Steps 8, 9, & 10. I believe it is smart to continue living out these steps in my day-to-day life. Not only to maintain my sobriety, but my maintain my integrity that reflects my values as a person and the strength of my interpersonal relationships. If you need a refresher, here are steps 8-10: 8.Made…
Author: Brittany
I Want To Be Supportive Of Others, Without Getting Distracted
I won’t force you to listen to my personal top 50 song list of 2016, the things that I am most grateful for, or my complete goal list for 2017. I just want to share one of my personal goals that I am carrying over into 2017. It is to stop allowing the comparison game to…
I Don’t Miss Faking My Way Through The Holiday Season
You know what I don’t miss around the holiday season? Faking my way through gatherings in an attempt to live up to the expectations of others, and to look and sound as sober and happy as everyone else seemed to be. I would make an exhaustive effort to fit by faking my way through what…
Coffee at Midnight, Please Send Help
On my way to the coffee pot at midnight. Rest assured, this particular walk of shame was exactly as it should be. I made sure to mutter that sweet, negative self-talk to myself as I tip-toed down the hallway so not to wake the small, sugar-filled humans. There is no way I could let myself…
Creating Tradition Doesn’t Have To Be Complicated
A few weeks ago during a small-ish ladies event, for our conversation starter activity we were asked to finish this sentence: (Out-loud. One by one.) “It just wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without…” Since I shelved the art of lying to try to sound as ‘normal’ as possible, years ago, for my response I chose to…
Tips For The Holidays
I was asked to be a part of an expert panel for a Facebook live event put on by the ever wonderful, Beach House Center for Recovery. I definitely had to dig my heels into this commitment, but I refused to let myself back out. I am proud of myself for following through on my word….
No Thank-You, Anxiety
Ten years ago I think if you would have asked me, I would have told you that I believed that I was an outgoing, people-oriented person. Never-mind the fact that it only took three or four various types of Benzo’s carefully carelessly mixed with any amount of cheap alcohol to render my central nervous system…
Here’s To 10 Years of Digging Out
This is the month that I acknowledge that I have made it to my ten-year mark. Ten short years in recovery. No more squirming around searching for a place to land. It’s completely fulfilling here and I am still just as grateful as ever to live in this head space. It has been a long…
Surrounded By Truth
In group settings (group meetings, Bible studies, etc.) I am usually pretty quiet. I observe, listen, and take it all in and am usually pretty reluctant to speak for one reason or thousands of introvertish anxiety ridden reasons another. But when something new clicks my child-like excitement won’t allow me to sit still. If it…
Should Drug-Dealers Be Held Accountable For Overdose Deaths?
I have been hearing more and more stories of drug-traffickers, pushers, and dealers being held criminally responsible for overdose deaths. I am also a regular viewer of the show: “The First 48” and have been for almost 15 seasons now. So basically I am an expert in criminal law and homicide investigation. 😉 In cases…
New Normals
In early recovery, my secondary focus was finding peace. It could have tied for first place if staying sober was even the tiniest bit negotiable as a required prerequisite before anything else could happen, but that’s not how this recovery thing works. Finding peace had been a priority on my to-do list my entire life….
Guest: Sonia Tagliareni-DrugRehab.com Writer & Researcher
Recovery is a lifelong process that extends far beyond substance abuse treatment. Maintaining abstinence is paramount if an individual wants to lead a drug and alcohol free life. Substance abuse treatment is difficult on patients but maintaining recovery after treatment is equally challenging. The people in recovery need to stay away from environmental triggers and…
3 Things I Have Learned About Breaking Cycles of Dysfunction
Most of what was supposed to have been my childhood was actually just me, walking around pissed, in disbelief that my life was actually my life. The rest I was just hyper-focused and centered on pre-planning my actions & reactions, and surviving day-to-day on an emotional and psychological level. I had no idea that I was…
How To Get Through Halloween Sober.
Before I became addicted to Benzodiazepines and tirelessly & unsuccessfully escaping my life, I was a self-categorized professional ‘party girl’. Ahhh. The life of ridiculous, careless, over-indulgence. What a glamorous thing. Long before my physiological-self needed its next high to start any given day, my false-self (ego) needed to remain active at all times, as…
Don’t Give Up
Music speaks to me in a unique way and I loved this song the very first time I heard it on the radio a few weeks ago. Today is first time I have had a chance to watch the ‘official’ video for this song. I sat this morning with tears streaming down my face as…
When You Finally See That Everything Is Not Fine
Generational addiction is complex and ugly. While it isn’t a hopeless thing to come back from, it is impossible to mend relationships if no one is willing to take a look at the truth, especially if you are talking about unraveling years and years of effects of trauma, abuse, codependency, enabling, addiction, and mismanaged mental-illness….
Dear Younger, More Naive, Critical, Me
In case you need a reminder today: It’s going to be okay. You are not a failure. Lapse, relapse, messed up, slipped up, fucked up, wrong choice? It doesn’t mean that you don’t deserve sobriety. It doesn’t mean that you will always just mess up. It also doesn’t mean that you have failed and you should…
3 Powerful Things I Have Learned In Recovery
Funny, amazing, beautiful, painful, crazy awesome things happen when you allow God to disassemble your entire life and the person who you thought you were, and allow transformation to happen. I am not sure if I have gone through so many internal overhaul’s because I got sober at a young age, or because until that point I had never…
I Am The Child Of An Addict & I Am A Former Stigma Supporter
If anyone understands what the ramifications of guilt and shame associated with the relentless, ignorant, shaming of another human being feels like, it would be me. Guilty. I was twenty-five before I realized that maybe, maybe my mom wasn’t actually just a batshit crazy woman, doomed to forever be an infuriating, selfish person. Seriously. I…
Guest: Trey Dyer-Drugrehab.com Author
Where Do Teens Find Drugs? Check Your Medicine Cabinet Teens can encounter drugs in a number of ways. At school, with friends, from drug dealers — these are all possible avenues for teens to find drugs. However, most teens do not have to leave their home to find drugs these days. A trip to the…
Doubting God & Making My Faith My Own
Yesterday I was digging around looking for an application for certification that I had misplaced. (Because there is nothing that makes more sense than being a housemommywife with credentials that I won’t actually be using.) I found the application, along with (a quarter, yes.This is a small portion) of my hand-written notes from back in…
Guest: Marc- Afflictions Eclipsed by Glory
It is my belief that everything happens for a reason. A belief I was intrinsically born with I believe yet brought to fruition by my faith in a power that is greater than myself. My belief in all-powerful, all knowing, and all loving power that I myself, choose to call God! My creator, my healer, my wonderful…
4 Ways To Avoid Your Baggage, That Won’t Help You
Baggage. We all have it. How full it is, what it contains, and how willing you are to unpack it depends on who you are. And I learned the hard way, as I do most of my life things, that unpacking the bag is more wise than some of the alternatives…. Growing up, I hid…
The Experience of Love
Most of us were taught that God would love us if and when we change. In fact, God loves you so that you can change. What empowers change, what makes you desirous of change is the experience of love. It is that inherent experience of love that becomes the engine of change. ― Richard…
What’s It Like To Be Sober?
September means that National Recovery Month has come around again. Maybe for you that means that the extra circulation and publicity and open sharing will get your mind reeling. You have heard all of these things before and while many of them sound appealing to you, you are afraid. Because moving can feel risky. It can…
Guest: Simone- I Knew I Would Never Drink
Before I was even old enough to drink, I knew I probably never would. I remember the exact moment I made that decision; more accurately, I remember the exact moment that decision was made for me. I was 15 years old, it was a Sunday morning, and I was cleaning vomit out of the carpet…
Here’s What I Thought I Needed To Be Accepted
From my kitchen I could hear the television in our living room. I caught the end of an interview of a young woman. I listened as she tried to explain why she had been bleaching and lightening her skin. She described what it felt like to experience feelings of inadequacy and when she began to view…
5 Things I Learned From My First Blog Baby
I launched my first blog, Forgiving Bizarre, back in 2011. This was my first header photo. Okay, not completely mine because it was composed of several bad ass photos that I stole from Google images, but mostly mine. And because the name alone wasn’t enough to let my readers (*cough, no one) know that I…
I Could Have Died In My Safe Places.
Since sobering up I have traded my daily quest for temporary freedom for something with more meat on it; something deeper. Something less transparent and more enduring. When I was at my darkest I sought out freedom on a daily basis. It was a frail, wimpy, expensive, kind of freedom. But cheap was fast, easy,…
Have Your Time.
I turned 33 today. 33 non-recovery, biological years old. That means have been in recovery since I was 23 + a fistful of months. People often make comments about how cool it is that I got sober at such a young age. And I have to humbly agree. It is pretty cool. Experiencing spiritual death…