If you've ever been a person who can't imagine life without alcohol, you're my kind of people. Whether you're an alcoholic or not, there are many of us whose social world revolves on the glass-in-hand kind of gatherings. For those of us who DO have an unhealthy dependency upon alcohol, this often stops us from recovery as we dread the life without booze. These days I'm six and a half years from the night I took my last drinks (which I can't remember due to a booze-induced blackout) and I've ...
Alcoholism
Tips for Success in Early Sobriety
I am an alcoholic who has been blessed to be in recovery for over 6 years and life is wonderful...not always easy but so much better than when I was drinking. In my early days of sobriety everything felt difficult...even just waking up, knowing that I was "different" and not knowing how I'd cope was often overwhelming. When someone decides to face their dependency on alcohol it's often a devastating time...where the person is like a fish out of water. The world seems far too big and ...
5 Tips for Coping with Overwhelming Emotions
I've just returned from a holiday with my 2 daughters in Mexico which was glorious...but as you know when you've been away things pile up. I've been home for 2 days and have been running around trying to catch up again. It's bloody exhausting and my emotions have been running wild! I know...of all the things I could have to complain about, this is pretty light. I recognize that and I'm not actually complaining, just attempting to lay out the fact that I've been a bit harried over the past few ...
Is Addiction a Choice and Does It Matter?
Addiction isn't something anyone would choose to have in their lives. Whether you're the person who has the addiction or a friend or family member, there's no way you consciously decided to go down the dark road where it leads. So many of us roll along in our lives, blessed to miss the stamp of despair that addiction marks upon people utterly oblivious to daily angst some people face. That's a beautiful thing! If I had a wish it would be to strike addictions from the world so that nobody has ...
Conversations About Addiction Will Break the Stigma
As someone who has been in recovery from alcoholism for 6 years now, I've had countless conversations about addiction and am often pausing to absorb another person's insight. In my first year of recovery from addiction I was taught to slow down my thoughts and realize that my own perspective isn't actually fact. Further to that, in the first year of sobriety I was actually like a toddler learning to walk again; my world had changed so drastically that I really didn't know my own self. My ...