The upcoming “Holiday Season” presents a volatile situation for the addict in recovery.  Many times the combination is deadly to the recovery process and many relapses occur during this time of year.  Over the next few weeks we will focus heavily on relapse prevention.  The reasons are many that the holidays are dangerous for a recovering addict.  Today I will state a few of the reasons that recovering addicts dread the holidays. Continue Reading »

How does the way you think affects your recovery?  How does it relate to relapse prevention?  What do you think about the most?  How do you control your thoughts?  How do you begin to change what your mind thinks about?  I know that these and many other questions are going through your mind as you read the title of this post.  Changing the way you think and what you think about is one of the most important things you can do in your relapse prevention plan. Continue Reading »

What is enabling and how is it harmful to the addict?  Am I an enabler?  Is enabling a codependent behavior?  Sometimes well meaning family members actually are harmful to an addict.  Their actions can actually contribute further to the addiction.  Rather than helping as they intend they are actually hurting and do not even realize it.  Enabling the addict takes on many forms and can, itself, become an addiction to the one who is enabling. Continue Reading »

As addicts we want to blame others for our addiction.  This is another in the list of defense mechanisms.  It is much easier if we can blame someone else for the mess we are in than to blame our self.  If we have to look at our own faults then we must admit that it is our problem and that we alone created this mess.  No one wants to take responsibility for their own actions.  By blaming some one else we can take the focus off of us.  We can gain sympathy Continue Reading »

Mental Health Humor

Codependency   A view that those that live with an addict also suffer some of the symptoms associated with addiction. This can be self esteem, self independence, and image issues.

For a list of symptoms see Continue Reading »