks spoil the broth. Out of

When you’ve finally gotten comfortable with the “new normal” of consistent sober living, that’s among the worst times to be hit with a major shock. Nonetheless, no one is guaranteed

If you lived through any of the major hurricanes of August–September 2017, you probably had thoughts like “I never knew what stress was before this!” Sometimes, the stress is worst

The world is full of people who sabotage their own happiness by complaining when little things go wrong and taking for granted all the little things that go right. It’s

Trivia snippet: Nearly a decade before Richard Carlson made “Don’t sweat the small stuff” a household phrase, Michael R. Mantell published the first self-help book with that title. Carlson didn’t

It’s September, and education is on everyone’s mind. Just because you’re no longer in school doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take every opportunity to increase your knowledge—especially about topics related to

It’s September, and education is on everyone’s mind. Just because you’re no longer in school doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take every opportunity to increase your knowledge—especially about topics related to

It’s September, and education is on everyone’s mind. Just because you’re no longer in school doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take every opportunity to increase your knowledge—especially about topics related to

It’s September, and education is on everyone’s mind. Just because you’re no longer in school doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take every opportunity to increase your knowledge—especially about topics related to

Addiction is commonly compared to slavery. Look at the portrait of a human-trafficking victim and you see many parallels to the life of an addict: Constantly anxious or depressed In

People with substance use disorders are six times more likely than nonusers to commit suicide—and one in three suicides involve someone who was “high.” With or without addiction connections, the